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.
11 Comments
Got to love the landscaping anyway.
In Germany, Weimar Republic critics found the students and their work decadent and un-German and called the school “a center of Bolshevists and Spartacists.” Later, during the Cold War, the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany condemned the Bauhaus style as corrupt and corrupting, “a genuine offspring of American cosmopolitism.”
One measure of greatness is how much you can piss off the left and right.
Let's please not reduce complex history to the farce that is contemporary US two-party brain rot. "Middle of the road" "everything is about moral aesthetics" centrism is how we got into this mess.
The historicist bent of late USSR architecture is very interesting though, agreed on that point.
Then we have Tom Wofe's critique of the Bauhaus in his breezy little book.
"I kept trying to put in my two cents’ worth about the general question of portraying American power, wealth, and exuberance in architectural form."
I know people don't care about facts and history, but a reminder: the goal of Modernism was to efficiently create safe, affordable, and healthy housing for everyone. Capitalists saw the cost savings of mass production and used it to maximize profit. There is room for design of all kinds in the world, but capital is only going to pay for what it wants to invest in.
Ironically, the early modernists didn't want young architects to study history and in some cases, advocated hostility towards anything remotely traditional, which fascists use as another side of their attempt to divide us. No sale Donny!
Architecture has always been a political tool, something the Bauhaus raised to a fine art. That said, they produced some really cool designs. Interesting note, one of Behren's first jobs was to give a 'modernist' facade to some capitalist factories.
Instead of thinking all architecture is political, why not reverse it and say all politics is architecture? And there we have good architects and very bad architects.
Seems like they have nothing better to do.
Design is much greater than politics. Designers shortchange themselves and others when the brand themselves with a political message.
What these Germans are communicating is that they want better design. We should respond by making buildings and cities better, healthier, more efficient with all of the tools at our disposal.
Modern buildings have been built for wealthy capitalists and classical buildings have been built for socialists like in Washington DC. There is no direct correlation. Modernism can be monumental and classical can be vernacular.
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