Bauhaus: German Modern Art & Design

June 22–27, 2021 from £2175 per person | with Alan Powers

The Bauhaus building, Dessau

• Discover the highlights of the

Bauhaus School and modernist design in Germany • Take in the major centres ofWeimar and Dessau alongside the lesservisited but culturally rewarding towns of Chemnitz, Gera and Jena • Study the art, architecture and design of the Bauhaus School and related artists, including creations by Walter

Gropius, Henry van deVelde and

Erich Mendelsohn

Of all the avant-garde enterprises in art and design between the wars, the Staatliches Bauhaus provides a paradigm of modernism. Te school taught the unity of art, craft and design with the aim of breaking down traditional disciplinary boundaries to achieve material and spiritual welfare. Tis tour ofers the opportunity to explore not only the Bauhaus but also the wider artistic context of the movement.

Te Bauhaus opened in 1919 under the directorship of Walter Gropius, taking over the Kunstgewerbeschule (School GERMANY

of Applied Arts) building, designed by Henry van de Velde, its pre-1914 director. In Weimar, a city already famous for its associations with J W von Goethe and Friedrich Nietzsche, the Bauhaus can be seen in the context of German thinking about art, nature and politics. In 1925, the school was transferred to Dessau, its most famous location, where Gropius designed a new building to house it that, in its restored state, powerfully evokes what it might have been like to study there. We look forward to visiting the new Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, opened in 2019 to celebrate the Bauhaus centenary.

On this tour, we will visit these major centres, but also other cities in Turingia and Saxony that reveal a wealth of 20th century treasures. Te Margarete Reichardt Haus in Erfurt displays the looms and workshop of Margarete Reichardt (1907–1984), who studied at the Bauhaus Dessau a year after its opening. In Gera and Jena, our visits will include a fnely restored villa by Henry van de Velde as well as Gropius’s pioneering Haus Auerbach. In Chemnitz, we will visit the Gunzenhauser Museum with its wide collection of interwar paintings and a well-preserved 1935 swimming pool complex by the City Architect, Fred Otto. An optional tour of the Schocken department store’s exterior provides an excellent example of the expressive yet functional designs for which its architect, Erich Mendelsohn, was renowned.

Passing briefy through Berlin, we will see the exterior of another of Mendelsohn’s well-known designs, the Einstein Tower in Potsdam, still an operational solar observatory today.

Our journey will include stays in three or four-star hotels in the historical centres of Weimar, Chemnitz and Dessau.

FITNESS / PRACTICALITIES: A good level of ftness is required for this tour as it involves a signifcant amount of walking, including over cobbled streets. Tour Director Alan Powers, PhD, studied History of Art at Cambridge University and is a specialist in the art, architecture and design of the 20th century. A former Chairman of the Twentieth Century Society, Alan’s wide-ranging research, curation and publication on varied topics pertaining to British art –including the Arts & Crafts movement, the experiences of 1930s German émigrés and the teaching of art and design – form the basis of his interest in the Bauhaus and contemporary movements in Germany. Alan’s book, Bauhaus Goes West, was published in 2019 to coincide with the centenary year.

Please note that the itinerary represents a guide to what we hope to offer, and some elements may be subject to change or confrmation nearer the time.

Day 1 Depart London Heathrow for Berlin. Transfer to Weimar for three nights at Dorint Hotel Am Goethepark. Day 2 Morning lecture followed by short walking tour of central Weimar: visits to former Bauhaus Building (including restored offce of Walter Gropius), Walter Gropius monument, Nietzsche Archive and Haus am Horn. Afternoon: Neues Bauhaus Museum. Day 3 Whole day excursion to Erfurt and Jena: Margarete Reichardt Haus (former weaving workshop and museum), Walter Gropius’s Haus Auerbach and Ernst Abbe Mausoleum (by van der Velde). Day 4 Transfer to Chemnitz via Gera: Haus Schulenburg (by van de Velde). Afternoon in Chemnitz: Gunzenhauser Museum (Expressionist paintings), Chemnitz Public Baths (by Fred Otto). Overnight at Hotel an der Oper, Chemnitz. Day 5 Optional walking tour of Chemnitz including exterior of former Schocken department store (by Mendelsohn). Transfer to Dessau for visits to Bauhaus buildings, Masters’ Houses, Törten Housing Estate (by Gropius) and new Bauhaus Museum. Overnight at Radisson Blu Fürst Leopold Hotel, Dessau. Day 6 Transfer to Berlin via Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower (exterior). Depart Berlin for London Heathrow.

Cost of £2175 includes: return airfare, accommodation based on sharing a double bedded room, breakfast, two lunches, dinner with water & coffee, excursions & admissions, gratuities. Not included: travel insurance, double room for single use supplement £200. TOUR CODE: GBAU21

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