Philo sophy Curri culm

The term Bauhaus literally means construction house. The Bauhaus has ten principles which are, for the most part, self explanatory: No border between artists and craftsman, the artist is an exalted craftsman, form follows function, gesamtkunstwerk or the ‘complete work of art, true materials, minimalism, emphasises on technology, smart use of resources, simplicity and effectiveness, constant development. As time went on and the Bauhaus developed, individuality became more evident and students expressed themeselves more. Students were also enrolled in a mandatory ‘preliminary course’ where they were forced to complete and pass a workshop.

Bauhaus Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is ‘the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time,’ then possibly nothing is more representative of that than Bauhaus. This year marks the centennial anniversary of the world’s most influential school of art, design and architecture in the 20th century.

ts founder, architect Walter Gropius, intended to create a Gesamtkunstwerk (“total’ work of art”), a place in which all the arts, including architecture, would eventually come together.

The curriculum was structured such that students would be taught everything under one roof in a compulsory, multi-disciplinary foundation course known as the Vorkurs, after which students could move into areas of specialization.

The Bauhaus Vorkurs (Foundation Course) is discussed as a versatile, enduring prototype for combining art, design, and architectural studio education in the American K-12 curriculum.

Kadinsky moved to bauhaus from Moscow, he taught mural painting and analytical drawing. He believed that there was a correspondence between colour and form. He believed squares were intrinsically red, circles are blue and triangles, yellow.

This belief inspired the look of a number of products designed at the Bauhaus. Kadinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist and is credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art. The main idea of the Bauhuas is to reimagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts. The Bauhaus was founded by architect Walter Gropius in Weimar. It was grounded in the idea of creating a Gesamtkunstwerk (“comprehensive artwork”) in which all the arts would eventually be brought together.

It quickly became a very influential style.

Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was the Bauhaus director from 1919-1928. He was an architect whom designed Fagus factory aswell as modelled Bauhaus on medieval “Bauhütte” and wrote original Bauhaus Manifesto.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) was the Bauhaus director from 1930-1933. He was an architect - German Barcellona Pavilion. Concerned with beauty, believed that good design came with a price. He also believed that the Bauhaus was a school of architecture.

The building Dessau manifested into a school of thought that became free-spirited. Women at Bauhaus wore cropped hair and were permitted into metal workshops. People wrote in low caps. There was a lightness among the teachers and students. All symbolising a departure from traditional views of manner and etiquettes. These factors also ended up turning the Bauhaus into a more creative place.

The focus of the school was to reimagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts. Gropius’ initial aim was a unification of the arts through craft. At the time, the school also adopted the slogan “Art into Industry”. The Bauhaus believed in being efficeint therefore everything work made was important and made for the industry.

Some of the key events that happened in this time include: 1919, Bauhaus Weimar opened under Walter Gropius’ leadership.

1922, Oskar Schlemmar creates triadic ballet.

1923, Haus am Horn by Georg Muche created.

1925, Bauhaus moves to Dessau and Marcel Breuer designs The Wassily chair. 1926, Dessau building completed. 1928, Hannes Meyer becomes director as Gropius leaves.

1930, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe becomes director of the school. 1932, Bauhaus moves to Berlin and 1933, Bauhaus school closes due to nazi pressure.

Oskar Schlemmer

Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943) was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working at the workshop of sculpture. His ideas were extremely influential making him one of the most important teachers working at the school.

Schlemmer’s work in the arena of performance was both experimental and subversive. He purposely broke free from the usual constraints and rules of theater and dance, creating completely new versions of the artforms. He was one of the first artists to modernize the genres and his work formed the basis for many modern performance ideas that followed. He also explored painting and sculpture. Schlemmer’s work aligned with Bauhaus thinking on merging art and technology, man and machine. His paintings often present genderless automatons and his dancers moved in unusual and machine-like ways. In relating humans to machines, Schlemmer was at the forefront of a movement to utilize technology to seek a deeper understanding of the human condition.

Most standard art history timelines omit mention of Bauhaus, and yet the group’s work impacted society to such an extent that fonts developed by Bauhaus designers are still used today. Not to mention the returned interest in Bauhaus graphic and textile design, which is happening contemporarily. I also think that the current trend of calling oneself a “maker” indirectly adopts one of the core principles of Bauhaus, namely its attempt at uniting creativity and manufacturing. In melding these two components, Bauhaus was able to encompass various art forms, and so beyond architecture and graphic design, came textile and costume design, as well as dance, performance and theatre.

Two Main Currents

The Triadic Ballet was created by Oskar Schlemmer. He taught at the Bauhaus art school in Germany during the Weimar Republic.

Schlemmer’s ballet style: uncluttered, modern and geometric. He named it “Triadic” to reflect the three acts, three dancers, and three colours (one for each act).

Schlemmer also designed the costumes based on cylinder, sphere, cone, and spiral shapes. These turned out to be revolutionary. He saw ballet and pantomime as free from the historical baggage of theatre and opera. He presented his ideas of choreographed geometry, man as a dancer, transformed by costume, moving in space.

Schlemmer saw the modern world driven by two main currents, the mechanised (man as machine and the body as a mechanism) and the primordial impulses (the depths of creative urges).

Human Body

His theater and dance work combined his interest in the representation of the human body with kinetic studies and an investigation of the relationship between performer and space and he transformed his observations into abstract geometrical and mechanical choreography and costumes. The most famous of Schlemmer’s works, The Triadic Ballet (1922), is an important example of this process in action.