Bauhaus and the Origin of Design Education in India

Bauhaus and the Origin of Design Education in India

By Singanapalli Balaram

This article is “writing by being” because the author had the privilege of being part of the pilot batch of Indian design teachers who commenced design education in India, inspired to a large measure by Bauhaus ideology. The pilot batch was from the National Institute of Design, the first design institute of India established in 1961.

NID was not merely an institute. It was an idea to assist industrial production, in a new democracy and its development plans, where the Bauhaus concept of design as an instrument of socialism was considered appropriate.

The Beginnings Like Bauhaus was situated in Weimar than Berlin, NID was located in Ahmedabad than in the capital Delhi, to be away from political interference. Notably, the institute was under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce than under the Ministry of Education because design was seen as an essential service to the industrial development of India.

NID commenced afresh on a clean slate by examining the very basics of not just design education but the concept of education itself, with questions such as: ● ● ● ●

Can a person be educated?

Can design be taught?

How is design relevant to India of today and India of tomorrow?

How is design different from craft?

These were the building blocks on which NID’s philosophy, ethos, teaching methodology and content of curriculum were developed. The NID building itself was conceived as a modular, innovative, brick dome building.

The institute in its formation laid down two fundamental rules: 1. To be quite different from any methods followed by reputed design schools abroad thus rejecting the transplantation of alien ideas.

2. To be substantially out of way of Indian universities, thus rejecting tunnel-visions of present universities.

After examining many great design pedagogies in the world, especially of the Bauhaus, three methods were evolved and implemented even before the courses commenced. These were a departure from the existing learning methods anywhere: ● ●

Workshops to be central to education where regular batch production would go on for students to understand the scope and limitations of production.

In-house service by institutional undertaking of real-life projects where students can learn as apprentices.

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Research and documentation of Indian traditions where students assimilate national identity.

No other Indian design school is able to emulate these principles even today.

Pedagogic Principles ●

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The curriculum was flexible and changes were made continually as the school progressed.

An important addition was a Science and Liberal Arts programme which integrated humanities into professional design skills forming a strong base for design.

A “seed-farm” concept was adopted by admitting only a small manageable size of students.

The teacher-student ratio did not exceed 1:15 to facilitate personal attention to individual student and to avoid impersonal mass production of graduates.

Indians have reinterpreted the “learning by doing” principle of the Bauhaus as “learning to know and learning to do” to allow learning of design process, which invariably commences by knowing the problem.

At Bauhaus, teachers were called masters while NID viewed them as guides and facilitators called faculty rather than lecturers or professors of the university system.

A continuous open-book, qualitative evaluation system replaced the existing system of examinations and marks. The jury method evaluation also prepared the student for client presentations.

Instead of transplanting academic culture and curriculum of foreign universities, design educators of international repute were invited to the school and young faculty from India were sent to great design institutions abroad, to learn and get ideas which could be made relevant to the Indian context. The eminent global designers’ presence benefitted the school as well as the management and the city as a whole through public lectures. Legendary world designers such as Charles Eames, Adrian Frutiger, Armin Hoffman, Cartier-Bresson, John Cage, Frei Otto, Louis Kahn and many more visited and worked at NID. HfG Ulm played a major role in the early growth of NID. Its chief strength, the foundation programme, was formulated by Hans Gugelot of Ulm and Kumar Vyas of NID. Another Ulm teacher, Gui Bonsiepe’s many interactions as consultant, with his teaching experience in developing countries, had special significance to Indian design education.

Academic Culture The NID curriculum plan was worked out with emphasis on the foundation programme of one and a half year duration followed by four years of project-based learning culminating in a comprehensive diploma project. As a pluralist nation, India required design training not of specialisations but of broad generalist, multi-disciplinary nature. Considering the Indian socio-cultural and developmental factors, the following unique innovations in education system were made by the early educators: ●

To counter the strongly prevailing “rote-routine-remember” system of Indian education, unlearning at the design institute was considered crucial.

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As most design students are from urban backgrounds while majority of Indian population lives in villages, an experiential course, Rural Exposure, was introduced as part of which students lived in villages.

India is an agricultural country. It also has vast small-scale and craft sectors of production.

NID therefore supported these sectors by encouraging students to do related projects.

Craft is a living tradition in India practised by millions but threatened by modern mass production. Craft documentation and research on indigenous materials and methods was important, especially in creating an identity for Indian designs.

Multi-disciplinary projects where faculty, students and technical staff can rub shoulders at different levels were undertaken so the students could acquire essential team-working abilities.

Open electives conducted by external professionals on fresh experimental themes were introduced for cross disciplinary learning.

Constant experimentation was the motto and an exposure to experimental work happening all over the world in the field of art and technology was mandatory.

Pilot Batch Education Programme The project examples below illustrate the innovative moorings of Indian design in its search for nationalism: ●

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Basic education in aesthetics was based on the modernist principles of abstraction in the Bauhaus mode. This example reveals exploration of geometric forms in three dimensions. (fig 1) To be relevant to an agricultural country, students were given a group project of designing a seed plantation device which well integrates form and function. (fig 2) A strong cultural habit of Indian people is the scraping of the tongue every day. The toothbrush-tongue cleaner was worked out as a design addressing that unique cultural factor. (fig 3) A personal vehicle for India’s economy and the need of the masses is the bicycle. The design, a major research project, was suitable to the small industry production. (fig 4) There was a world-wide fuel crisis in the seventies and a tremendous need to save fuel. A wick stove had been designed which could save 50 per cent of fuel and yet affordable to the common man. (fig 5) Modern India needs mechanization of agriculture but most farmers have only small land holdings. A small tractor, at an affordable price was designed to aid these farmers. It incorporates the modern design principles of functionality, ergonomics and aesthetics. (fig 7) Till the eighties, India was importing life-saving medical equipment such as oxygenators used in open-heart surgeries. An indigenous design was created to suit India’s small scale batchproduction. The device was multi-functional, performing also as cardiotomy reservoir and paediatric oxygenator. It substituted imports and made the nation non-dependent on foreign supply. This product was a first of its kind in the world. (fig 6)

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In the urban middle class, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is the most common fuel which avoids smoke and provides clean energy. The gas stove design saved 30 per cent fuel and suited production by small-scale industries with government aid. (fig 8)

Development Ahead The problems of the developing countries/the majority world are totally different and require appropriate solutions. The Indian reality, juxtaposed to Bauhaus is its enormous population with such diversity of languages, cultures, behaviours and living in villages which lack infrastructure.

Since NID inception, a major question posed was this: why would a poor country with millions of starving people need design? Today, four decades later, the question is still valid. The rich became richer, the poor became poorer and design did not reach villages where it was needed most.

Decades ago, the author suggested “Barefoot Designer” taking cue from China’s barefoot doctor movement’s phenomenal success. The concept was that each Indian village would select a suitable person among them and send to a design school in the city to undergo a short, tailor-made programme relevant to their village needs. On return, this person would train a dozen others from adjacent villages and thus cause a multiplier effect. Design competency would be applied to their urgent needs which they understand best. This optimistically will cause a rural design revolution.

There were experiments in this direction by a few Indian designers. The Rural University project in Jawaja was one where NID adopted a village. However such cases are rare because designers, to stay in a village without pay requires sacrifice. Online learning is not possible in villages due to lack of electricity, literacy and internet connectivity.

Equality by design is a democratic necessity whose scale is proportional to the population density.

India thus tops the list, having the largest number of physically, mentally and socio-economically challenged people. Universality is not uniformity and universal design principles of America cannot be applied in India because of the differences in socio-cultural contexts. A wheelchair for example is of no use in Indian rural areas due to the cultural and physical non-compatibility. In 2011, an Indian designer group developed Universal Design India Principles. Yet, universal design has not been made part of the curriculum in almost all of the design schools in India.

Bauhaus principles continue to guide Indian design education in spirit while the application ought to be appropriate to social, economic, cultural and political realities of the nation.

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