There are few artistic movements that have had a more lasting and widespread impact beyond the art world than the 20th-century design school of Bauhaus, founded in 1919. It’s almost hard to believe that this artistic movement and design style – still present in everything from Ikea furniture to cars to sunglasses – is turning 100 this year.
With that sort of staying power, museums are sure to celebrate this centenary and be rewarded with the visitors Bauhaus draws.
Marking 100 Years
A plethora of books and exhibits are capitalizing on Bauhaus’ legacy, as it celebrates a century of influence. From shows about female Bauhaus students to architecture, design and education in the Netherlands, Bauhaus and photography to numerous other exhibits around Germany and the world, museums are making the most of the school’s anniversary, to the benefit of those who love design and modernism.
Since opening its Bauhaus exhibit in February, Harvard Art Museums have seen a 30% increase in visitors according to Laura Muir, the museums’ Research Curator for Academic and Public Programs.
“We’re especially interested in how the Bauhaus transformed arts education,” explained Muir. Indeed, Bauhaus was not merely an artistic movement, but an active and functioning art, architecture and design school in Germany. Its founder, Walter Gropius, later became the chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard University.
The Bauhaus school’s pedagogy not only led to a new way of thinking about art, architecture and design, but it informed international styles that would blossom beyond the school itself, embodying German efficiency and Northern European simplicity in items we use every day and buildings in which we live and work.
Opening Museum Doors
The German city of Weimar has recognized its historical significance as the birthplace of Bauhaus with the opening of a new Bauhaus Museum this year, which cost €22.6 million ($25 million) and was designed by architect Heike Hanada. The new museum was designed with the city’s past “ambivalent relationship” to Bauhaus in mind, as well as the more presently relevant question posed by Gropius of “How do we want to live together?”.
The Haus am Horn – an original Bauhaus construction in Weimar – was also reopened on May 18th.
Another museum in Bauhaus’ second city of Dessau, Germany is set to open in September. It cost €28 million ($31 million), jointly funded by the federal and state governments. The Dessau museum was designed by Barcelona-based Addenda Architects with a look to the future, while paying homage to the design school’s influence.
“Our vision is related to the idea of a kind of architecture that arises from the friction between opposites: light and heavy, permanent and ephemeral, opaque and transparent, beautiful and ugly,” said Jose Zabala of Addenda Architects. The building will consist of a reinforced concrete structure encased in a glass wall. Zabala calls the new museum “a public projection of a present-future Bauhaus spirit.”
Continued schooling
This building is Addenda Architects’ first as an architecture firm, but in a form true to the teaching spirit of Bauhaus, they are publishing ten booklets, or Cahiers, to explain their design process.
“Each of the total 10 Cahiers analyzes and discusses architectural technical, environmental, artistic and conservation-related aspects as well as the sociocultural implications of the new building, the eventful history of the Bauhaus school, the museum’s future collection and its display, highlighting the spirit of the Bauhaus in the 21st century,” said Zabala.
Though the original ideas and true nature of the Bauhaus school may still be very much up for debate, this year’s many celebrations demonstrate that in our international psyche its legacy is as fundamental and simple as the movement’s style itself.
By highlighting the design school’s function of teaching and learning, institutions like Harvard and new designers like Addenda Architects might just propel Bauhaus’ importance into the next century.
