Bauhaus Lecture

Bauhaus Lecture

Today’s lecture by Chris was on Bauhaus. The Bauhaus was an art school set up by Walter Gropius in Germany in 1919. It wanted to collectively bring together all forms of arts and crafts which in previous years had been separated. The schools aims was to rebuild the future after the First World War, where the world had become ripped apart. Gropius believed for this to happen, all departments of arts should unite and that everyone should learn at least one craft. The Bauhaus combined elements of both fine arts and design education. In 1925, the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau, where Gropius designed a new building to house the school. In the lecture I found this building particularly interesting and so I decided to research it more. I think it is also a good representation of the Bauhaus movement.

The Bauhaus moved when further work in Weimar became impossible. Gropius was the lead designer of the building but he also worked alongside Carl Fieger, Ernst Neufert and others in his private architectural studio. The workshops in the school were combined within the building’s interior design. Each workshop is separated by a glass curtain wall which is suspended in front of a load-bearing framework which defines their exteriors. The constructive properties were clearly on display and Gropius did not want to show exact corners for the building and so designed for the glass surface to overlap on the edges which created the impression of lightness. However, Gropius did not want all parts of the building to appear the same and join and so separated them by their functions and designed them all differently. Moving on from past movements which focused on symmetry and decoration, he designed each wing asymmetrically and with no decoration. His design does not have once central viewpoint and he said that to appreciate the the design you must move around the whole building. He used innovative new materials such as the glass wall curtains, horizontal windows, and the conception of space which was manipulated through interplay between the inside and outside through the glass wall. It consisted of a three storey block for the workshops, a three storey block for vocational school with rows of windows so thatthe maximum amount of natural light can be let it, a five storey studio building with balconies which projected out, an office block with two storeys and block which housed a hall, stage and canteen which was one storey. There were also a number of private studios for students and teachers to work in. The building is very open spaced with windows throughout but were individual openings which added privacy to certain areas. With experimentation and new designs however, did come problems. An example is with the buildings large flat ceilings which were not a design seen before. The layers expanded where they did not meet due to his inclination to only one degree of slope and having the drain on the inside so the sun radiated directly onto the layers of tar.

The building is formed from an iron and concrete structure which enables unity throughout. It also meant that three different façades could be built with the use of delicate materials such as glass. The reinforced steel and rolled steel are prime examples of new industrial materials and their possibilities that amazed the world. The colours used for most of the building are monochromatic, using light tones such as greys and white. They create a pleasant contrast between dark colour of the window frames.

I think this building is a good representation of the Bauhaus movement with its focus on rationality and function, minimalistic forms, and the idea that mass-production was the future. Out of the Bauhaus school came many intelligent and creative students which developed new and innovative products of their own.

Below are some images of the building.

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The buildings blocks and windows

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Interior of the building

 

References

Bauhaus building in Dessau (1926) Available at: http://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Bauhaus_building_in_Dessau (Accessed: 13 November 2015).

The Bauhaus, 1919–1933 | thematic essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of art history | the metropolitan museum of art (no date) Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm (Accessed: 13 November 2015).