4
Herbert Bayer
Max Bill
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Marianne Brandt
Hin Bredendieck
Marcel Breuer
Emil Bartoschek
Heinrich Brocksieper
Alma Buscher
Erich Consemüller
Christian Dell
Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
Erich Dieckmann
Alfred Ehrhardt
T. Lux Feininger
Werner Graeff
Emil Bert Hartwig
Josef Hartwig
Fritz Hesse
Otto Hofmann
Martin Jahn
Carl Jacob Jucker
Ida Kerkovius
Josef Knau
Kurt Kranz
Emil Lange
Jean Leppien
Adolf Meyer
Wera Meyer-Waldeck
Farkas Molnár
Heinrich Neuy
Gyula Pap
Heinrich Pëus
Hans Przyrembel
Lilly Reich
Margaretha Reichardt
Karl Peter Röhl
Hinnerk Scheper
Oskar Schlemmer
Carl Schneiders
Lotte Stam-Beese
Gunta Stölzl
Elsa Thiemann
Wolfgang Tümpel
Wilhelm Wagenfeld
Fritz Winter
Plywood, steel and aluminium were
introduced and practicality was at
the heart of everything: chairs had to
be collapsible, and cupboards had to
be mobile.
After a mere two years, the third and
final director, Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe, followed. His focus was on the
function of the school. The produc-
tion department, built in accordance
with Henry van de Velde’s designs,
was abandoned, the preliminary
course cancelled, and the focus
shifted to architecture.
However, it was not Gropius alone
who shaped what we today refer to
as being “typical Bauhaus”. His suc-
cessors’ legacy is also found in the
clear design vocabulary, the guiding
principle of “form follows function”,
as adopted by the American archi-
tect, Louis Sullivan, and the combi-
nation of industrial production
processes with creativity in crafts-
manship and design.
Bauhaus. A manifesto. The philoso-
phy, which was originally formulated
by Walter Gropius, first and foremost
encompassed the human being as a
whole: artistic, scientific and techni-
cal questions were combined with
new forms of life and art-pedagogi-
cal concepts. The school was in-
tended to enable nothing less than
training a new generation of design-
ers. The work done in the workshops
and the handling of different materi-
als, guided and shaped by well-
known artists such as Gerhard
Marcks, Paul Klee and Oskar
Schlemmer, remain an educational
concept in design and architecture
schools to this very day.
The Swiss architect and advocate of
functionalism, Hannes Meyer, al-
ready head of “Baulehre” (architec-
tural theory) at the Bauhaus school
in 1927, opposed the teamwork con-
cept with the “Gesamtkunstwerk”
(synthesis of the arts). Instead of
“art and technology”, it was now
“people’s needs instead of luxury”.
Walter Gropius (1883–1969)
The Bauhaus logo, 1922 designed by
Oskar Schlemmer
Hannes Meyer (1889–1954)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969)
bpk / Kunstbilbiothek, SMB, Photothek Willy Römer / Willy Römer
bpk / Kunstbilbiothek, SMB, Photothek Willy Römer / Willy Römer
bpk / Kunstbilbiothek, SMB, Photothek Willy Römer / Walter Stiehr
As short as its existence might have been, its concept
was highly versatile. The Bauhaus school, founded in 1919,
was not merely an experimental school with a wide range
of educational opportunities in the fields of arts and crafts.
The idea also had an impact on the social and cultural
spheres of life in that it united a multitude of different
voices and transformed itself into something new with each
of its directors.
“Such resonance can neither be achieved by organisation,
nor by propaganda. Only an idea possesses
the power to disseminate itself to such an extent.”
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
