Beyond the Bauhaus

Architectural Histories, 2019

Journal of Architectural Education, 2009

Journal of Design History, Oxford University Press, 2022

Courtauld MA Dissertation, 2017

The Bauhaus remains well known today for the ‘machine aesthetic’ its founder, Walter Gropius, promoted following his emigration to the United States. His revisionist history of the Bauhaus has had a profound effect on present-day pedagogy in schools of design, extending from the changes he made while Chairman at Harvard. Seminal architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner defers to Gropius’s story, but also adds his own, arguing that German modernism was inspired by the English Arts and Crafts movement. Without this connection to the English-speaking world, the Bauhaus might never have proved as well-received as it has since then worldwide. Likewise, if Gropius had not moved to the United States and presented the Bauhaus as the origin of the International Style, it might not have had such a long-lasted and pervasive influence on the field of architecture. Over time, however, the legacy of modernism has come in for sustained criticism. The International Style has been charged with cluttering cityscapes with singularly boring buildings the world over. This decline in quality could not be further from the hopes of the Bauhaus, as well as the Deutscher Werkbund which preceded and inspired them. The early Bauhaus began as a Gothic revival, drawing upon the nineteenth-century Romantic architecture of Karl Friedrich Schinkel and the ideas of Gottfried Semper. Craft workshops focused on specific materials and techniques became the basis for a new system of teaching architectural design. By mastering craft, Bauhäusler would develop the skills necessary to participate in the ultimate aim of the Bauhaus: ‘building’, working together on Gesamtkunstwerke such as the Sommerfeld Blockhaus, seen as analogous to Gothic cathedrals. Overlooking this deep history of the Bauhaus has damaged architectural education, reflected in the failings of present-day corporate architecture, athough, some ‘stararchitects’ continue to give due attention to craft. With a fuller and more accurate picture of the history of the Bauhaus, schools of design would be able to help aspiring architects discover and cultivate some of the complexity and sensitivity associated with the architecture of the Schinkelzeit, as well as the Bauhaus.

SAJ Serbian Architectural Journal. University of Belgrade: Faculty of Architecture., 2019

This article is a result of my participation at the International Congress of Aesthetics (2019). The conference presentation and full text were published in the proceedings book of the 21st International Congress of Aesthetics (ISBN 978-86-7924-224-2). After a selection was made, the editorial board of Serbian Architectural Journal (ISSN 1821-3952) also decided to publish this article in the forthcoming issue of this journal. Abstract: In this proposal the Bauhaus school’s style is seen as representative of architecture and design in the context of contemporary global society. Bauhaus has influenced generations of artists, architects, and designers – in Germany, the North and South Americas, and beyond, including, for instance, and with particular significance, the architecture and design of Brazil. The legendary Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who had German roots, designed for the Berlin Hansaviertel, and for the Brazilian capital, and other architectural projects. His architecture and design fulfilled the central demands of the Bauhaus school: that it should be functional and create a sense of community. Contemporary architecture and design in this style therefore offers new achievements and knowledge based on the current politics of sustainable development, and social and economic integration, alongside the essential Bauhaus heritage of function and community. This proposal covers the new possibilities of the Bauhaus worldview: the creation of new forms for depicting human ideals, through a focus on aesthetics and technology, combined with Niemeyer’s impact on architecture and design, still vibrant at the beginning of this century in Brazil. New styles and forms have arisen as offshoots from Bauhaus, which convey the values of each culture through the construction of a collective ‘picture’ world. The Bauhaus of today expresses the culture industry, dialectically considering innovation and applied art as a path from the modern design of the industrial revolution to ‘eco-design’. In this sense, Bauhaus is still significant in its role of linking together art, technology, and industry. Innovation as a dynamic determination of the moment, present in all epochs, is understood as a potent force for maintaining tradition. In addition to a chronological record of the influence of Bauhaus, the significant projects of Niemeyer will be discussed. Finally, this proposal presents two perspectives on the ‘schism’ between architecture and technology. The first concerns the human ability to create models in architectural practice for adoption as a configuration of the space. The second concerns the evolution of technologies leading to the imagined becoming reality through time, as described by Hegel in his Aesthetics (see Hegel 1823). Thus, consideration will be given to concepts relating to technological developments, such as the myth of progress and the role of the human in facilitating better interaction between tradition and innovation, subject to the influence of continuous productivity in various sectors. New representations in the accepted Bauhaus style are integrated with social critiques of humanity’s resilience. These forms support an environment coexistent with technology, preserving tradition while searching for innovation and the determination of positive power, towards a new design and architectural conception. Cite as: Wagner, Christiane. 2019. “Aesthetics and Cultural Aspects of Bauhaus Towards a New Conception.” In Proceedings book of the 21st International Congress of Aesthetics, Serbian Architectural Journal, volume 11, (November): 463-472. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5367015

New German Critique, 2012

The year 2009 marked the ninetieth birthday of the Bauhaus as well as the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The collapse of communism and the reunification of Germany have dramatically altered the understanding of the legacy of the twentieth century's most influential art school. The past two decades witnessed two quite different developments in how the Bauhaus is understood at home and abroad. First, the school's physical heritage has been harnessed to legitimize new institutions in the former East, chief among them the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Dessau and the Bauhaus University and Bauhaus Museum, both in Weimar. These now compete with each other and with the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin as the official successors to the original Bauhaus and the chief repositories of its art and related documentation. Second, German scholars, along with their American and English counterparts, have deconstructed Cold War myths about the school. In particular, they have questioned its relevance as an antifascist bulwark of democratic and/or socialist ideals. The challenge to the accounts of the school disseminated by Walter Gropius after his emigration from Germany that commenced with the rediscovery of its expressionist origins in the late

Bauhaus Construct: Fashioning Identity, Discourse and Modernism. Edited by Jeffrey Saletnik and Robin Schuldenfrei. London: Routledge / Taylor & Francis, 2009.

2017

The article presents the Bauhaus school as an idea that was not intended to start an independent movement, but to be one of the styles of modern art education. The school founded by Voltaire Gropius was based on the foundation of arts and crafts education which developed in the era of the Art Nouveau. The author shows the evolution of the Bauhaus, which existed barely fourteen years, but its myth spread to the entire 20th and now the 21st century. The article also touches on the difficult political context in which Bauhaus’ was launched and developed. Every contemporary designer must know this German school and should be able to define his/her work in relation to its achievements, but at the same time s/he must remember that the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps were also built by the Bauhaus architects. It is a difficult legacy and a difficult avant-garde.

Tahiti, 2021

Notes from a series of public talks arranged at ArkDes on the occasion of the Bauhaus' 100th anniversary in 2019.