Bauhaus Bucher

“An encyclopaedic overview of innovations in art scholarship and technology”

14 'Bauhaus Bucher' were produced between 1925 and 1929. Most by Moholy Nagy. They were authored by contemporary artists from inside and outside the Bauhaus, the series emphasizes ideas over lavish reproductions. The books cover a wide range of disciplines, from painting, architecture, and theater to design and pedagogy.

Bauhausbücher are an exceptional example of consistency and unity, with most cover designs and layouts executed by Moholy-Nagy, and all published in both paperback and hardcover in a similar size by one publisher, Albert Langen. Gropius and Moholy-Nagy published the first eight Bauhaus Books simultaneously in 1925.

The page designs feature boldface sans serif typography for the titles and headings. Most of the volumes employ more traditional book faces for the body copy. Moholy Nagy experimented with heavy black rules. He didn't have much choice regarding typefaces, but he was skilled at working with what was available. These included old style serifs like Alt-Medieval and sans serifs like Breite Fette Grotesk. The books hold together as a series not because of a consistent typographic system but because of their distinctive, compact format and their sense of typographic play and experiment. The medium of photography is a throughline uniting art, design, and modern life. A photogram, or cameraless photograph, appears on the cover of Painting, Photography, Film.