Archinect - News

Director Alysa Nahmias on László Moholy-Nagy and The New Bauhaus

2020-02-13T13:43:00-05:00

On this episode of Archinect Sessions, we’re sharing a conversation I had with Alysa Nahmias, the director and producer of the documentary film “The New Bauhaus.” We recorded this conversation last month, poolside, a few hours before the film premiered to a packed house in the Annenberg Theater at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Panel discussion following the screening at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, photo by Paul Petrunia. From L-R: Alysa Nahmias (director/producer), Miranda Yousef (editor), Ashley Lukasik (co-producer), & Erin Wright (producer)

Alysa, a trained architect-turned-filmmaker, made her directorial debut in 2011 with Unfinished Spaces, a critically acclaimed documentary about the unfinished National Art School in Cuba.

Light-Space Modulator, László Moholy-Nagy, 1922–1930. Photographed at the Art Institute of Chicago. Image from The New Bauhaus courtesy of Opendox. Art courtesy of the Moholy-Nagy Foundation. Director: Alysa Nahmias. Photog...

Documentary on László Moholy-Nagy and the New Bauhaus movement in Chicago launches kickstarter

2018-11-02T17:46:00-04:00

Next year marks the centennial anniversary of the 1919 founding of Bauhaus in Weimar. The legendary school, started by Walter Gropius, combined fine arts, crafts, and design under one roof, eventually morphing into a global movement as many of its most important artists fled Nazi Germany to other parts of the world.

Many of the Bauhaus teachers ended up in the United States, such as László Moholy-Nagy who landed in Chicago in 1937 and opened up the New Bauhaus (later called the Institute of Design). A new documentary, with a recently launched kickstarter, seeks to tell the story of how Moholy-Nagy brought the movement to Chicago, founding America's most influential midcentury school of design.

László Moholy-Nagy, A 19, 1927. Oil on canvas, 80 x 96 cm. Courtesy Hattula Moholy-Nagy.

"We're excited to come together to tell a story of an artist who was ahead of his time and is increasingly relevant today," says the team of filmmakers behind the project. With a shared background in art, a...

Gropius, Breuer and Moholy-Nagy honored with English Heritage blue plaque at the Isokon Building

2018-07-09T16:04:00-04:00

A trio of Bauhaus visionaries were commemorated this morning with an English Heritage blue plaque, unveiled at the famed Isokon building where the honorees Walter Gropius, Marcel Breur and László Moholy-Nagy once lived and worked.

Celebrating the links between notable figures of the past with buildings of the present, the commemorative signs provide intriguing glimpses into the the built environment's past. From pioneering black figures who helped shape the city of London to Britain's prized literary figures, the plaques call attention to where these famous persons lived and worked, and where history was made.

The Isokon Building, which is itself, one of the finest achievements of modern design, presented a unique opportunity to honor part of that movement's legacy.

“To be able to recognize three prominent individuals of the Bauhaus – Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy – together on the same building where they lived and worked is an excellent opportunity to hon...