Bauhaus: An Architectural Footprint

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 00:52

From the editor

The Bauhaus school is in many ways a paradoxical phenomenon. This is one of the most influential educational institutions in history - while it existed for only 14 years, from April 1919 to July 1933, but its ideas were spread by professors and graduates who then scattered around the world. The school was closed under pressure from the Nazis, but nevertheless, albeit formally, but on their own terms, as far as possible in that situation (this story, where the last director, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, played the main role, deserves a separate discussion).

The dream of the founders of the Bauhaus was to make high-quality modern design mass, but most of the objects created there did not become mass (perhaps, except for wallpaper).

If we compare the names of its directors (Walter Gropius, Hannes Mayer, Mies) and teachers (Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer and other major figures of the international avant-garde) with a much more modest list of alumni, then it is impossible not to ask the question: Was the Bauhaus so successful precisely as an educational institution?

The history of the Bauhaus, it would seem, has been thoroughly studied, but there are still many blank spots and controversial points, for example, with the authorship of certain works, especially in relation to women teachers and students.

In this series of paradoxes, the architectural trace of the school takes its place: with the exception of its famous building in Dessau, it is quite random and includes such items as the houses of the Bauhaus professors recreated in this city today, in fact - art dummies. But this trail, like any historical evidence that is a hundred years old, that of recent years, can tell a lot to an attentive observer. About this - a photo essay by Denis Esakov.

Denis Esakov:

“In October 2016, I photographed the“open-air Bauhaus museum”- the buildings in Tel Aviv of architects who fled from the war flaring up in Europe. Some of them graduated from the Bauhaus, but not all considered themselves to be the successors of this school. The use of the Bauhaus brand there is reminiscent of a similar appropriation of this name by the German construction supermarket. Nothing to do with a 1920s school from Weimar (and later Dessau), but selling building materials apparently helps.

In Tel Aviv, I rented an apartment near Trumpeldor Cemetery in a Bauhaus house. The owners, a French design couple, appreciated their modernist heritage. Many original details have been preserved: cabinets, door handles, air conditioning, etc. I want to highlight this moment both in Germany and in Tel Aviv: the awareness of the value in these buildings and careful work to preserve them. Perhaps cultural speculation plays an important role in this process."

State Bauhaus in Weimar. 1919-1925

School of Applied Arts. 1904-1911

The architect Henry van de Velde, director of the School of Applied Arts, also built its building. Walter Gropius inherited its construction and many ideas: it was here that the Bachaus opened in 1919, which also included the Higher Art School. Now the building houses the Bauhaus University.

Model house am Horn. 1923

Built for the first Bauhaus exhibition, designed by his teacher, artist Georg Muche, with the help of architects from the Walter Gropius bureau. The house was designed for three or four people, where the mother of the family, with the help of the latest technology and thoughtful organization of space, was largely freed from household chores. The main function of such a home is communication in a family and friendly circle. The building is a square with a side of 12.7 m, the central living space is 6 m.

House of Neufert. 1929

Ernst Neufert, the author of Construction Design, studied at the Bauhaus and worked at the Gropius office. The house was built by him in the village of Helmeroda from wood in accordance with the latest ideas about functionality. In plan it is a 10 mx 10 m square.

Bachaus Graduate School of Design in Dessau. 1925-1932

Bauhaus school building. 1925-1926

Architect - Walter Gropius, customer - Municipality of Dessau. Today it houses the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (including the museum collection and library) and the University of Anhalt, a former student residence used as an apartment hotel.

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  1/5 Bauhaus school building in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  2/5 The building of the Bauhaus school in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  3/5 The building of the Bauhaus school in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  4/5 Building of the Bauhaus school in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  5/5 Building of the Bauhaus school in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  1/4 Bauhaus school building in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  2/4 The building of the Bauhaus school in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  3/4 The building of the Bauhaus school in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  4/4 The building of the Bauhaus school in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  1/6 Bauhaus school building in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  2/6 Bauhaus school building in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  3/6 Bauhaus school building in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  4/6 Bauhaus school building in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  5/6 Bauhaus school building in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

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  6/6 Bauhaus school building in Dessau Photo © Denis Esakov

Teachers' houses. 1925-1926

In addition to the school building, the city authorities ordered Gropius to house the principal (that is, for himself) and three two-family houses for the professors. Due to the bombing of World War II and construction activity during the GDR period, the complex lost the director's house and one of the twin houses in which Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Lucia Mohoy lived, and in the second part - Lionel Feininger. In 2014, "copies" of the work of the Berlin bureau Bruno Fioretti Marquez were opened in their place. They are used for exhibitions, and there is also an installation by the artist Olaf Nicolai "The Color of Light", inspired by the ideas of Moholy-Nagy. The twin houses of Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer and Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee have survived.

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  1/4 House of Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer Photo © Denis Esakov

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  2/4 House of Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer Photo © Denis Esakov

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  3/4 House of Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer Photo © Denis Esakov

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  4/4 House of Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer Photo © Denis Esakov

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  1/3 House of Walter Gropius. Reconstruction. 2014 Photo © Denis Esakov

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  2/3 House of Walter Gropius. Reconstruction. 2014 Photo © Denis Esakov

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  3/3 House of Walter Gropius. Reconstruction. 2014 Photo © Denis Esakov

Residential area Terten. 1926-1928

The village of 314 semi-detached houses was built according to the project of Walter Gropius and the Faculty of Architecture of the Bauhaus by order of the authorities of Dessau. The key building there was the building of the housing cooperative: a five-story tower with administrative offices and three apartments on the upper floors, connected to a one-story store (now an information center has been opened in it).

Residential area Zibig / Knarrberg. 1926-1928

The author of the project is a former employee of Gropius, the Austrian architect Leopold Fischer, Leberecht Migge was engaged in landscape design, the author of landscaping projects for many villages of that era. He was a theorist of social, communal landscaping as opposed to spectacular public parks, advocated supplying each resident with his own piece of land for the organization of a vegetable garden; Migge also anticipated the principles of "sustainability."

Kornhouse restaurant. 1929-1930

Built by order of the city authorities and the Schultheiss-Patzenhofer brewery on the banks of the Elbe. The architect was Karl Figuer, a draftsman from the Gropius bureau. The building has retained its original function to this day.

Bauhaus in Berlin. 1932-1933

The school was forced to leave Dessau when the Nazis came to power in municipal elections there. In Berlin, it opened as a private educational institution in the building of a telephone factory on Birkbuchstrasse in the Steglitz district: it has not survived to this day.

Bauhaus Archive and Design Museum. 1976-1979

Walter Gropius conceived this building in 1964 for Darmstadt, but in the end it was realized after his death - in West Berlin, according to the project modified by Gropius's employee Alex Tsviyanovich and German architect Hans Bandel. After the unification of Germany, the number of visitors and interest in the modest size of the museum increased sharply, therefore, in connection with the anniversary, the building is now being restored and expanded.

a project by the Berlin bureau Staab Architekten. Volker Staab and his colleagues received the order as a result of a competition in 2015 (the first competition, 2005, was won by the SANAA workshop, but its project was canceled in 2009). The renovated complex should open in 2022.