Archinect - News

New European Bauhaus Academy launches skills training network

2024-04-30T14:59:00-04:00

The New European Bauhaus Academy has launched a learning initiative called NEBA Alliance, a network of skills training hubs across the European Union meant to accelerate “up- and re-skilling” activities for workers in the AEC fields and adjacent professional industries. The news was shared via a press release earlier this month that included statements from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who announced the formation of the NEB Academy in November 2022.

Fourteen partners from industry and higher education have signed up to support the effort, which is meant to enable the 160,000 new jobs that are being added to the building sector as part of an inbound "Renovation Wave" in Europe.

"Setting up a central portal and database of certified training materials, courses, and modules, along with a selection of best practices in pedagogies, it will enable widespread scaling of training on bio-based materials in sustainable construction," the announcement states. "The curat...

A new "center for studies" at the Aspen Institute

2022-09-12T12:30:00-04:00

aiming for it to be an active community hub and an engine for new ideas about art and design and the many interests of Herbert Bayer. Not, then, just another white cube museum honoring another dead white man...a destination for local school groups as well as global scholars working in modern and contemporary art and design

Andrew Travers goes inside the 8,000-square-foot museum, designed by Jeffrey Berkus Architects and Rowland + Broughton, chats with the executive director about the guiding vision, and reviews its year-long opening exhibition, ‘Herbert Bayer: An Introduction.’

This Tel Aviv residential project blends two contemporary buildings with a historic villa

2022-07-26T17:41:00-04:00

Tel Aviv-based Bar Orian Architects has unveiled a new residential project that blends past and present by integrating two contemporary buildings with a historic, early 20th-century villa.

The development, titled Villa Rothschild, sits along Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard. The original structure known as the Beit Awad Villa was designed in 1926 by Russian architect Joseph Berlin. The Eclectic-era building is part of Tel Aviv’s “White City,” which comprises a collection of over 4,000 buildings designed in the Bauhaus style and is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Photo: Amit Geron

The two new building additions in Villa Rothschild each stand seven stories and feature penthouses, a fifth-floor villa, and two garden villas. The pre-existing Beit Awad Villa was marked for preservation under Tel Aviv’s preservation plan and zoning policies, so Bar Orian Architects were restricted from making any changes to the building apart from an addition to the basement floor. In order to...

Marcel Breuer's Grieco House hits the market for $1.5 million

2022-06-27T17:08:00-04:00

This weekend, a home designed by modernist architect Marcel Breuer will hit the market in Andover. Named for its original owners, “The Grieco House” offers three bedrooms and three bathrooms in 3,721 square feet on 1.07 acres. The Janovitz + Tse Team of ModernMass at Compass is handling the listing at 81 Sunset Rock Road, which will come with a $1,500,000 price tag.

Breuer supposedly took the commission after the Grieco family dismissed Frank Lloyd Wright from the project following a disagreement. Its binuclear plan incorporates some of the lessons Breuer learned in the Bauhaus studio of Paul Klee that relate to relaxation and the spatial distribution of light. It is one of Breuer’s last completed New England residential designs following his tenure on the faculty of the Harvard GSD, and comes with a fully renovated interior, refurbished original woodwork, and brutalist wine cellar, according to the website ModernMass.

News of the listing comes just months after the demolition of another early binuclear design – the erstwhile Geller House on Long Island – which preservationists saw as evidence of the difficulties in maintaining some of the traditionally overlooked examples of midcentury modernism in America.

“There aren’t very many tools to aid the preservation of these houses,” Docomomo US executive director Elizabeth Waytkus told the New York...

Ontario Place architect Eberhard Zeidler has passed away at 95

2022-01-10T16:35:00-05:00

Sad news to start the new year as the CBC has reported famed architect Eberhard Zeidler has died aged 95 at his home in Canada.

Zeidler was one of the last living links to the Bauhaus school and the man responsible for some of Canada’s most significant mixed-use urban developments including Ontario Place and the Eaton Centre in Toronto.

Born in Germany in 1926, Zeidler served in the Kriegsmarine under Hitler’s reign and later immigrated to Canada to work in the office of his professor Emanuel Lidner. Zeidler went on to join another firm in Peterborough called Blackwell, Ziedler and Strong that eventually became Zeidler Architecture. Zeidler had been serving in an emeritus role with the firm since announcing his official retirement in 2009.

Aside from his practice, Zeidler was an adjunct instructor at the University of Toronto from 1983 until 1995 in addition to his appointments to the Order of Canada and Order of Ontario, which were conferred in 1984. Zeidler was known to priorit...

Could Europe's ambitious climate-action plan spark a new common design aesthetic?

2020-10-05T13:30:00-04:00

[...] the European Union sees a chance to create a new common aesthetic born out of a need to renovate and construct more energy-efficient buildings. The proposal for energy retrofits is part of the climate actions at the core of the EU’s 1.8 trillion euro ($2.1 trillion) coronavirus recovery plan and could result in a sweeping architectural makeover, one that leaders have compared to a new Bauhaus movement for the continent.

For Bloomberg CityLab, Kriston Capps and Laura Millan Lombrana contemplate how the European Union's bold $2.1 trillion coronavirus recovery plan, and its embedded measures to make buildings more energy-efficient, could shape architecture and urban design on much of the continent. A new Bauhaus movement maybe?

"The sheer scope of climate actions under consideration could give lawmakers, engineers and architects an opportunity to build toward a shared continental vision," they write.

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...

Google Arts & Culture celebrates pervasive influence of midcentury design with "Bauhaus Everywhere" collection

2019-12-05T09:00:00-05:00

The newest collection from Google Arts & Culture, called Bauhaus Everywhere came out of a collaboration with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Germany and six other partners including the IIT Institute of Design and the Guggenheim Museum.

The collection seeks to give a deep dive into all things Bauhaus, looking at the school's pervasive legacy and lasting influence on today's design aesthetic, hence the name Bauhaus Everywhere. Google aims to present the characteristic qualities of the movement that we continue to see all around us.

Moreover, the interactive offering allows users to view over 45 online exhibits derived from 10,000 digitized objects and 400 artworks along with virtual tours of iconic buildings. Everything from archival sketches to insights from the everyday life of a typical Bauhaus student can be found in the new collection.

ArtCenter aims to explore visionary design "Beyond the Bauhaus"

2019-11-10T09:00:00-05:00

Different Tomorrows: Design Futures Beyond the Bauhaus [...] brought together scholars, artists, activists and designers to challenge the Bauhaus as the movement of record with discussions related to gender, race and global perspectives. Organized by graduate Media Design Practices Department Associate Professor Sean Donahue and Professor Elizabeth Chin, the series included a reading room, [...] projects questioning the Bauhaus legacy, and a docent tour of the Getty Center’s Bauhaus archives.

A thoughtful interview with Elizabeth Chin and Sean Donahue, the two ArtCenter College of Design-based organizers behind Different Tomorrows: Design Futures Beyond the Bauhaus reveals a bevy of interesting and thought-provoking connections between the Bauhaus and a variety of topics and locales, including the movement's connections with China, the work of the school's female practitioners, and other suppressed focuses.

Chin writes, "The version of the Bauhaus that was promoted in the U.S., and which has influenced places like ArtCenter, was stripped of many of the concerns that had fueled the development of the Bauhaus. Two of the most important, from our point of view, were the experimental educational model and the school’s concerns for social well-being."

The Bauhaus: A school of perverts

2019-10-25T13:30:00-04:00

Despite its surface rhetoric of rationality, clarity and efficiency, and smooth surfaces, the Bauhaus was never straightforward. Bauhauslers were engaged with everything that escapes rationality: sexuality, violence, esoteric philosophies, occultism, disease, the psyche, pharmacology, extraterrestrial life, artificial intelligence, chance, the primitive, the fetish, the animal, plants, etc. The Bauhaus was, in fact, a veritable cauldron of perversions.

Beatriz Colomina, history of architecture professor at the Princeton School of Architecture, pens a provocative archival photo essay in Metropolis highlighting some of the lesser-known transgressive histories of the Bauhaus. According to Colomina, who conducted research on the Bauhaus with her students during the Spring 2018, "there is no such a thing as Modern architecture without transgression."

Colomina writes, "What is remarkable about the Bauhaus, and perhaps the secret of its success, is the sheer density of transgressions of every kind. It was like a laboratory for inventing and intensifying perversions as a kind of pedagogical strategy."

COS pays homage to the Bauhaus with their remastered capsule collection

2019-09-13T19:30:00-04:00

Architects are known for their distinct fashion sense. From the clean, minimalistic look to the striking and avant-garde, fashion's relationship with architecture is close and personal.

Popular clothing brand COS is paying tribute to its Bauhaus-inspired design principles with a unique capsule collection for those who wish to embody the iconic design school's aesthetic.

Image © COS

COS designer Christophe Copin shares with Wallpaper, "We really wanted to work around form and function this time." Copin continues, "You need a coat to protect you from the cold, but maybe you don't need all its additional detail [...] We were focusing on the art of closure."

Image © COS

While some might view fashion trends unimportant and trivial, for those who appreciate the design history of popular fashion trends, COS' new collection could be a good fit, however. The attention to the Bauhaus school's geometric forms and monochromatic color palette make this collection simple and a basic in design and ...

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...

Los Angeles celebrates the Bauhaus

2019-09-11T19:45:00-04:00

Like many cities around the world, the Los Angeles region is gearing up to celebrate the centennial of the founding of the Bauhaus.

An upcoming panel discussion titled Bauhaus-L.A.-Now orchestrated by the Los Angeles Forum of Architecture and Urban Design looks to catalog the school's influence on Los Angele creatives. For the discussion, each panelist will talk about how the Bauhaus has influenced their own work by juxtaposing "two images side-by-side: one from their own body of work and one produced by Bauhaus members, teachers, graduates, and practitioners." The event will coincide with the WUHO Gallery's exhibition BAUHAUS PHOTO, which "showcases photography from the Bauhaus Archive..." The panel will take place at WUHO Gallery on Saturday, September 21st at 5pm.

This panel event and exhibition are presented as part of a series of programs put on by the Getty Research Institute, The Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, A+D Museum, and WUHO Woodbury University Hollywood Outpost that wil...

Would you wear these Bauhaus-inspired Nike shoes?

2019-06-27T17:39:00-04:00

Perhaps the dream shoe for any Bauhaus enthusiast looking to stay "fresh," Nike has released their Nike Air Max 270 React with a lead colorway paying homage to the iconic Bauhaus school. The vibrant color palette would make any color theorist jump with excitement. The blue, red, yellow, and turquoise color accents are synonymous with the school — sure to catch the attention of any architecture or sneaker enthusiast.

Image © Nike

Nike shares in their June news announcement, "The initial release of the Nike Air Max 270 React share a consistent foundation in art and design history. Each colorway translates a specific artistic style or movement in its blocking and hues. The lead launch colorway, for example, heralds the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus's founding by recalling the school’s formal studies of asymmetrical balance." Nike notes the shoe will have other color options inspired by "mid-century color blocking" and "San Francisco psychedelia."

Image © Nike

If Kandinsky...

For the record, the Bauhaus was a school, not a style

2019-05-01T14:09:00-04:00

While architecture was not taught at the school for the first half of its existence, even today we speak of “Bauhaus architecture” and feel confident that we know precisely what that means — even though, often, what we call “Bauhaus” has no connection to the school at all.

100 years after the inauguration of the famed Bauhaus school, we must still be reminded of some of its most essential principles. Namely, Barry Bergdoll admonishes, the Bauhaus was never a 'style' - it was a school of thought that advocated for the abolition of distinctions between the various fields of art, as well as that between "the fine and the useful."

Benita Koch-Otte, Woven Wall Hanging, 1923-24. Manufactured by Bauhaus

As Bergdoll argues, the term 'Bauhaus' "has become a catchall synonym for modernism in architecture and design. The details of the school’s history — the huge diversity of forms, ideologies, opinion and experiments, not to mention the influence of its three directors — are more the concerns of academic historians than of those who continue to burnish the legend and exploit the selling power of the name 'Bauhaus.' No less does it remain a term of derision for neo-traditionalists, who see the modernist Bauhaus as the great destroyer of values enshrined in classi...

A new Bauhaus Museum celebrating the post-war design movement opens in its birthplace of Weimar, Germany

2019-04-09T18:08:00-04:00

When Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius was preparing to leave the small town of Weimar, Germany due to pressure from the Nazis, he hand selected 168 objects for safekeeping. Including ceramics, metalwork, furniture and rugs, this collection is being exhibited together for the first time.

As design enthusiasts across the world celebrate the influential Bauhaus movement's centenary, a new museum, for which Gropius' selections will form its basis, is opening in the school's birthplace of Weimar, Germany. Welcoming its first guests over the weekend, the new Bauhaus Museum will be a permanent home for the school's 13,000 piece collection of works by Gropius, Hannes Meyer, Mies van der Rohe, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, and others.

Bauhaus Museum Weimar, Photo: Andrew Alberts, Courtesy: Heike Hanada Laboratory of Art and Architecture, 2019.

Designed by Berlin-based architect Heike Hanada, the $30 million museum will show off their collection of minimalist objects focusing on the early day...

Revisiting the “surreal, weirder” spirit of the Bauhaus

2019-03-15T14:32:00-04:00

Many imitators have missed the element of Bauhaus that breathed life into what might have become sterile functionalist designs; the surreal, sensual, irrational, and instinctual spirit of the Bauhaus. [...] If one seeks to emulate the Bauhaus today, it is vital to remember the elements of weirdness, pleasure, and even organized chaos that made it what it was. And, also, the moments where it failed to rise to fulfill its own ambitions and principles.

Many people today recognize the Bauhaus — which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year — for its clean lines and minimalist aesthetic. In this piece, writer Darran Anderson delves into the history of the “other, weirder, irrational” side of the infamous art school.

Turns out, Walter Gropius was more warm and fuzzy than we remember him to be

2019-03-06T19:18:00-05:00

Though he was described by architectural historians as "humorless," Walter Gropius "was in fact a charismatic figure," according to The Guardian's Fiona MacCarthy. His life and career are shrouded in myths of solemnity and passionlessness, though the fact remains that he imparted a significant and long-lasting passion towards founding the Bauhaus as well as his own career as an architect.

Drawings of the Bauhaus School in Dessau, by Walter Gropius

Gropius was poetic in his writing (as MacCarthy highlights a passage from his Bauhaus Manifesto: “Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith”), expressionist in his early work, and an advocate of healthy debate in his fabled school of art and design. And while Tom Wolfe famously criticized the architect as a champion of the modern high rise, MacCarthy points out that Gropius was not only one ...

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.

Mobile version of famed Bauhaus building hits the road in celebration of school's centennial

2019-01-08T16:25:00-05:00

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus art school, the Berlin-based design collective Savvy Contemporary has created a movable, miniature version of their iconic workshop wing. Nicknamed “Bauhaus-Wohnmaschine” (Bauhaus living machine), the 15-square-meter home on wheels features a replica of the original building's iconic glass facade, conceived by Walter Gropius in 1925. It includes an exhibition space and reading room dedicated to the history of the famous school of design.

Over the next year, the Wohnmaschine will visit four cities, traveling from Dessau and Berlin to Kinshasa and Hong Kong. Throughout the journey, the school will hold symposiums and workshops intended to challenge traditions and narratives of modernity and modernism, and their inextricable relationship to colonialism.

Photo by Alexander Lech.

"Design education, discourse and practice is still largely dominated by western design principles and philosophies," says the organization. With this projec...

How did Tel Aviv become the site of so many Bauhaus buildings?

2018-12-28T14:41:00-05:00

The Tel Aviv coastline is crowded with a mishmash of skyscrapers, Ottoman-inspired villas, and four-story cubes painted a sunlight-reflecting shade of white. But in a place where stylistic jumble is the standard, one strain stands out as the defining architectural aesthetic and a beloved household name: Bauhaus.

Design fans may know to pin Tel Aviv as an architectural destination for its unlikely connection to the Bauhaus movement, which originated in Dessau, Germany, but few know why the style traveled over 2,000 miles during the 1930's.

Krieger House | Courtesy the rothschild 71 hotel, Tel-Aviv

When the Nazi party gained control of Germany, the Bauhaus School was one of several creative institutions to be shut down, causing its faculty to disperse across the globe. While some of the more famous names from the school, such as Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer found a foothold in America, several of its students found opportunities in The White City.

According to Artsy, "The 700 total students that enrolled at the Bauhaus during its short 14-year existence dispersed globally, too, including four architects—Arieh Sharon, Munio Gitai Weinraub, Shmuel Mestechkin, and Shlomo Bernstein—who moved to British Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s. There, they found a rare opportunity, a modernist archi...

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...

The Bauhaus Revisited

2018-09-12T17:52:00-04:00

Another measure for a work of art might be the range and violence of criticisms it attracts, along with their contradictions.

Maybe I’m just being sentimental, but I keep finding myself returning to the Bauhaus, now approaching its centenary. Much has been written here about the narrowness of current architecture and its instruction. I’m an outsider, yet I can’t help wondering if the field has followed the path of other arts into specialization and self-reference and self-interest, which is too often the case in my field, writing and the teaching of writing. What strikes me about the Bauhaus is the mix of influences. As I note:

“While Gropius wanted to revive the communal spirit of the guilds that built cathedrals in the Middle Ages, one is at a loss to find Christian tenets or iconography in the Bauhaus instruction or its work. The influences instead were esthetic and diverse, from Romanticism to Expressionism to Functionalism, as were the interests of the instructors, some of the most creative artists and architects of the time—Gropius himself, Mies van der Rohe, Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger, Schlemmer, Mo...

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...

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: ...

Penda's Tel Aviv Arcades offer arches and terraces rather than the generic glass tower

2018-06-25T15:39:00-04:00

The Austrian branch of Penda reveals a residential high-rise for Tel Aviv defined by arches and cascading terraces. The design responds to the broad display of the city’s Bauhaus era and responds to the city's climate challenges rather than opting for another glass tower.

Tel Aviv Arcades rendering by Penda Austria. Image: Penda Austria.

Defined by the arch, the structure's design allows for views while still minimizing openings to direct sunlight in order to cooperate with the mediterranean climate. Varying terraces are used as a shading devices while also functioning as a vertical neighborhood for residents.

Tel Aviv Arcades rendering by Penda Austria. Image: Penda Austria.

The condominium tower measures approximately 380 feet in height featuring about 58 square feet of residential areas on 18 floors. The building will ...

New Rothschild Tower by Richard Meier & Partners Completes in Tel Aviv's White City

2017-09-11T14:10:00-04:00

Tel Aviv has the largest concentration of buildings in the Bauhaus/International Style of any city in the world. With a collection of over 4,000 buildings covering almost one and a half square miles, the White City, as it is called, was largely created in the 1930s by a group of 200 German Jewish architects fleeing Nazi Germany who were heavily influenced by Bauhaus principles as well as modernists like Le Corbusier and Erich Mendelsohn.

Photo Credit: Roland Halbe.

Drawing on this rich architectural history, Richard Meier & Partners have just completed a new residential tower that draws inspiration from the Bauhaus design principles of its neighbors in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Meier commented on the surroundings saying "the great thing about the site is that it's related to the whole city; it's related to all of the wonderful buildings of the 1930s and to the historic buildings of Rothschild Boulevard. It makes me very happy to be in s...

Will Mies van der Rohe’s Wolf House rise again?

2016-04-01T15:49:00-04:00

A group of German architects and planners has started a campaign to rebuild the Wolf House, widely seen as a link between van der Rohe’s early, more conventional designs and his later buildings, like the Barcelona Pavilion and the Farnsworth House, that would redefine modern architecture. [...] But the plan has run into resistance from other architects and scholars who say that the Wolf House would be too hard to reconstruct [...].

"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:

MASS Design Group to propose "Bauhaus of Africa" at U.N. Summit

2015-09-24T18:59:00-04:00

On September 27th, the MASS Design Group will officially present their idea for a Bauhaus-type school for Sub-Saharan Africa at the United Nations Solutions Summit. The proposed program would be based in Kigali, Rwanda and would purposefully "incubate local innovation towards tackling the biggest building boom of the next quarter century" according to a press release issued by MASS.

This building boom refers to the estimated addition of one billion Africans over the next two decades, while the project's name refers to the infamous 20th century Bauhaus school, which encouraged not only theory, but actual practice, resulting in a widespread adoption of modernism. This practice element will be crucial in a nation which will require massive amounts of new (and hopefully, artfully designed) infrastructure.