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German far-right politicians want to declare Bauhaus led modernism in the 'wrong direction'

2024-10-26T08:00:00-04:00

The German far-right AfD party has attacked the original Bauhaus as a pernicious example of design, saying it led the project of modernism in the "wrong direction." Their statement, which echoes the disdain put forth by Hitler and the Nazi party, comes from an official motion in front of the country’s parliament asking for an official reappraisal of its legacy in advance of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus Dessau in 2025/26.

They say: "The emphasis on sobriety and minimalism often led to impersonal architecture that is perceived as cold, unwelcoming and unattractive." (h/t ARTnews)

The episode brings to mind the outrage of the architecture community in response to then-President Donald Trump's planned executive order in favor of classical architecture, the tenor of which (e.g., that it restores America's grandeur) is akin to the views advanced by Viktor Orban and many other modern adherents to a more discreet form of fascism.

Bauhaus Museum Dessau opens in slick 'Black Box'

2019-09-12T19:13:00-04:00

The Bauhaus arrived in Dessau with a bang. The world’s most influential art school may have been born in Weimar, but it came of age when it moved in 1925 to what was then Germany’s “silicon valley.” A new Bauhaus museum in Dessau tells the story of how the socially-engaged school of architecture and design flourished briefly until growing pressure from the Nazis forced it to leave for Berlin.

Courtesy Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau / Foto: Thomas Meyer / OSTKREUZ, 2019

The design of the new Bauhaus Museum Dessau emerged from an international competition held in 2015 with the proposal "Black Box" by emerging Barcelona-based addenda architects (then González Hinz Zabala) winning the commission.

Courtesy Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau / Foto: Thomas Meyer / OSTKREUZ, 2019

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who opened the new $31 million museum at a ceremony in Dessau on Sunday, remarked: "We share the need to preserve the diverse legacy of Bauhaus and to communicate the pioneering ideas of the Bauhaus school."

Courtesy Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau / Foto: Hartmut Boesener, 2019.

In her latest video podcast, Merkel commemorated the school's centenary and emphasized the impact the Bauhaus had on the 20th century, saying: "Rethinking the world, re-molding the world we live in, absorbing impetus from all sorts of different artistic movements."

Courtesy Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau / Foto: Thomas Meyer / O...

Celebrated and Detested: 100 Years of Bauhaus

2019-01-21T16:20:00-05:00

“Every child,” lamented Tom Wolfe in From Bauhaus to Our House of 1981, “goes to school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse”. Had there ever been another place on earth, he also said of Bauhaus-influenced America, “where so many people of wealth and power paid for and put up with so much architecture they detested?”

Observer architecture critic, Rowan Moore, on the vast and enduring impact of the "short-lived but longlasting" Bauhaus movement—both the sympathetic and the averse.

The famed school celebrates the centenary of its original founding this year.

Modern dreams: spend a night at the Bauhaus

2018-07-05T15:44:00-04:00

A very special kind of Bauhaus experience awaits visitors here: overnight accommodation in the studio building. In the recreated studios, the atmosphere of the Bauhaus remains palpable today. Everything from the floor plan and the materials to replicas of the original furniture has been returned to its original state in meticulous detail.

As the Bauhaus approaches its centennial next year, what better way to emerge oneself in the essence of Modernism than enjoying an overnight stay in the school founder's most iconic creation, the Walter Gropius-designed Bauhaus building complex in Dessau, Germany.

The Bauhaus Dessau studio building is also know as "Prellerhaus". Photo: Yvonne Tenschert.

The studio building and its gorgeous balconies. Photo: Yvonne Tenschert.

The towering studio building, slightly set back from the school's main building and completed in 1926, is a stunning masterpiece of early modernist architecture, and its 28 rooms that once accommodated the likes of Marcel Breuer, Hannes Meyer, and Josef Albers, are available for reservations via the Bauhaus Dessau booking form.

Redesigned studio room at the Bauhaus Dessau. Photo: Yvonne Tenschert.

Personalized room "Alfred Arndt". Photo: Yvonne Tenschert.

Personalized room "Josef Albers". Photo: ...

"The Dessau Bauhaus" documentary now available on YouTube

2016-02-25T17:13:00-05:00

"Does the Bauhaus really offer total liberty, or is it a place of oppression where all intimacy in banished, and the group triumphs over the individual?" asks the narrator midway through the English version of the acclaimed documentary The Dessau Bauhaus. The 28-minute film about Walter Gropius' innovative designs, which was directed by Frédéric Compain, can now be streamed (mostly commercially free) on YouTube:

A renaissance for Bauhaus as Germany grapples with its past

2014-05-16T13:56:00-04:00

The most striking Bauhaus designs, such as Marcel Breuer's tubular steel chair or the Wagenfeld table lamp, have been endlessly copied and mass produced. But the architecture of the design school has left a more complicated legacy in Germany. [...] reopens two of the art school's most significant houses on Friday, almost 70 years after they were bombed, the move is sure to reignite the old debate about what to do with historic buildings damaged during the second world war.

Stay in a classic dorm at the Bauhaus, tuition-free

2013-10-11T15:47:00-04:00

Since October 2013, staying at one of the 1920s-style Bauhaus dorm rooms is even more of an experience: One room was accurately reconstructed with original objects and furniture. The rest of the rooms will be personalized to reflect a former habitant, beginning with Alfred Arndt, the couple Albers and Franz Ehrlich.