Weaving Words and Drawing Lines The Bauh PDF

WEAVING WORDS AND DRAWING LINES:
THE BAUHAUS MASTERS ENDEAVOURS TO ESTABLISH A

UNIVERSAL VISUAL LANGUAGE WITHIN FOUNDATION EDUCATION.
BY
NAN CATHERINE O’SULLIVAN
A thesis
submitted to Victoria University Wellington
in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Masters of Architecture (by thesis)
Victoria University Wellington
2012
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Acknowledgements
“I want to keep myself steeped in this wholeness of life...never to
forget, to keep radiantly warm inside myself, to remember the
tough lessons of this great apprenticeship‐never to become a
woman who says with millions of her kind that her day has passed.”
Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy.
I cannot express enough gratitude to my family, friends and colleagues whose support
and encouragement made ‘this great apprenticeship’ such a rewarding journey.
Thanks to:
Felix and Molly O’Sullivan
Maurice, Oscar and MacGregor Pipson
Paul and Emma O’Sullivan
Gael Webster, Caroline Miller, Ayliffe Maddever, Helen Muir and Heather Drysdale
Special thanks to the Master of my personal Vorkurs: Margaret Maile Petty.
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Table of Contents
Chapter Page
Introduction‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐1
Chapter One
All Roads Lead to the Bauhaus
1.1. The Emergence of Industrial Aesthetic Theory‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐8
1.2. The First Intersection of Art, Education and Industry‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐10
1.3. Reformative Education and the Development of a Visual Language‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐11
1.4. The Influence of the Werkbund on Bauhaus Ideals‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐15
1.5. The Influence of a Post‐WWI Germany on Bauhaus Ideals‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐17
1.6. The Changes to Gropius’ Ideologies Post WWI and Pre‐1923‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐18
Chapter Two
The Establishment of a Shared Visual Language of Form and Space at the Bauhaus
2.1 The Forward Guard of Bauhaus Masters‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐23
2.2 The Vorkurs under Itten‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐25
2.3 The Foundations of a Universal Visual Language‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐26
2.4 Creativity through Spirituality, Individuality and Holistic Teaching‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐27
2.5 The Contrasting Poles ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐29
2.6 Itten Interrupted‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐29
2.7 The Lasting Impact of Itten’s Vorkurs‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐33
2.8 “Art and Technology: A New Unity”‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐34
2.9 László Moholy‐Nagy and the Vorkurs‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐35
2.10 Itten’s Influence on Moholy‐Nagy’s Vorkurs‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐38
2.11 Moholy‐Nagy’s Vorkurs‐Universal by Process‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐40
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Table of Contents (continued)

2.12 Josef Albers and the Vorkurs‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐44
2.13 Itten’s legacy Continued‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐47
2.14 Albers’ Contribution to the Vorkurs‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐49
Chapter Three
The Bauhaus In America
3.1 The Bauhaus Tenets Transposed and Translated in America‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐52
3.2 Part One. Albers: the First Bauhaus Émigré in America‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐52
3.3 Itten and Dewey’s Influence on Albers’ Black Mountain Werklehre‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐56
3.4 Bauhaus Versus Black Mountain‐A Competition‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐59
3.5 Albers to Yale ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐63
3.6 The Innocent Eye Becomes the Educated Eye‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐67
3.7 Albers taught Me to See‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐68
3.8 Part two. Moholy‐Nagy: tests the Transatlantic Environment‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐73
3.9 Albers and Moholy‐Nagy’s Pedagogical Differences‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐75
3.10 The Reception to Moholy‐Nagy’s teachings in Chicago‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐77
3.11 The New Bauhaus: Chicago‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐79
3.12 The False Start‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐81
3.13 New Beginnings: The School of Design‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐83
3.14 The Problems the School of Design Faced‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐84
3.15 Preliminary Studies in Chicago‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐86
3.16 The Moholy Affair‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐90
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Table of Contents (continued)

Chapter Four
Gropius’ Contributions to the Bauhaus Translation in America
4.1 Gropius to Harvard‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐94
4.2 The Preparatory Path of Modernism towards Harvard‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐95
4.3 Pure Design: the Progression of Modernist Theories in American Education‐‐‐98
4.4 Hudnut to Harvard and the Establishment of the Graduate School of Design‐‐‐102
4.5 Gropius Joins the Harvard Turf Wars‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐107
4.6 Harvard and the Bauhaus Artist‐ Albers‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐111
4.7 Harvard and the Bauhaus Architect‐Breuer ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐113
4.8 Gropius and Hudnut–A Symbiotic Relationship‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐116
4.9 The On Going Fight between Hudnut and Gropius‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐118
4.10 The Preliminary Interdisciplinary Course ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐120
4.11 Universal versus Elite ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐124
4.12 The Elite‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐128

Epilogue‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐133
Bibliography‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐140
Image Credits‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐145
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List of Figures
Figure Page
1. Walter Gropius. Founder and Director of the Bauhaus 1919‐1923‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐22
2. Logo for the Bauhaus Weimar 1922‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐23
3. Johannes Itten, Vorkurs Master, 1919‐1923‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐24
4. A Diagram of Gropius’ Bauhaus teaching programme, Weimar 1919‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐26
5. Itten’s colour sphere with bands in space 1919‐1920‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐28
6. Keler’s baby cradle 1922‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐32
7. Bauhaus faculty 1925‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐34
8. Moholy‐Nagy wearing his overalls and glasses‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐35
9. Breuer’s Wassily chair 1926‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐37
10. Hovering sculpture by Bauhaus student Corona Krauce 1924‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐41
11. Universal typeface 1926‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐42
12. Marianne Brandt coffee and tea set, MT50‐55a‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐43
13. Bauhaus building Dessau workshop façade 1926‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐44
14. Albers teaching in the Vorkurs.1928‐1929‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐46
15. Josef and Anni Albers‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐54
16. Black Mountain College logo 1933‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐56
17. Albers at Black Mountain College‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐58
18. Albers at the Yale School of Art, 1950‐1970‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐66
19. Moholy‐Nagy’s curriculum for The New Bauhaus 1937‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐79
20. The New Bauhaus Signet 1938‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐80
21. 1942 Moholy‐Nagy is garlanded by his students in celebration of his birthday‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐84
22. Gropius and Moholy‐Nagy at the School of Design during the Moholy Affair‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐90
23. Moholy‐Nagy’s second wife Sybil circa 1932‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐92
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List of Figures (continued)
24. Beaux‐Art classroom at Harvard 1925‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐96
25. James Bryant Conant, Harvard president 1946‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐101
26. Joseph Hudnut in his Graduate School of Design office 1946‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐104
27. Ise and Walter Gropius, New Hampshire 1930‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐106
28. Breuer with GSD students‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐112
29. Breuer at home, Lincoln Massachusetts 1940‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐113
30. Frank house by Gropius and Breuer, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐114
31. Three‐dimensional design exercises by GSD students in Design Fundamentals‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐122
32. Gropius with GSD masters students 1946‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐134
33. Texas Rangers. Harwell Hamilton Harris’ faculty‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐137

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Introduction

The Bauhaus is considered to be the “most famous experiment in art education of the modern
era.”1 Bookmarked near the end of WWI in 1919 and the rise of the Nazi Party in 1933 the new
academy coincided with the fourteen year reign of the Weimar Republic in Germany. The
Bauhaus’ short lifespan belies the range and impact of its contributions to contemporary
culture. Although the political and historic context of the Bauhaus’ inception has been
thoroughly investigated and analysed in numerous recognised studies by some of the
discipline’s most prominent historians and theorists, how the Bauhaus managed to elicit such a
sustained resonance and attain such historical significance in such a short time frame and in
such difficult political and economic circumstances remains an enigma. The elucidation of the
challenges the Bauhaus faced is well established by Bauhaus historians in texts such as Gillian
Naylor’s 1968 Bauhaus and 1985 The Bauhaus Reassessed, Marcel Franciscono’s 1971 Walter
Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus in Weimar and Rainer Wick’s 2000 Teaching at the
Bauhaus. These are but a few of the numerous texts addressing the complex and urgent
situation that provided the context for the establishment of the Bauhaus by Walter Gropius
(1883–1969) and his collaborators. Franciscono argued that the Bauhaus was “the most radical
and sustained effort yet made to realise the dream cherished since the Industrial Revolution,
not merely to bring visual art back into closer ties with everyday life, but to make it the very
instrument of social and cultural regeneration.”2 With the aim of gradually “closing the broad
gulf that existed between art and industry,”3 the masters at the Bauhaus individually and
collectively strove to transform the private languages used at the time within artistic disciplines
into a single language shared across the workshop structure within the Bauhaus academy. In
doing so, Bauhaus pedagogy provided a model universal visual language that continues to be
utilised as a primary pedagogical language in architecture design education.

My aim is to establish the roots of interdisciplinary architectural and design education and
methodology in current pedagogical environments. I will elucidate the vitality, integrity,

1
Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of Bauhaus in Weimar: The Ideals and the Artistic Theories
of its Founding Years (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971), 843.
2
Ibid., 3.
3
Rainer K Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, trans. Stephen Mason and Simon Lèbe (Ostfildern‐Ruit: Hatje Cantz
Verlag, 2000),37.
1

creativity and longevity of the Bauhaus’ preliminary course. I will assert that the pedagogical
approaches undertaken within the Vorkurs to embrace new worlds and new technologies and
to educate fledgling minds still hold relevance today. The principles introduced by Gropius and
Johannes Itten (1888–1967) and matured by Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy (1895‐1946), Josef Albers
(1888‐1976) to propagate an understanding and imbue artistic and design appreciation into the
hearts and minds of all those who use them has never been more challenged.4 As both society
and academia currently grapple with the morphological aspects of our environs I believe these
tenets to be ripe for re‐evaluation.

My research will trace the development and implementation of the universal visual language
within interdisciplinary foundation year pedagogy. Having established the stimulus for such a
language and its dissemination I will identify the key protagonists in both the development and
implementation of this language. I will outline the teachings within foundation education and I
will argue that the original preliminary course within Bauhaus pedagogy, the Vorkurs,
established and taught by Itten gifted the Bauhaus both the revolutionary pedagogy and the
reformative tools to propagate such a language. Although Itten’s pedagogy would be
denounced by Gropius rather quickly as subjective, and Itten himself alienated from the
academy, I will argue his pedagogical ideals and methodologies would remain as fundamental
tenets throughout the entirety of preliminary design education at the Bauhaus. Additional
translations of it were attempted in the United States by Bauhaus émigrés Moholy‐Nagy, Albers
and Gropius himself. I will investigate the attempt to establish this pedagogy in the United
States by Moholy‐Nagy, Albers and Gropius and consider the development of the individual
methodologies they posited to embrace the universal visual language. The promotion of their
translations brought widely varying degrees of American patronage, endorsement and
enthusiasm for innovation, change and economic advancement by academics, industrialists,
critics and practitioners. The process of translation played a substantial role in the
interpretation and misinterpretation of Bauhaus ideologies. I will reveal both the affirmative
and negative contributors and contributions pre‐WWII to the American debates and discourse
surrounding modernist design and architectural education. Nikolaus Pevsner’s sycophantic
elucidations in his Pioneers of Modern Design from Morris to Gropius (1949) amplified the

4
Jill Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the "Harvard Bauhaus"," Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians. 56, no. 4 (1997).
2

effects of Gropius’ single‐handed impact on Modernism beyond recognition. Although this
author serves as only a minute segment of my study, the augmented affirmations made by
Pevsner illustrate quite clearly the polarity Gropius elicited.5 Gropius’ personality, preferences
and politics had inspired his founding of the Bauhaus and played a major role in his selection of
Bauhaus masters. His persona continued to play a profound and not always helpful role in the
dissemination of the model universal visual language in the United States.

In order to elucidate the provocations surrounding Gropius’ inception and establishment of the
Bauhaus, Chapter One will serve as an introduction to the reformative pedagogies initiated in
Europe and Britain by reform theorists Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852), Johann Pestalozzi (1746–
1847), John Ruskin (1819‐1900), Gottfried Semper (1803‐1879), William Morris (1834‐1896),
Herman Muthesius (1861–1927) and Henry van der Velde (1863–1957). In addition I will
identify the political and ideological triggers that incited such radical efforts, focusing primarily
on the shifting political, economic, social and aesthetic ideologies that offered Gropius the
agencies for change and inspired the establishment of the initial Bauhaus manifesto in 1919.
Within this, his first of three manifestos, Gropius called for unity through interdisciplinary
exploration, examination, experimentation and communication.6 Gropius believed that a
common visual language would facilitate an understanding of art and architecture into the
hearts and minds of those that used it, thereby loosening the elitist grip on artistic knowledge.
This methodology, initiated by Froebel and Pestalozzi, was consistent throughout all three
manifestos and led to the evolution of the universal visual language within the Vorkurs.

Within Chapter One I will also identify the core principles of Ruskin’s “innocent eye,” Froebel’s
simple forms and Pestalozzi’s sensory perception. These were posited within Itten’s original
Vorkurs and contributed to the development of Itten’s methodology where learning by doing,
compositional analysis and innovative expression using universal elements of design were
employed. Lacking the industrialised goals sought by such provocateurs as Theo van Doesburg
(1883–1931), the Bauhaus was scrutinised in 1923 causing Gropius to re‐orientate his ideals
and prioritise technology. This challenge, to the merger Gropius had called for in 1919

5
Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design from Morris to Gropius (New York: The Museum of Modern Art,
1949).
6
Gropius would re orientate his 1919 Bauhaus manifesto in 1923 to integrate technology and denounce craft. He
would also in 1939 write “The Blueprint of an Architects Education” to introduce his proposed teaching methods
at Harvard University in America.
3

propelled the Bauhaus away from the unification of art and craft previously sought, and
towards a concord of art and technology. It had taken only three years for politics and
personalities to play their part in the removal of the perceived subjectivity of the Vorkurs
teachings and for Itten to depart in 1923. Gropius, I will suggest used Itten as a scapegoat,
labelling his ideals as individualistic because they lacked industrialized goals. While unveiling
the subsequent iterations of the Vorkurs, I will argue the course was superficially revamped and
retooled for industry and its new location in Dessau. Although the direction of the Vorkurs had
certainly been re‐orientated towards industrial intent and an increased engagement with both
technology and the workshops, I will argue that future Vorkurs masters Moholy‐Nagy and
Albers used Itten’s fundamental pedagogical methodologies as a basis for their work and
teachings. I will argue that although both men denounced Itten’s pedagogy, the principle ideals
of innocence, essence and individual creativity continued to be emulated and adapted into
their versions of the course. I will assert the continued use of Ruskin’s innocent eye, Froebel’s
simple forms and Pestalozzi’s sensory perception to facilitate the universal visual language into
the workshops and industry. The presence of these tenets in both Moholy‐Nagy and Albers’
Vorkurs proves that although Itten acted as the Vorkurs master for the short period of three
years his ideologies remained, albeit unacknowledged by any and all of his successors.

Internal and external political disruptions continued to play a role in the short and turbulent life
of the Bauhaus. The school was abruptly closed under Nazi rule in 1933. However its masters
and a number of its students had already gained international acknowledgement. This
notoriety would lead a number of Bauhaüsler to accept invitations to teach and work in the
United States. Gropius, Moholy‐Nagy and Albers were among the Bauhaus émigrés to quickly
reconnect on arrival in the United States. Their mutual support for each other’s endeavours
was critical as they found themselves in a wholly different economic climate that suited some
more than others.

In Chapter Two I will traverse the Bauhaus path in the United States where its ideologies and
pedagogical methods were met with varying degrees of optimism and mistrust. All three
Bauhaus disciples endeavoured to establish the principles: Albers at the John Dewey (1859‐
1952) inspired Black Mountain College (North Carolina) and Moholy‐Nagy in Chicago with the
New Bauhaus. Both men were supported by Gropius who was in residence at Harvard. Both
4

Moholy‐Nagy and Albers steadfastly attempted to promote the Bauhaus ideals beyond the
confines of Germany and continued to influence both modernist philosophy and pedagogy.
More importantly both Albers and Moholy‐Nagy continued to address, with varied success, the
elitist hold on art and architecture and the emergent profession of design within both industry
and academia. I will argue Moholy‐Nagy and Albers’ use of interdisciplinary foundation studies,
imbued with Itten’s tenets for the education of a universal visual language, continued to serve
as the platform from which to loosen this elitist grip. However, it would be in the United States
that certain individual and collective ideologies transmuted during the maturation of the
Vorkurs. Albers, although promoting the ‘innocent eye’ as perception not pre‐conception
within his foundation pedagogy, and encouraging the appreciation of all creative endeavours,
did however, confine his work and teaching to that of painting. This specificity, I will argue,
minimised the opportunity he had to influence other disciplines more directly as he was now
perceived by some as only a painter. I will also argue that Albers’ return to painting highlights
the hypocrisy of his attitude toward Itten’s individualism and subjectivity. I will assert that
having reached the prestigious mantle of Professor at Yale University, Albers’ obsession with
new vision and the advanced training of students’ perception of form and space, brings into
question his commitment to an egalitarian educational collective over elitist academia.

Moholy‐Nagy’s efforts in the United States were, in my opinion, the more challenged of these
two particular Vorkurs masters. With the impassioned and consistent support of Gropius, and a
number of U.S industrialists, Moholy‐Nagy held perhaps, the most opportunistic position in the
United States as the founder of the New Bauhaus. The New Bauhaus in Chicago was formatted
on Gropius’ Bauhaus model embracing both interdisciplinary education and the universal visual
language. Industrial design, typography, photography and film formed the collective with,
somewhat questionably, architecture placing itself as a superior course. It was Moholy‐Nagy’s
preoccupation with methodology and experimentation, not economic ascendancy that caused
a number of the industrialists to become impatient, ultimately causing fractures within their
tenuous relationship. Moholy‐Nagy did, in spite of his acrimonious environment make many
strides ahead for both pedagogy and the implementation of industrial design and the
burgeoning graphic and filmic mediums. Moholy‐Nagy’s greatest battle was with the economic
climate in the United States which was principally concerned with a new aesthetic commodity
not a new way of seeing. Industry seemingly cared little for pedagogy or methodology and
5

more for aesthetics and profit. Moholy‐Nagy’s commitment to the Bauhaus ideals was
unquestionable. His untimely death at the age of fifty‐three halted his unrelenting and at times
fanatical efforts; however his second wife Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy (1903‐1971) would ensure the
legacy of his ideologies in her emphatic and polemic writing which included her 1969 book,
Moholy‐Nagy‐An Experiment in Totality.

In the third and final chapter, I explore the trials and tribulations of Walter Gropius’ endeavours
to introduce the universal visual language and interdisciplinary education at Harvard University
– notably into its department of Architecture. It was here, specifically within architectural
education, that I believe Gropius’ contributions to modernist theories, interdisciplinary
education and the universal visual language were most profoundly challenged, principally by
Joseph Hudnut, a man almost ignored in modernist history. Gropius believed in the universal
and felt the attributes of universality and egalitarianism were vital components in bringing art
and architecture to everyone. Hudnut did not agree, believing that architecture only reached
people on an emotional plane by speaking its own language. I will argue that Hudnut
encouraged an elitism that Gropius had always denounced. The battle was played out over the
preliminary course at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design where Gropius vehemently fought
for an interdisciplinary use of the universal visual language.

Gropius’ teachings and works impacted both European and American artistic, design and
architectural pedagogy. It had been a difficult path that had included political, academic and
public struggles. Their cause was challenged by many, but Gropius and his Bauhaus colleagues
introduced more than a generation of practitioners and users to the tools for understanding
both a creative process and its outcomes.

I will conclude this chronicle with a transitory preface to the next generation of disciples and
critics inspired by the teachings of Albers, Moholy‐Nagy and Gropius. Their teachings,
indoctrinated by Itten’s, allowed the students of Bauhaus ideals to become some of the most
formative voices in architectural and design practice, education and critique. I will argue that in
spite of the many difficulties, or perhaps because of them, the Bauhaus pedagogy in both
Europe and America continues to represent a critical benchmark in the history of modern
design education and in the efforts of early modernists to define the universal visual language.
6

As such, that pedagogy continues to offer lessons and provocations for design education in the
twenty‐first century.

7

Chapter One
All Roads Lead to the Bauhaus
1.1 The Emergence of Industrial Aesthetic Theory

In 1885 John Ruskin (1819–1900) wrote: “Students must attain the innocence of the eye, a sort
of childish perception of these flat stains of colour, without consciousness of what they
signify.”7 Ruskin’s belief in the innocent eye valued perception rather than preconception as a
primary tool for creativity. Importantly, Ruskin’s efforts, along with those of Friedrich Froebel
(1782–1852), Johann Pestalozzi (1746–1847), Gottfried Semper (1803‐1879), William Morris
(1834 ‐1896), Herman Muthesius (1861–1927) and Henry van de Velde (1863–1957), provided
a wealth of theoretical and pedagogical ideas for an emerging post‐Industrial Revolution
aesthetic theory and would go on to inform future generations of design educators. Key figures
in the translation and integration of many of these theories are Gropius and Itten within the
Bauhaus pedagogy. It is well documented by Bauhaus historians that the teachings of Ruskin’s
innocent eye and Froebel’s visual language of simple objects served as an embryo in modernist
art education.8 This new language offered architecture and design a universal model and
primary pedagogical vernacular that is still employed in contemporary educational practice.

In order to gain an understanding of the provocations that led to the founding of the Bauhaus
by Gropius and his colleagues in 1919 I will retrace the influences of reformative pedagogical
theories developed and implemented by Pestalozzi, Froebel and Ruskin. It is important in
addition to outline the circumstances existing in Germany prior to and post‐WWI. Having
exposed the cultural influences and triggers I will reveal the beliefs embraced by Bauhaus
masters for their own pedagogical intentions. Of these I will scrutinize the principles of Bauhaus
pedagogy that formed the preliminary course, the Vorkurs, in order to elucidate how these
theories effected the establishment and maturation of a universal visual language. Forming the
basis of my study will be the endeavours of the three principle curators of the Vorkurs, Itten,
Moholy‐Nagy and Albers in conjunction with Gropius. Collectively and individually these men

7
John Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing in Three Lessons to Beginners (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1885). To
gain a more comprehensive understanding of the discourse around the innocent eye read Jonathan Fineberg's
1997 book The Innocent Eye: Children's Art and the Modern Artist.( Princeton University Press)
8
Kazys Varnelis, "The Education of the Innocent Eye," Journal of Architectural Education (1984‐) 51, no. 4 (1998),
214.
8

formed the Bauhaus contingent of pedagogues to offer the most significant and sustained
efforts towards preliminary architectural and design education and the development of a
universal visual language both in Germany and the subsequent transatlantic iterations of the
course.9

I will suggest that after Itten’s resignation in 1923 the Vorkurs was not stripped of all his tenets
to enable engagement with the industrial demands of Gropius’ progressive academy. I will
argue that the principles of innocent perception, learning by doing, scientific and analytical
observation and universal understanding via a common visual language, continued to be
fundamental. As the Bauhaus redefined its aims and tempered idealism with realism within
Moholy‐Nagy and Albers’ adaptations of the course innocent perception remained absolute. I
will argue that the universal language of form that Gropius and his masters laboured to achieve
within the Vorkurs survived principally due to the Bauhaüsler’s pedagogical commitment to
method over result. Although the transatlantic appreciation of European Modernism would be
judged as a Bauhaus style, or the formally defined and codified International Style, these three
particular Bauhaus masters continued to espouse the Bauhaus in the United States as a
methodology not a formulaic aesthetic code. They would each continue to embody the
principles of the Vorkurs. Conceived by Itten, and matured within their own pedagogical
pursuits and challenges both in Germany and the United States they made Bauhaus pedagogy,
in particular the Vorkurs, the most celebrated methodology in art education of modern times.10
I will argue that within their initial pedagogical aims in Weimar and Dessau Gropius, Moholy‐
Nagy and Albers secured the Bauhaus Vorkurs as the preeminent opportunity for cohesion and
solidarity within the pedagogy of creative practice. This standpoint would be either embraced
or challenged within creative pedagogy for several decades to come but it would never be
disregarded or forgotten. As art historian Frank Whitford stated, “Whatever the changing
attitudes towards the Bauhaus its place in the history of virtually everything visual is secure.
The look of the modern environment is unthinkable without it.”11

9
Although both Kandinsky and Klee also taught the preliminary course at the Bauhaus their pedagogy remained
entrenched in drawing and painting and was not included in the American translations adopted by Gropius,
Moholy or Albers.
10
Frank Whitford, Bauhaus (London: Thames and Hudson, 1984), 9.
11
Ibid., 200.Frank Whitford is a senior lecturer in Art History at Homerton College at Cambridge University and is a
well established autor.
9

1.2 The First Intersection of Art, Education and Industry

The Industrial Revolution had brought with it machinery and materials which usurped the
traditional meanings of artist and craftsmen.12 The Great Exhibition of 1851, staged in London’s
Hyde Park, revealed this predicament now facing the civilised world. With it, criticism of the
state of art and craft education began in earnest. Steam and iron stamping made cutting and
fashioning objects faster and more regular than with the human hand. Lower prices and higher
profits became a priority over individuality and craftsmanship. The most articulate opponents
to the new machine age in Britain at this time were John Ruskin and William Morris. German
architect and political refugee Gottfried Semper, who was residing in London at the time of the
Great Exhibition, was also a vocal opponent in relation to the state of art, craft and production.
Whitford discusses in his 1984 book Bauhaus that while the general public were enamoured
with Joseph Paxton’s (1803–1865) creation, a small but significant number of more discerning
citizens were appalled by what the exhibition contained.13 Their concerns included the
imminent demise of craft and all its perceived benefits to humanity. Ruskin and Morris would,
along with Semper, become part of the vanguard to educate both the artist and the layman in
their understanding and appreciation of this new industrialised age. While Morris believed that
there was dishonesty in the mimicking of a craft aesthetic in machine goods, Ruskin was
completely opposed to the use of machines at all. Semper, on the other hand, acknowledged
that technology was irreversible and proposed: “an education for a new kind of craftsman who
would understand and exploit the machine’s potential in an artistically sensitive fashion.”14
Although there is no accreditation afforded to Semper in any of the major Bauhaus writings by
Sigfried Giedion (1888–1968), Pevsner, Rayner Banham (1922–), or Rainer Wick (1944‐), I would
conclude from Semper’s own writings that his ideology was more closely aligned to that of
Gropius and the Bauhaus than either Ruskin’s or Morris’.15

12
Ibid., 13. From the 18th to the 19th century major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining,
transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times.
13
Ibid. Joseph Paxton, a self taught engineer had designed the Crystal Palace.It was a vast exhibition hall
constructed of prefabricated steel and sheets of glass containing exhibits from all around the world.
14
Ibid., 16.
15
Semper’s 1851 writings include “The Four Elements of Architecture” and “Science Industry and Art.”
10

1.3 Reformative Education on the Development of a Visual Language

Educational reform had been gaining momentum in Europe since the late eighteenth century. It
is generally recognised that the educational transformations espoused by Ruskin and his fellow
reformists owed a philosophic debt to Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), Pestalozzi and
Froebel.16 Pestalozzi, inspired by philosopher Rousseau’s book on alternative education and
enlightenment, Émile, believed that teaching the simple elements of the laws of form united
with sensorial learning would achieve harmony and knowledge for a society struggling with
many reformations. Drawing had been a central component of educational reform ever since
the publication in 1803 of Pestalozzi’s co‐authored book ABC’s of Anschauung.17 This book
distinguished “pedagogical drawing” from elitist drawing taught in the academies. Pestalozzi’s
drawing method was based on a desire to create a reductive graphic code or an alphabet for
drawing where “the square was the foundation of all forms. The repertoire of forms was based
on a sparse grammar of straight lines, diagonals and curves.”18 This premise of “main forms”
was introduced to elucidate an understanding and express “the abstracted essence of physical
objects.”19 Heavily influenced by Pestalozzi, Froebel also adopted pedagogical drawing to
encourage dexterity and analytical skills. Froebel introduced a drawing grid to enable students
to reduce the complexity of the visual world. These drawing exercises supported Froebel’s
theory surrounding the isolation of fundamental and constructive elements that we have come
to know as Froebel’s gifts.20 Art curator Ellen Lupton and designer J. Abbott Miller assert that
the popularity of this methodology and the use of the gifts created a pervasive, universal
“visual language of elementary forms and basic colours and the program at the Bauhaus attests
to its impact.”21 Froebel’s introduction of the learning at play theory, which still holds validity
in contemporary early childhood education worldwide, added a sense of spiritual unity to
Pestalozzi’s tenets. Froebel believed that the teaching of Pestalozzi’s visual language of simple

16
Henry P. Raleigh, "Johannes Itten and the Background of Modern Art Education," Art Journal 27, no. 3 (1968),
284.
17
Ellen Lupton and J.Abbott Miller, eds., The ABC's of ΔΟ□.The Bauhaus and Design Theory (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, Inc, 1991), 6. Anschauung is a German noun meaning to see or percieve.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid. Pestallozzi's colleague Ramsauer's wrotethe book "Drawing Tutor" that was seen as an extension of these
ideals
20
Ibid., 8. Froebel developed his "Gifts and Occupations" between 1835 and 1850. Froebel believed this
vocabulary of forms would become rich enough to enable representations of the world around us.
21
Lupton is the art curator at the Cooper‐Union Art Museum in New York and Miller is a partner in the graphic
design company Pentagram also in New York. Ibid., 18. Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kandinsky and Klee were
all educated under Froebel theories.
11

objects, coupled with haptic awareness and visual knowledge, was a far superior pedagogical
approach to the existing rote styled schooling. Froebel and Itten shared a particularly profound
link between their ideologies due predominantly to a belief in spirituality that both espoused as
part of the methodology. Additionally, within both Ruskin’s teachings and those of Froebel and
Itten that followed, it becomes clear that the position of the educator has altered considerably.
The educator is now, most importantly, a facilitator or guide in a student’s quest towards a
unity of head, heart and hands, not a leader to be followed or mimicked.22

With education no longer only a quest for the noble, and a newly emergent middle class now
requiring and demanding education, new pedagogical approaches were needed. Inspired by
Pestalozzi and Froebel, and considered highly influential for his clear analysis and viewpoints on
a changing industrialised world development, Ruskin’s enhancement of their theories was seen
by many as fundamental to the well‐being of the new industrialised society. Described by Wick
as “a fiery critic of industrial production,” Ruskin believed, along with Morris, that the machine
had no soul and would render man soulless.23 Whitford summarises both Ruskin and Morris’
concerns by stating: “It robbed the craftsman of the joy in work well done and denied the
public the life‐enhancing pleasure of living in an environment that had been shaped with both
skill and love.”24Ruskin’s concerns for society and his beliefs towards honesty of work and
creativity were borne out of a mistrust of industrialisation and these concerns spilled over into
his pedagogical reforms. Ruskin asserted that the transparency of tabula rasa gifted to children
had been displaced by societal conventions and emphasised that this childlike innocence was
critical in order to embrace new theories. Ruskin insisted that: “We see what we only know and
have hardly any consciousness of the real aspect of the signs we have learned to interpret.”25
The innocence of eye was to become a fundamental component of Bauhaus teaching within
the preliminary course and I will argue that it served as a primary link to the teaching of a
universal visual language.

22
Raleigh, "Johannes Itten and the Background of Modern Art Education," 285. This guiding role of the educator,
or master as they would become known in the Bauhaus would be challenged after both Itten and Gropius left by
Mies van der Rohe who saw the teacher indeed as a master, one to be followed.
23
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 17.
24
Whitford, Bauhaus, 16.
25
Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing in Three Lessons to Beginners, 22. Ruskin also asserted that highly
accomplished artists had always reduced themselves as nearly as possible to infantile sight.
12

Alternatively, Morris was to try to resuscitate the use of traditional crafts through a belief in
the communal efforts of the medieval guilds of the middle ages. Artists such as Morris learned
their trades from the ground up as apprentices and believed workers gained a pleasure of
labour from their toils. They argued that the machine and mass production would eliminate
this. Like Ruskin, Morris believed a sick society would emerge from the industrialised world.
Unfortunately, Morris’ oath to the handicrafts meant that only expensive goods could be
produced and the ideal of affordable handcrafted goods became untenable. Morris sadly
acknowledged that his aims could ultimately only serve the “obscene luxury of the rich.”26
Nevertheless, according to the significant writings of Wick, Pevsner, Giedion, Franciscono and
Banham we cannot deny Morris his significant influence on the Arts and Crafts Movement in
England and his influence on craft revival, socialist politics and ultimately Gropius’ goals for the
Bauhaus.

In 1850 Semper, a political refugee, travelled from Paris to London where his commissions
included designs for the Canadian, Danish, Swedish, and Ottoman sections of the 1851
Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. London proved to be a fertile ground for Semper’s theoretical,
creative and academic development. His writings offered recommendations for drastic changes
in art education and the rectification of public taste.27 Commenting on the exhibits within the
Great Exhibition Semper argued: “The purpose of the product is seldom manifested artistically,
except in the trimmings and the material has to be violated before the intent of the artist is
even partly fulfilled.”28 Semper held a more inclusive approach to industrial and technological
development than either Ruskin or Morris. With his writings well received he was fortunate
enough to gain the sympathetic ear of Henry Cole (1808–1882), the director of the South
Kensington Museum and adjacent School of Art, now renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum
and the Royal College of Art. Cole like Semper had assisted in the organisation of the Great
Exhibition and been disappointed by the results of the exhibitors’ efforts and widely articulated
his criticism of the goods displayed. Both men considered that the only lasting solution to the

26
Gert Selle, Ideologie und Utopie des Design (Cologne: DuMont Schauberg, 1973),33.
27
Henry P.Raleigh, "Johannes Itten and the Background of Modern Art Education " Art Journal 27, no. 3 (1968),
284. Like Semper’s book The Four Elements of Architecture published in 1851 the Bauhaus too explained the
origins of architecture through natural and social sciences breaking the discipline into four categories; ceramic,
weaving, woodwork & stone masonry.
28
Gottfried Semper, Science, Industry and Art (1852), trans. Harry Mallgrave and Wolfgang Hermann (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989).
13

problems posed by industrialisation was education. Together, they argued that the
establishment of craft museums would play as important a role as the establishment of schools
of art and crafts. This solution would also encompass the ever expanding and demanding
populace.29 Their arguments met with little resistance in England and Europe, and craft
museums and reformative arts and crafts education were widely established. Unfortunately,
according to Whitford, it was society that failed to accept that craft was anything other than a
poor relation to art. Whitford argues that fine arts academies continued to educate their
students in the ways of the old masters, believing that they alone enshrined the ultimate
artistic values. He asserts that both Cole and Semper believed reform in art education would
need to begin with an attack on elitist academies. 30 The division is apparent when Pevsner
states in his polemical book Pioneers of Modern Design: From Morris to Gropius that: “During
the Renaissance artists had first learned to consider themselves superior beings, bearers of the
great message. Leonardo da Vinci wanted the artist to be a scientist and a humanist, but by no
means a craftsman.”31 Semper’s pedagogical efforts in Vienna during the 1860s and 1870s to
establish preparatory classes and interdisciplinary education of architecture, painting and
drawing had established him in the eyes of his contemporaries as an authority and positioned
his ideals both philosophically and geographically to influence both Gropius and Itten more
significantly than recorded.32

Within my research I have noted that in the many historical writings on the Bauhaus, with the
exception of Gillian Naylor’s 1985 Bauhaus Reassessed, Semper is either passed over or given
minimal acknowledgement as an instigator of Bauhaus ideology.33 Wick minimises Semper’s
singular pioneering efforts by describing him as only: “among the first to draw attention to the
critical points of design of forms and products.”34 Although Semper’s writings were included in
Wick’s 1965 series Neue Bauhausbücher Wick again accredits Semper as having only: “In

29
30
Ibid. For more discussion on the elitist debate see Christopher Frayling's 2011 "Craftmanship toward a new
Bauhaus." Oberon Books, London.
31
Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design from Morris to Gropius, 8.
32
Semper, Science, Industry and Art (1852), 118.Wilhelm Mrazek wrote a review of Semper's work that was
included in the 1966 edition of this book
33
Gillian Naylor, The Bauhaus Reassessed.Sources and Design Theory (New York: E.P Dutton, 1985), 33. Naylor
makes a direct connection between Semper and the industrial and pedagogical tenets of turn of the century
German art education, the Werkbunds but falls short of aligning them directly to Gropius and the Bauhaus
34
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 17. Later in this book Wick again discusses Semper in the establishment of
interdisciplinary education and preliminary education but abruptly and rather unconvincingly disconnects Semper
from Itten.
14

certain respects, acted as a forerunner of the Bauhaus ideology.”35 Pevsner literally mentions
Semper’s name twice, and only in passing, in his entire book on the path towards modernism.36
I would argue that Semper’s role as a direct influence on the pedagogy and the methodology of
both Gropius and Itten to unite arts and crafts is linked more substantially than history, or
Gropius himself, has acknowledged. This omission is interesting when we consider in Chapter
Three the additional side‐lining of another major contributor to modernism, and one who could
also be seen as a threat to the perception of Gropius’ achievements, Joseph Hudnut.

1.4 The Influence of the Werkbund on Bauhaus Ideals

In Gropius’ 1924 essay “Concept and Development of the State Bauhaus,” he acknowledged a
debt to Ruskin and Morris in England, van de Velde in Belgium, Olbrich, Behrens and others in
Germany and finally the German Werkbund who he considered trailblazers and who had all in
Gropius’ opinion: “consciously sought and found the first ways to the reunification of the world
of work with the creative artists.”37

An historical appreciation of the word, unified, and the importance of the ideals behind such a
word are imperative to understanding Germany’s post WWI cultural agenda. In the 1870s,
under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, the Prime Minister of Prussia, Germany had
emerged as a unified nation and world power and set about establishing itself as a distinct and
undivided entity. By 1910 Swiss born Jean‐Édouard Jeanneret, the young le Corbusier (1887‐
1965) had been commissioned by the French Art Academy la Chaux‐de‐Fonds to investigate
Germany’s ascendance.38 His study, Étude sur la movement d’art décorative en Allemagne
examined Germany’s threat to other European efforts towards progressive art and
architecture. The young le Corbusier questioned: “Among the great powers, Germany plays an
essentially active role in the realm of applied arts. What are the factors that give Germany her
strength? What are the workings of this astounding organism?”39 Editors Kries and Anderson

35
J.P Hodin, "Neue Bauhausbücher," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 26, no. 1 (1967), 133.
36
Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design from Morris to Gropius It should be noted that Giedion's writings on
Gropius and the modernist movement have been widely criticised retrospectively as being rather one‐eyed.
37
38
Mateo Kries and Alex T Anderson, Le Corbusier A Study of the Decorative Art Movement in Germany, ed. Mateo
Kries and Alexander von Vegesack, trans. Alex T Anderson (Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Stiftung gGmbH 2008).
Jeanneret adopted the pseudonym le Corbusier in 1920.
39
Ibid., 101.
15

outline in the prologue to le Corbusier’s book the organisational support and financial backing
that had made the German decorative and applied arts movement commercially very effective.
Through this pecuniary support, education and a vibrant industrial sector Germany grew in
political and economic success. The economic boom allowed the Austrians and the Germans to
make up the principle contingent of the vanguard leading the race to produce original ideas
and practical solutions to the quandary surrounding the education of art, craft, design, and
(due to new urban and housing concerns) architecture. By the early twentieth century Germany
had secured a leading international role. 40

German architect Hermann Muthesius was also commissioned by his government to study
abroad. Undertaken in England, his study preceded le Corbusier’s by some ten years and he
would serve to be as profound in his views as le Corbusier. Inspired by the sobriety and
functionalism displayed in English domestic architecture Muthesius wanted objects to express
the quality of the materials from which they were made. He argued that objects should be
devoid of unnecessary ornament and be affordable to the masses.41 Naylor references
Muthesius with a touch of light‐heartedness, stating that: “in fact Muthesius only seemed to
feel really at ease in the English bathroom, where he found a completely new sort of beauty ...
the beauty of practical purpose.”42 On his return to Germany and in his new position as the
Superintendent of the Prussian Board of Trade, Muthesius convinced architects Peter Behrens
(1868‐1940) and Bruno Paul (1874–1968) to head art schools in major German cities. Behrens,
in particular reorganised the curricula in an attempt to reconcile traditional craftsmanship with
mechanisation. Muthesius’s efforts to persuade German industrialists to encourage good
design were as important as Behrens and Paul’s educational endeavours. In 1907 Muthesius
successfully united twelve artists and twelve industrialists forming the first Werkbund. The
introduction of art education through Werkbunds in Germany offered, in principle, a unification
of artists, manufacturers and industrial enterprises.43

The Deutsche Werkbund (1907‐1933) represented itself as a movement, not of luxuriant
extravagance, like its immediate predecessors the Romantics and Jugendstil, but suited to

40
Ibid.
41
Whitford, Bauhaus, 20. In 1896 Muthesius was posted to England by the German government to study and
report on town planning and houses and from this came his important book "Das English Haus" in 1904.
42
Naylor, The Bauhaus Reassessed.Sources and Design Theory, 37.
43
16

middle class culture which now increasingly defined modern society.44 Ultimately le Corbusier’s
study would identify the Deutsche Werkbund as the ‘astounding organism’ that gave Germany
this unanticipated position. Le Corbusier noted:

Now here is an aspect of something new and unexpected. Germany positions
itself as a champion of modernism, creating nothing in the domain of fine arts
to prove itself so, but on the other hand, revealing itself almost without
warning to be colossal in power, in determining and achieving in the domain
of the applied arts.45

Muthesius described the Deutsche Werkbund as “an alliance of the most intimate enemies”
because the opinions and beliefs of its members were extraordinarily broad.46 Unfortunately,
the alliance under the directorship of Muthesius became more of a dictatorship than a unified
proposition. This unease led to heated discussions and debates among members, none more
significant than the Werkbund Debate in Cologne 1914. Although the Werkbund members
agreed fundamentally on the reformation of aesthetic and social concerns, the conflict
between free artistic expression as espoused by Gropius’ mentor Henry van de Velde (1863–
1957) and the standardisation of machine‐made products argued by Muthesius would not find
resolution before the outbreak of WWI.47 It was from this debate that the question which
pervaded the entire history of the Bauhaus materialized, specifically the conflict between free
artistic self‐expression and the search for a language of form that would accommodate the
requirements of mass production.

1.5 The Influence of a Post‐WWI Germany on Bauhaus Ideals

It is perhaps enough to state that Germany’s efforts in WWI cost the Empire its advanced
position in the emerging art curriculum and the unification of art and industry. Consequently,

44
Kries and Anderson, Le Corbusier A Study of the Decorative Art Movement in Germany. The Deutsche Werkbund,
was abrupty closed in 1933 by the National Socialist party but did reopen in Germany in 1947.
45
Ibid., 101.
46
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 24. Muthesuis believed within the broad spectrum of ideas advanced creativity
and solutions would emege.
47
Whitford, Bauhaus, 36. Van de Velde’s rhetoric and aesthetic standpoint was totally different from that of
Ruskin and Morris. But, in contrast his ideals of solidarity with the trades and art revival via handicrafts were
completely sympathetic to that of his predecessor's.
17

post‐WWI, a primary directive for Germany was to bring itself back to the forefront of design.
In Germany the Bauhaus’ efforts to achieve this superiority and influence over other
industrialised nations were to employ a modus operandi to unify the arts and close the gulf that
existed between art and industry.48 Alongside the continued tensions within the world of art,
craft and industry other new political conflicts had been percolating in Germany. The defeat
and the abdication of the Kaiser left the country in chaos. Political jostling and hostility, coupled
with the outcome of WWI, had cost the Empire immensely. Germany faced crippling debt,
reparation payments, unemployment, lack of raw materials and limited imported goods. In
August of 1919, the National Assembly chose to convene in the city of Weimar in order to
write, adopt and sign the new National Constitution for the German Reich, and hopefully avoid
more fighting and turmoil. The year 1919 was inauspicious for the founding of anything in
Germany, let alone a radical art school. Weimar, described by Whitford as a rather austere
location, had managed to remain fairly removed from political conflict. With a population of
only forty thousand and almost no industry the small town’s aptness for radical and creative
thought seemed untenable. The lack of financial and political security experienced over the
next six years, during Gropius’ pedagogical endeavours, are testament to the school and the
city’s precarious relationship. Although the Bauhaus under Gropius would not remain in
Weimar beyond 1925, this period of liberal democracy created by the constitution in Germany
proved to also be short‐lived, lasting only till the early 1930s. Wick summarises the situation
succinctly: “The Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 and closed in 1933 under
pressure from the National Socialists. The beginning and the end of its existence coincided with
the dates of the Weimar Republic.”49

1.6 The Changes to Gropius’ Ideologies Post‐WWI and Pre‐1923

During this period Gropius’ thoughts and ideals shifted; the causes of these amendments were
just as interesting as the changes. Historian Marcel Franciscono describes Gropius’ change in
proclamations from pre‐WWI to the 1919 manifesto and onto the 1922 expression of the
Bauhaus ideals as nothing short of astonishingly and strikingly different in both style and

48
49
Ibid., 15. Cultural historian Barbara Miller Lane’s 1985 book " Architecture and Politics in Germany" is considered
one of the most comprehensive and detailed examinations of the social and political ideas during the Weimar
period.
18

content.50 Even Pevsner, an acknowledged supporter of Gropius, questioned the
transformation. “It is all very weird ... the Gropius of Fagus starting an Expressionist guild.”51
Gropius was born into an architectural family and studied architecture in both Munich and
Berlin. Qualified in 1907, he joined Behrens’ Berlin practice where Behrens’ appointment as
chief designer for AEG had just been confirmed. Within three years Gropius had left to establish
his own practice, and secured the Fagus factory commission in 1911, which he would design
with his partner Adolf Meyer (1881–1929).52 Gropius’ success with the Fagus factory is well
documented and of the plethora of compliments surrounding this work Whitford sums it up
accurately as: “startlingly ahead of its time, especially due to novel use of steel and glass.”53
Links between Gropius’ writings and the Deutsche Werkbunds, and his associations with van de
Velde and Behrens, have generated certain assumptions about Gropius’ pre‐WWI beliefs. Again
in collaboration with Meyer, who would remain Gropius’ partner for many years, Gropius
would design a small model factory for the 1914 Cologne Exhibition. It was here at the
Exhibition that Gropius would ally himself to van de Velde in the famous 1914 Cologne Debate.
Gropius in doing so had now clearly asserted his belief that the artist’s free expression and
reformative pedagogy was the answer to a unity between art, craft and industry. Behrens had,
by example, introduced Gropius to the dogma that would drive him towards the founding of
the Bauhaus and many of the principles Gropius and his contemporaries would teach there.54
But within weeks of the opening of the 1914 exhibition war broke out and Gropius, now
married to Alma Mahler and a father to Manon, his first and only biological daughter, was
called to war.55 Little is known about his war service but much is attributed to it.56 Whitford
explains that mentally and physically scarred by the war, Gropius, by this stage considered a

50
Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of Bauhaus in Weimar: The Ideals and the Artistic Theories of its
Founding Years, 13.
51
Nikolaus Pevsner, "Gropius and van de Velde," Architectural Review 133(1963), 167. Pevsner's writings have in
retrospect been seen as rather biased but perhaps out of characher Pevsner states the obvious truth without a pro
Gropius slant.
52
Whitford, Bauhaus, 33 ‐35. It is noteworthy that from the outset of Gropius' career he maintained a
collaborator‐interpretor in all his architectural works as Gropius could not draw. It is rumoured that Gropius,while
attending school, employed an assistant to do his homework.
53
Ibid., 33.
54
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 22. Behrens believed that rich ornament was not acceptable on machine made
forms. He favoured clear proportional relationships of individual components.
55
Gropius and his first wife Alma, described as a "muse to genius" secretly married and had Manon. James Reidel,
"Letters to an Angel," Journal of the Society of Archiectural Historians 69, no. 1 (2010), 88. The relationship
between father and daughter was severley impaired by his divorce from Alma. Gropius was determined Manon
would share in his legacy and the letters he wrote her attest to this. Manon died aged 19 from polio.
56
Whitford, Bauhaus, 36. Gropius was at the Somme in 1917. Badly wounded he was awarded the Iron Cross twice
and demobilised in 1918.
19

Werkbund leader, in a 1919 speech given in Leipzig surprisingly condemned: “the dangerous
worship of might and the machine which led us over the spiritual and economic abyss.”57 I
would assert that these are not the words of a man ready to lead the way towards the
assimilation of industrialisation, art and social reform. Gropius, ever the socialist, argued: “the
true task of the socialist state is to exterminate this evil demon of commercialism.”58

For reasons unclear even to those who have studied Gropius in depth, his 1919 Bauhaus
manifesto was, described by Whitford as: “vague, ecstatic and utopian and draws upon neither
Behrens nor van de Velde.”59 Whitford has offered some insight to Gropius’ curious behaviour.
He suggests that Gropius’ actions were politically astute in a time when the world of art was
very confused. He asserts Gropius may not have denounced the machine in totality as
suggested. The perceived understanding of Expressionism as a vehicle for social change and
revolution, he argues, would assist Gropius’ pre‐WWI goals, allowing them to quietly mature,
develop and gain political alliances within Germany’s fragile political environment.60 Alexander
Dorner’s contribution to Bauhaus 1919–1928 supports this position stating: “No one would
have prophesised success for Gropius. At the very start he stood firm against relentless
opposition and the economic difficulties and struggled to develop the right program within the
Bauhaus itself.”61 Whitford posits that Gropius hoped his school would become a source of
social change through art aiming to directly involve creative people in the forging of a new
social order. In Gropius’ own words: “Art and the people must form a unity.”62 The 1919
manifesto read:

Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions
that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artist! Let us desire,
conceive and create the new building of the future together. It will combine
architecture, sculpture and painting in a single form and will one day rise

57
Ibid., 37. Gropius arrived at the Bauhaus a highly political creature. He soon became the chairman for the left
wing group Working Soviet for Art whose aim was to engage creative people in the forming of a new social order.
58
Ibid., 38. Wick references here a series of essays Gropius had written for the Arbeitstrat publications produced
by the Arbeitstrat fur Kunst (Working Soviet for Art)
59
Ibid., 26.
60
Ibid.
61
Herbert Bayer, Walter Gropius, and Ise Gropius, eds., Bauhaus 1919 ‐1928 (New York The Museum of Modern
Art, 1938).
62
20

towards the heavens from the hands of a million workers as a crystalline
symbol of a new and coming faith.63

In pedestrian terms, Gropius’ new school was an amalgamation of the Weimar Academy of Fine
Art and the Kunstgewerbeschule, the School of Arts and Crafts, led by van de Velde. But
historically the accolades are more florid and describe the merger as: “one of the most
significant and consequential cultural initiatives of the twentieth century.” Franciscono is in
obvious agreement and states that the Bauhaus was: “the most famous experiment in art
education of the modern era.”64 Dorner, in his contribution to the 1938 MoMA exhibition book,
rather flippantly and favourably toward Gropius, disregarded the first few years of Gropius’
Bauhaus saying: “considering what the Bauhaus eventually became it is astonishing to realize it
ever had anything to do with Expressionism,” and added that: “Fortunately, the first and
difficult stage of the development was over fairly quickly.”65 I would suggest that although this
period was over fairly quickly, the contributions made by the forward guard of artists
assembled by Gropius as Bauhaus masters have fortunately, not been overlooked.

Having elucidated the emergence of an aesthetic education impacted by the influences of
Pestalozzi, Froebel and Ruskin’s pedagogical theories and discussed the cultural influences,
triggers and circumstances that existed in Germany prior to WWI I have revealed the
provocations that led to the formation of Gropius’ Bauhaus in 1919. These influences and
circumstances continue to play a vital role in the understanding of this pedagogy and the
shared principles that would play an implicit role in the establishment and maturation of a
universal visual language by Gropius and his colleagues to be explored in the next chapter.

63
Walter Gropius, "Bauhaus Manifesto and Program," ed. The Staatliche Bauhaus (Weimar: The Bauhaus 1919), 1.
64
Founding Years, 843.
65
Bayer, Gropius, and Gropius, Bauhaus 1919 ‐1928, 13. Given that Gropius was a contributing editor to this
publication a ceratin bias is acknowledged.
21

Figure 1: Walter Gropius, Founder and Director of the Bauhaus 1919‐1923

22

Chapter Two
The Establishment of a Shared Visual Language of
Form and Space at the Bauhaus
2.1 The Forward Guard of Bauhaus Masters

Gerhard Marcks (1889–1981) along with Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956) and Itten were the first
three Bauhaus Masters of Form. Of these first masters, two were painters and one a sculptor.
All had connections to the Expressionist aligned Berlin gallery, Der Sturm. Of greatest
importance in this study is Itten who as the instigator of the preliminary course, the Vorkurs,
takes a central and pivotal role in the establishment and dissemination of the Bauhaus tenets
and the universal visual language.

Figure 2: Logo for the Bauhaus Weimar 1922 designed by Bauhaus master Oskar Schlemmer to
symbolise ‘A New Man,’ who was to be educated

At the outset, Gropius and Itten both believed that the craftsperson was the true artist and that
everyone must learn by starting anew. For a number of reasons, the principle one being
Gropius’ about‐face in his ideals for the school in 1923, this accord between Gropius and Itten
did not last for long.66 However Itten’s impact in the history of design education far exceeds the
brevity of his engagement at the Bauhaus. Franciscono asserted: “In almost every way, in force

66
Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1999), 120.
Itten's popularity with the students and cult‐like status within the Bauhaus has been recorded by historians,
Bauhaus students and masters alike, along with the extreme jealously this brought out in Gropius.
23

of personality, his influence on the course of the Bauhaus, the extent of his responsibilities, the
dominant figure in the Bauhaus until 1922 was unquestionably Johannes Itten.”67

Itten had come to Gropius’ attention while teaching in Vienna. He was a respected contributor
in pioneering abstract art and a graduate of Adolf Hölzel at the Academy of Art.68 Swiss‐born
Itten had himself been educated under the Pestalozzi and Froebel principles as a child, and now
as a teacher, embraced these tenets and those he had encountered under the teachings of
Hölzel.69 Itten believed whole‐heartedly in the theories in which both Pestalozzi and Froebel
advocated learning to see anew. He encouraged Ruskin’s theory of the innocent eye and
Pestalozzi’s unconditional respect for the individuality of the student. Itten asserted “Every
student arrives encumbered with a mass of accumulated information which he must abandon
before he can achieve perception and knowledge that is really his own.”70 Itten saw himself as
a guide to enlightenment, a new vision. German artist, Lother Schreyer (1886–1966) stated:
“Itten knew with certainty that his insight was an event of global significance in the teaching of
art.”71

Figure 3: Johannes Itten Vorkurs Master 1919‐1923

67
Founding Years, 173.
68
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 92. Gropius met Itten in Vienna through his wife Alma Mahler‐ Gropius. Gropius
had been impressed by his theory on education and immediately invited him to teach at the Bauhaus.
69
Philipp Oswalt, ed. Bauhaus Conflicts 1919 ‐ 2009 (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2009), 36. In 1905 Hölzel's
painting began moving toward abstraction, reflecting his interest in such principles as the golden section and
Goethe's Theory of Colours.Among the so‐called "Hölzel circle" of students were both Baushausler Schlemmer and
Itten.
70
Henry P Raleigh, "Johannes Itten and the Background of Modern Art Education," Art Journal 27, no. 3 (1968).
Itten was also influenced by Franz Cizek (1865‐ 1946) who rejected formal education in favour of individual
creativity and confidence.
71
Whitford, Bauhaus,51. Whitford also discribes Itten as a teacher of unconventional brilliance and a mix between
a saint and a charlatan.
24

2.2 The Vorkurs under Itten

The unification of Ruskin’s ‘innocent eye’ and the innovative educational theories of Pestalozzi
and Froebel came together in Itten’s Vorkurs, which is referred to repeatedly by historians as
the backbone to Bauhaus pedagogy. Rayner Banham commented that the Vorkurs achieved
such fame that: “it has come to be regarded as the essence, even the entirety, of the Bauhaus
method.”72 It is within the preliminary course under Itten’s tutelage that the private languages
used at the time by the masters were transformed into a single language to be shared across
the workshop structure of the Bauhaus. A major component in the Bauhaus legacy is the
attempt made by a number of masters to identify a universal language of vision, a code of
abstract forms that addresses us directly, devoid of cultural or historic conditioned knowledge.
I will argue that Itten’s Vorkurs provided the foundations for a universal visual language and
outlined the pedagogical tenets that allowed the development of such a language in an
advancing industrialised age.

In retrospect the Vorkurs has been viewed as highly influential. Interestingly, although the
popularity of Itten and his course amongst students and teachers alike was obvious during his
tenure, strangely he would find he was no longer welcome within the school beyond 1923 after
Gropius re‐orientated the Bauhaus’ manifesto to embrace industry. Although Itten has been
excluded from any acknowledgement by Gropius of his profound impact on the Vorkurs, many
fundamental ideals from Itten’s Vorkurs would remain within Bauhaus pedagogy throughout
the multiple changes and variations of both master and locale. I will argue that all versions of
the Vorkurs whether considered expressionist, integrated or modernist contained the
fundamental principles outlined by Itten.73 I will also argue that it was the inclusive and holistic
nature of Itten’s pedagogy that led to the successful development of a universal visual language
which straddled both subjective and objective design philosophies, making it as relevant today
as it has been at any other time in architectural and design pedagogy.

72
Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (London: The Architectural Press, 1960), 278.
73
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus. Wick notes that Gropius shamelessly omited to ever publish or exhibit examples
of Vorkurs students works from 1919‐1923 under Itten's name and only referes to them as spreliminary course
works with no reference to Itten.
25

Figure 4: A Diagram of Gropius’ Bauhaus teaching programme Weimar 1919

2.3 The Foundations of a Universal Visual Language

The Vorkurs, under Itten, offered the liberation of a student’s creative power. A critical analysis
of works by old masters generated an understanding of nature’s materials and an introduction
to the basic principles that underline all creative activity within the visual arts. Feeling and
thinking, intuition and intellect, expression and construction were the contrasting poles that
defined Itten’s work. With a belief in spiritual truth also playing a large part in Itten’s pedagogy,
the elements of spirituality, personal health and meditation were encouraged in the Vorkurs in
addition to practical components.74 Itten sought to uncover the origins of visual language using
Froebel’s educational blocks and Pestalozzi’s basic geometries, pure colours and the use of
abstraction. Itten contended that within the use of expressive pictorial composition:
“Geometric forms and the colours of the spectrum are the simplest and most sensitive and thus
the most powerful and delicate means to represent an expressive example of form.”75 I will
argue that Itten’s methodology within the Vorkurs would lay the pathway for individual
exploration and analysis of one’s self, nature and the world of artistic creativity within the
guidelines of a collective. This was done to produce not a common result or style but a
common understanding via the establishment of a universal visual language.

74
Ibid., 120. Mazdanan is based on the ancient Pursian religion of Zarathustra. Substitute religions increased in
popularity after WWI in Europe by offering inner tranquility as an escape from despair and encouraged the
preservation and development of the self.
75
Willy Rotzler, Johannes Itten: Werke und Schriften (Zurich: Orell Fussli, 1978), 169.
26

2.4 Creativity Though Spirituality, Individuality and Holistic Teaching

Froebel’s references to both mystic and divine energies emanating from within the student
were encapsulated in the Vorkurs when Itten became the guide through “the intricates of two
and three dimensional space.”76 I would argue that the fundamental idea of an instructor as a
guide, whether they are spiritual, philosophical, intellectual or practical as opposed to a leader,
one to be mimicked, sets out the first and most important tenet of Bauhaus ideology, that of
individual exploration via method. Itten’s spirituality was, in my opinion, intrinsic to his belief
system and also an adroit means by which a system of guidance and exploration could be
integrated into education. Spiritualties popular at this time endorsed individual appreciation
and experience within holistic guidelines which again supports the ideal of method over a
mimicked and singular result. Ruskin’s and Morris’ endeavours towards holistic education were
encapsulated in the Vorkurs via individual spirituality and guidance. In the Bauhaus workshops,
learning was by doing under guidance not instruction.

Pestalozzi believed the way to liberate creative powers was by cultivating a student’s own
powers of seeing, judging and reasoning and to encourage individual analysis. With Itten as
their guide students were asked to confront not only problems of colour and form but most
importantly to confront their selves. The validation of abilities and creative power within each
student was not only gained through the spiritual attributes of Itten’s course but also the
unconditional respect Itten afforded the individuality of each student. Itten would encourage
each student’s to rip open the lemon from the still life and taste the vitality of its flesh so as to
express the essence of the lemon from their own individual experience. Itten said of his
preliminary course: “My goal is to awaken in people the feeling for the essence of things.”77

In the Vorkurs, each class began with gymnastics. In Itten’s eyes this enabled the body to
awaken. Harmonization exercises were then introduced to encourage inner balance. The
exercises then led to the drawing of rhythmic form. Within Itten’s theories form was never

76
Raleigh, "Johannes Itten and the Background of Modern Art Education," 286.
77
27

considered in isolation. Form and colour were regarded as one.78 In 1916 Itten wrote “Form is
also colour. Without colour there is no form. Form and colour are one.”79 Students were to
restrict their studies to basic shapes and hues where contrasts and tensions were considered
central to Itten’s methodology. Itten’s theory of colour and form led him to design not a colour
wheel but a colour sphere where the use of form allowed the expression of relationships
between colours. The quality of these relationships was not only optical but emotional, and
Itten believed that when they were combined with the physicality of movement the students
were able to live and feel the colours and forms within space.80 It is my opinion that it was
Itten’s holistic translation of form and colour within space that allowed his pedagogy to
establish itself as interdisciplinary and universal thereby enabling it to retain validity when
transposed into the many educational paradigms that were to eventuate after his departure
from the Bauhaus.

Figure 5: Itten’s colour sphere with bands in space 1919‐19202.5 The Contrasting Poles

78
Whitford, Bauhaus, 106. Following Hoslzel Itten had taken seven distinct types of colour contrast. For example
light and dark,warm and cold and also quality and quantity the relationships between the contrasts was to be
measured for effect and to produce form.
79
Ibid. These theories would later be extended by Albers in his seminal work Homage to the Square where colour
contrasts are used to allow a perception of form and space.
80
Ibid., 107. Kandinsky and Klee, chose not to embrace three dimensions or engage with disciplines beyond
drawing or painting and for this reason their pedagogical input to the Vorkurs will not be elucidated in this study.
28

Itten’s belief in contrasting poles allowed his pedagogical theories to oscillate between
personal expression and formal analysis. Within the nature studies, personal expression was
paramount. Itten wanted his students to engage in individual investigations involving sensory
explorations in order to discover the essence of materials via Ruskin’s principle of the innocent
eye. By his own account, Itten set himself three tasks for the preliminary course, to liberate
creative forces, in which the student’s own experiences and perceptions were to result in
genuine work and for the student to rid themselves of dead wood.”81 It was in these exercises
that materials would be stripped of outer shells or surfaces to expose nature’s structures and
order. The juxtaposition of one material with another elucidated extremes of contrast thereby
illuminating new and individual ways of seeing via a common methodology. In contrast the
formal analysis of works by the old masters encouraged the student to find artistic order and
structure, eliminating decoration to enable the definition of the basic principles of design.
While scrutinising the works of the old masters, observations included the balance, repetition,
hierarchy, rhythm, symmetry and asymmetry as ways to understand and as tools for creating
pictorial information. By using these tools to simplify complex representational works into
simple geometric forms and colour combinations students would expose the work’s structure
and intent. These exercises clearly established a common language of composition within
Itten’s pedagogy. I argue that by defining and enabling an understanding of these basic design
principles, the universal visual language of form was articulated to the students. These
principles remained primary as Gropius reformulated his ideas towards industry.

2.6 Itten interrupted

In a 1922 article inspired by Constructivist Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) and written by
artist Vilmos Huszar (1884 – 1960) for the de Stijl Magazine, the Bauhaus was condemned for
non‐productivity and crimes against the state and civilization. Gropius, Klee and Kandinsky
were maligned alongside criticisms of Itten’s efforts. Of Itten, Huszar wrote, “Where is there
any attempt to unify several disciplines at the unified combination of space form and colour?
Itten’s emptily pompous daubing aims only for superficial effect.”82 Although in the full quote

81
Verlag, 2000). 101.
82
Ibid., 116. Huszar was considered by many as van Doesburg's mouthpiece, as van Doesburg was prone to rant
and rave at times, alienating his audience.
29

the harsh criticism defiles the majority of Bauhaus masters, including its founder, it would be
Itten who would be singled out for blame by not only van Doesburg but also Gropius. Art
scholar Norbert Schmitz wrote, “Control over history was too important to be left to the
obscurantism of a Mazdanan prophet.”83 Itten’s resignation, more correctly ostracism, would
signal Gropius’ return to his pre WWI ideals of integration between the machine and art.

Considered the ambassador of the Dutch art movement de Stijl, van Doesburg gave a number
of seminars at the Bauhaus during 1921 and 1922 and spoken disparagingly of Expressionist
tendencies and the lack of artistic or social synthesis within the Bauhaus. He eventually praised
Gropius for his attempts at educational reform but he bitterly disputed the direction he felt the
Bauhaus was taking. Although van Doesburg’s frank comments were generally considered by
Bauhaus members as exaggerated and over dramatized, they nevertheless sparked a reaction
within the school. Van Doesburg’s influence on the clarification of the new direction for the
Bauhaus was in no way trivial and, interestingly, Gropius considered offering him a position at
the Bauhaus. He was in fact reticent to do so as he felt van Doesburg would, as Itten had,
command too much influence with the students and diminish Gropius’ own impact.84 Van
Doesburg was also seen by the students as a threat to stability. A Bauhaus student provided a
vivid account of van Doesburg and his aggressive rants: “He attacked the issues and people
with drums and trumpets. And he screamed. The louder he screamed the more he believed his
ideas would penetrate the minds of the people. He made us feel insecure.”85

We have established that pre‐WWI Gropius had stated there was a need to engage with the
working methods of the outside world, namely machines. The cause for Gropius’ curious
denouncement of this statement post‐WWI has never been clearly attributed by historians but
his return to his Werkbund proclamations announced the arrival of the next phase in Bauhaus
history. Itten would leave the Bauhaus and Gropius would announce the new manifesto.86
Gropius was relieved that Itten had not been prepared to take part in the new school. I would

83
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus, 243. This belief was an underlying factor in the conflicts between Gropius and
itten that could only,in Gropius' view be settled with Itten's departure from the Bauhaus.
84
Whitford, Bauhaus, 117. More on the underlying jealousies and politics can be gained from Fiedler, Jeannine,
and Peter Feierabend, eds. Bauhaus. Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1999. Print.
85
Ibid. Van Doesburg, along with his wife Nelly managed to convert four Bauhaus students and referred to the rest
as "Romantics."
86
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 123. Wick gives a comprehensive account of the impact of Itten's teachings in
Europe beyond the Bauhaus years.
30

suggest however, that in spite of Itten’s refusal to remain at the Bauhaus his efforts in
establishing and formulating a universal visual language had been clearly and successfully
established and consequently absorbed into all future versions of the course.87 The use of
analytical and reductive simplification techniques to discover the essence of a composition or
material complimented both van de Velde’s and Behren’s Werkbund theories of unadorned
functionality for which Gropius had, in his pre‐WWI ideals supported as valid investigations of
utility and form. I will argue the fundamentals of Itten’s Vorkurs, although not acknowledged as
doing so by his successors, served as the backbone to both Moholy‐Nagy and Albers’
preliminary courses. I would also argue that by severing Itten at this point in the development
of the school it would be to Itten that the Expressionist and incongruous era would be
attributed, leaving Gropius clear of fault and free to curate what was seen to be the ‘right
program.’88

Although Itten’s language of composition was derived and implemented in a two dimensional
format the analytical understanding and abilities consolidated in his Vorkurs crossed over into
the exploration and understanding of form and space, making it highly relevant to future
adaptations of the course. In a diary entry Itten wrote: “Walls with windows and doors form
the house, but the emptiness in them establishes the essence of the house. Fundamentally, the
material conceals utility; the immaterial establishes essence. The essence of a material is its
effect of space, the immaterial. Space is the material of the immaterial.”89 Whitford notes that
the inspiration and guidance that students gained in the workshops was not from the Masters
of Form as it should have been, but from the theoretical aspect of the Vorkurs.90 Bauhaus
student Peter Keler’s (1898–1982) 1922 cradle, through its succinct use of simple forms and
primary colours, is an accurate example of the assimilation of colour theory and simple
geometries to construct a simple everyday object.91

87
Whitford, Bauhaus, 121. Gropius felt threatened by Itten's influence at the Bauhaus and believed it had to be
weakened. Gropius played a shrewd game. Gropius ignored Itten's pedagogical skills and focued on Itten's
insecurities. Itten resigned in 1922 and left in Easter 1923.
88
Bayer, Gropius, and Gropius, Bauhaus 1919 ‐1928.
89
90
Whitford, Bauhaus, 115. The courses that Whitford referred to were those of Itten, Kandinsky and Klee. These
instructors were all painters and instructors in two‐ dimensional works.
91
Ibid., 110. Keler would after graduation from the Bauhaus go on to become Wassily Kandinsky's assistant. But he
studied the Vorkurs under Itten.
31

Figure 6: Keler’s baby cradle1922 lacquered wood and rope webbing

I would argue that Itten had a profound understanding and appreciation for the unified
combination of space, form and colour and that van Doesburg, the Constructivist, refused to
accept that this understanding could be professed so eloquently and accepted so readily from
an Expressionist, Mazdanan prophet.92 One could take from van Doesburg’s tyrannical rants his
strong belief that one of the masters should have been Dutch!93

There is no question that Itten and Gropius were on different paths towards the unification of
the arts. Itten had become wary of the economic and social realities of post‐WWI Germany.
Wick argues that for Itten, industrialism was the expression of a rationalistic culture that he
disagreed with.94 So it was inevitable that now was as good a time as ever to take his leave.
Itten wrote: “An analysis class in 1923 caused Walter Gropius to comment that he could no
longer take responsibility vis‐à‐vis the government for my teaching. Without any further
argument I spontaneously decided to leave the Bauhaus.”95Gropius’ 1922 memorandum to
Bauhaus staff on the 3rd February read: “Master Itten recently demanded that one must
decide either to produce work as an individual in complete opposition to the economic world
outside or to search for an understanding with industry... I look for a unity in the combination

92
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus. Although not a prominantly discussed aspect in van Doesburg's rhetoric he
too professed an unusual support for artists belonging to a self‐declared idiot fringe.
93
Whitford, Bauhaus, 116. Van Doesburg proposed that the Bauhaus required "other masters" who knew what
the creation of unified works of art really were to demonstrate their abilities at the Bauhaus.
94
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 122.There is also a full translation of Itten's letter of resignation found here.
95
Johannes Itten, My Preliminary Course at the Bauhaus and Later (New York Van Nostrand Reinhold Company,
1975), 18.
32

not a division of these forms of life.”96 Having established the circumstances that led to
Gropius’s acceptance of Itten’s resignation after the violent criticisms by van Doesburg and
Gropius, it should come as no surprise that a close associate of van Doesburg’s would be
appointed to the post. This would no doubt appease the boisterous Dutchman and allow
Gropius to progress his dream with the least opposition from van Doesburg. In 1023
constructivist, Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy would take control of the Vorkurs at the Bauhaus.

2.7 The Lasting Impact of Itten’s Vorkurs

Even though Gropius was unwilling to concede the point, the use of Itten’s language of
composition ensured an amalgamation of theory and practice in the workshops. Although Itten
had not intended that his visual language be embraced by industry, the language of
composition that he had contributed to pedagogy would continue to influence the formulation
of three dimensional works and thereby initiate a common language of form. This was the
language Gropius had been seeking. Without formally mentioning Itten, in 1935 Gropius
acknowledged the immense contribution of the Vorkurs pedagogy. He noted the severance
from the past that the initial Bauhaus teachings encouraged and by paraphrasing Itten’s own
words introduced a return to an honesty of thought and feeling.97 Gropius stated: “A breach
had been made with the past, which allowed us to envisage a new aspect of architecture
corresponding to the technical civilization of the age we live; the morphology of the dead styles
had been destroyed; and we returned to honesty of thought and feeling.”98 Franciscono stated
that the works produced under the next Vorkurs iteration with Moholy‐Nagy underwent a
considerable aesthetic change. But he argued that under Itten the students had already
become accustomed to thinking in basic forms and volumes: “The transition from the earlier
work, it is apparent, was extremely easy to make and involved no significant change of mind.”99
Within the brevity of his time as the master of the Vorkurs, Itten had offered students, as

96
Whitford, Bauhaus, 120. The full memorandum is also to be found here.
97
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 110. Itten's pedagogy was based on the contrasting poles of feeling and
thinking, intuition and intellect and expression and construction which allowed the Bauhaus works to be more
than just functional and rational.
98
Walter Gropius, The New Achitecture and The Bauhaus, trans. P.Morton Shand (London: Faber and Faber, 1935),
19.
99
Founding Years, 224. This is the only evidence I found where a Bauhuas historian allows a direct acknowlegement
of the continued use of Itten's pedagogical tenets in three dimensional works for mass production, making his
teachings relevent beyond 1922 within Bauhaus.
33

individuals, the ability to see, synthesize emotion and senses, and expressively articulate an
essence from innate materials and compositions. I would assert that Itten established a solid
and durable foundation upon which Gropius, Moholy‐Nagy and Albers could base their
pedagogies in order to unite art and technology for mass production.

2.8 “Art and Technology a New Unity “

It was not only van Doesburg that placed pressure on Gropius’ goals for the Bauhaus. In 1922,
hindered by economic pressures, the local government pressurised Gropius into an exhibition
to promote the Bauhaus products and enhance sales and orders of Bauhaus produced items.
Gropius was not in favour of this, but as the school was state funded and these funds were
under threat, he was in no position to debate. The exhibition named Art and Technology,
opened to great national and international support in August 1923. This was the first large
exhibition of the Bauhaus and it generated a great deal of publicity for the new programme
being offered, attracting some of the Bauhaus’ finest students, including Albers. For some at
the Bauhaus the programme came as a shock. Helmut von Erffa wrote: “Even if Gropius had
planned to work for industry from the beginning and postponed it only because Germany was
poor, the new programme was a shocking surprise to Feininger or Marcks.”100

Figure 7: Bauhaus Faculty 1925 Gropius (centre) with cigarette and Moholy‐Nagy wearing
glasses is forth from left, taken by Gropius with self‐timer.

100
Helmut von Erffa, "Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus by Marcel Franciscono," Art Journal 31, no.
4 (1972), 482.
34

Marcks, a founding member of the Bauhaus faculty, would, like Itten, reject the new
programme and leave the Bauhaus forever.101 Whitford asserts that Gropius’ lecture ‘Art
And technology: A New Unity’ given during Bauhaus Week clearly: “marked the public
emergence of a man purged of craft‐romanticism and utopian ideas.”102

2.9 László Moholy‐Nagy and the Vorkurs

In 1923 the appointment of Hungarian artist Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy to the Vorkurs effectively
marked the end of the school’s expressionistic leanings and moved it closer towards Gropius’
pre‐WWI aims as a school of design and industrial integration. Described by Gropius as ‘a born
educator’ Moholy‐Nagy took up the mantel of the Vorkurs at the Bauhaus.103 The contrast
between Moholy‐Nagy’s forward reaching, technologically inspired drive toward mass
production and Itten’s metaphysical and individualist teachings could not have been more
pronounced. In distinct contrast to the monk‐like robes Itten had worn to create an aura of
mysticism, Moholy‐Nagy wore workers’ overalls and nickel rimmed glasses to convey a sense of
modern industry and sobriety.104

Figure 8: Moholy‐Nagy wearing his overalls and glasses

101
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 33.Marcks began teaching at the Bauhaus at the same time as Feininger
102
Whitford, Bauhaus, 139. Exhibition week ran 15th‐19th August, 1923 and lectures were given by Gropius Oskar
Schlemmer and J.J P Oud.
103
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 131. Even though Moholy‐Nagy had no formal training as a teacher Gropius
recognised his pedagogical talents. Herbert Read would also describe Moholy as "one of the greatest teachers of
our time."
104
Whitford, Bauhaus, 123. Students also partook in dressing in "uniform" under both Itten and Moholy‐Nagy.
35

As a political exile Moholy‐Nagy, a painter and photographer, was a keen participant in
theoretical discussions of political and social agendas circulating in Europe in the early
twentieth century. His co‐conspirators in these dialogues included artist and writer Raul
Hausmann (1886‐1971) and van Doesburg. All three men were particularly active and held
strong social and political goals defining the role of the progressive artist within the highly
charged and unstable political terrain. As a result of discussions at the International Congress of
Progressive Artists held in Dusseldorf, by 1922 a description of the modern artist had been
delineated. It was said that the modern artist was defined as one who denies the allure of
subjective art and lyrical whims of fancy and, in contrast engages in a systematic process of
ordered thinking to achieve an expression that can be universally understood.105 As the new
master of the Vorkurs, Moholy‐Nagy developed his ideals of constructivism and the machine.
Modern technology and its possibilities were an integral part of Moholy‐Nagy’s teachings and
he affirmed this commitment by stating: “Reality is the measure of human thinking. It is the
means by which we orient ourselves in the universe... And this reality of our century is
technology: the invention, construction and maintenance of machines. To be a user of
machines is to be of the spirit of the century.”106

The advances made by Moholy‐Nagy within the Vorkurs were two‐fold. Firstly, his pedagogical
skill and success in marrying the products of his workshops to the needs and desires of industry
were highly productive and a direct result of the Vorkurs teachings. Supporting this were the
highly desirable yet very utilitarian household items designed by Bauhaus students Wilhelm
Wagenfeld (1900–1990), Marianne Brandt (1893–1983) and Marcel Breuer (1902‐1981). This
work was considered a production success.107 Secondly, his spatial investigations as an artist
and a pedagogue were ground breaking.108 Technological advancement was embraced in the
Vorkurs and disseminated into the workshops. The items designed by students implied, by
association with the production of objects, that Moholy‐Nagy’s teachings considered form, and
not space as being paramount. This is short sighted. The inclusion of experiments involving

105
106
Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy, Moholy‐Nagy: Experiment in Totality (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969), 19.
107
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus, 629 ‐ 31. Wallpaper was also a great success as a production line for the early
Bauhaus. But Moholy‐Nagy was not involved with this as it was not seen as a suitable product for the Bauhaus
from 1923 till Hans Meyer took over directorship.
108
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 138. Moholy‐ Nagy referred to himself as ‘Lichtner,’ the light manipulator. His
experiments with wood, glass and highly reflective metals were the beginning s of free play of light in space.
36

wood, sheet metal, glass, wire and string directly assisted in the understanding of construction,
static and dynamic factors of design, balance and most importantly space.109 Students would
construct forms placing, suspending, or juxtaposing them in space. Moholy‐Nagy wrote:
“Today spatial design is an interweaving of shapes: shapes which are ordered into certain well
defined, if invisible, space relations; shapes which represent the fluctuating play of tension and
force.”110Moholy‐Nagy remained convinced throughout his career that space and form were
critical components to be explored in parallel and on a variety of scales. The universal visual
language and the Bauhaus methodology were the tools employed to facilitate these
explorations. The success of Moholy‐Nagy’s experiments in form within which spatial
awareness is introduced are nowhere more evident than in both Breuer’s dematerialising
tubular steel furniture (notably the Wassily chair) and the transparent architecture of the
Bauhaus School at Dessau done by Gropius himself.

Figure 9: Breuer’s Wassily chair 1926. Nickel plated tubular steel and grey fabric
I argue it was the assimilation of Itten’s teachings in the Vorkurs, the use of a universal visual
language and Moholy‐Nagy’s methodology to propagate these ideals that resulted in a new
aesthetic emerging in utilitarian objects, forms and spaces. It was unfortunate that the in

109
Through his own collaboration with engineers and technicians between 1922 and 1930 Moholy‐Nagy’s
experimented with materials, form, light and movement. This culminated through spatial experiments and
experiences in the creation of the Kinetic Light Prop, the ‘Light Space Modulator’ which was a machine designed to
seize the light in its structure and make space and time visible.
110
Bayer, Gropius, and Gropius, Bauhaus 1919 ‐ 1928, 122. Moholy‐Nagy went on to say that "the primary means
of the arrangement of space is still space itself." Moholy remained interdisciplinary with a focus on architecture
when other masters did not.
37

America the appeal of the new aesthetic would overshadow the methodology. This would lead
to the misinterpretation of the Bauhaus work as a ‘style’ not a method.111 Both Gropius and
Moholy‐Nagy would encounter and challenge this perception both separately and collectively
at later stages of their careers. Constructivist painter and designer, Walter Dexel (1890–1973),
and close friend of both van Doesburg and Moholy‐Nagy, wrote: “It is high time we stop using
the cliché ‘Bauhaus Style,’ which only ignorance of the most elementary facts of the 1920s
could have allowed to become current.”112

2.10 Itten’s Influence on Moholy‐Nagy’s Vorkurs

In 1968, artist Henry Raleigh (1880–1944) argued that Itten, being the most romantic of all
Vorkurs masters, must have found himself to be philosophically unprepared to accept the
functionalist credos developing at the Bauhaus. Raleigh suggested that Itten’s theories were no
match for the constructivist rationales of Moholy‐Nagy. However I believe this to be a
superficial overview of both Itten and Moholy‐Nagy’s efforts. 113 Moholy‐Nagy brought with
him a very humane and environmentally responsible approach to industrial design which we
will come to appreciate in his encounters within the economic landscape in the United States
later in his career. But for now, as he entered the Bauhaus Moholy‐Nagy sought, like William
Morris and John Ruskin, to include the ‘whole man’ in his experiments and experiences.
Moholy‐Nagy wrote: “Not the product, but man, is the end in view. Technical progress should
never be the goal, but always the means.”114 Moholy‐Nagy’s intentions to integrate art and
technology certainly differed from those of Itten, but the systematic process of ordered
thinking and analytical critique that Moholy‐Nagy would claim for his Vorkurs was in fact borne
of Itten’s preliminary pedagogy. Through the use of the universal visual language, Itten had
introduced analytical processes to understand balance, repetition, rhythm, symmetry and
asymmetry within two dimensional compositions which had assimilated seamlessly into the

111
Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy, "The Diaspora," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 24, no. 1 (1965), 24. Sibyl
Moholy‐Nagy was very vocal during the 1960's in relation to the "total misunderstanding" of the terms and
ideologies of the functionalism Gropius and Moholy‐Nagy had brought to America.
112
Walter Dexel, "The Bauhaus Style: A Myth," in Bauhaus and Bauhaus People: Personal Opinions and
Recollections of Former Bauhaus Members and their Contemporaries, ed. Eckhard Neumann (New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold, 1993),248.
113
P. Raleigh, "Johannes Itten and the Background of Modern Art Education", 287.
114
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy, The New Vision. From Material to Architecture, trans. Daphne M Hoffmann (New York:
Brewer,Warren and Putman, 1932), 152.
38

three dimensional forms. Keler’s cradle is evidence of this amalgamation. Although Itten’s
spirituality had been removed from the Vorkurs the analytical ordered thinking, common
understanding and shared visual language he had introduced remained. Moholy‐Nagy had
dismissed Itten as subjective and whimsical and in what Moholy‐Nagy considered a stark
contrast proposed a universally understood systematic process of ordered thinking. I would
argue that although there were certainly advancements and changes to the Vorkurs with the
integration of technology by Moholy‐Nagy, the adjustment from Master Itten to Master
Moholy‐Nagy was not as drastic or clear cut as either Gropius or Moholy‐Nagy would have us
believe. Itten’s theories continued to pervade Moholy‐Nagy’s Vorkurs as did the theories of
Ruskin, Froebel and Pestalozzi.

Moholy‐Nagy’s experiments encouraged fresh approaches where students achieved a
transparency of form by hollowing out, blocking out and drastically reducing the consumption
of materials within their work. Having used their perception and vision students reduced the
form to its essence, as requested in Itten’s pedagogy. Moholy‐Nagy called this technique ‘vision
in motion.’ The technique challenged students to explore a canvas or structure with their eyes
seeking understanding and space.115 As had been suggested by Pestalozzi, Froebel and Itten
this type of investigation invited students to discover spatial awareness and understanding by
way of haptic and optical experiences. It invited students to the privileged threshold of
space.116 Moholy–Nagy, armed with this knowledge and method, would now advance his own
pedagogy and enable his students to investigate and discover spatial relationships within and
beyond form. Varnelis stated of the progress in Bauhaus pedagogy that: “The act of perception
had thus been divided into two events: what Moholy‐Nagy called ‘vision in motion,’ leading the
eye around the canvas, and the moment of illumination that would finally lead to an
understanding of the work. The glance of the eye that Ruskin had defined had lengthened into
a reverie.”117Interestingly, in spite of Moholy‐Nagy’s scientific and systematic approach to
sensory discovery, and his denouncement of feelings or spirituality, he did eventually agree
with both Ruskin and Itten’s theory that the basis for creation lay in intuitive responses.
Moholy‐Nagy stated: “Creation needs intuition, on the one hand, and conscious analyses on

115
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 156. These experiments would not have been conceivable without the
influence of the Constructivists or Moholy‐Nagy's own work.
116
Varnelis, "The Education of the Innocent Eye," 212.
117
Ibid., 216‐17.
39

the other.”118 Intriguingly, museum director and Viennese artist Veit Loers views the entire
oeuvre of Moholy‐Nagy’s work against a spiritual cosmic‐gnostic background.119 Thereby
supporting other historian’s notions that Moholy‐Nagy’s denouncements of spirituality,
particularly the Mazdanan spirituality he had encountered earlier in his career, were not as
complete or as separated from Itten as have been recorded by Gropius or Moholy‐Nagy.

2.11 Moholy‐Nagy’s Vorkurs‐Universal by Process

Moholy‐Nagy has been remembered by students as “having burst into the Bauhaus circle like a
strong eager dog ... sniffing out with unfailing scent the still unsolved, tradition‐bound
problems in order to attack them. Or, a pike in a pond full of goldfish.”120 Whatever the simile,
Moholy‐Nagy’s energy, clear‐headedness and rational were evidenced in his 1922 essay
“Constructivism and the Proletariat” in which Moholy‐Nagy announced that: “Everyone is equal
before the machine. There is no tradition in technology, no class‐consciousness. Everyone can
be the machine’s master or its slave.”121 With Itten’s meditation, gymnastics and deep
breathing exercises gone from the Vorkurs, Moholy‐Nagy introduced his students to the
rational use of materials and basic techniques. Moholy‐Nagy endeavoured to open his
students’ minds to the use of new technologies and new media. This premise relied greatly on
both Ruskin and Itten’s belief in the removal of all preconceptions to enable creativity and
individual experimentation. Three dimensional exercises in construction were fundamental to
Moholy‐Nagy’s systematic form of study.

Students experimented with problems involving forms in space. He experimented with new
technologies, processes and materials and thrust not only the Vorkurs, but the Bauhaus as a
whole, into experiments with industrialised media. This included film, photography and
typography. Moholy‐Nagy consistently tried to demonstrate through his own work the belief
that technology was not a threat to the students’ creativity.

118
Moholy‐Nagy, The New Vision. From Material to Architecture, 54. Moholy‐ Nagy wrote this book after he left
the Bauhaus and dedicates a section to the Role of Intuition.
119
Dexel, "The Bauhaus Style: A Myth."
120
Whitford, Bauhaus, 127‐28.
121
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy, "The Constructivist and the Proletatiat," MA (1922). This essay was also reprinted in Sibyl
Moholy‐Nagy's biographical book" Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy An Experiment in Totality." (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969)
40

Figure 10: Hovering sculpture by Bauhaus student Corona Krauce 1924 wood and wire

Although I have argued that there are fundamental traces linking Itten’s Vorkurs to Moholy‐
Nagy’s, there were also differences. Two of the most significant divergences from Itten’s
Vorkurs were that Moholy‐Nagy’s course would be run in conjunction with another instructor.
Josef Albers joined Moholy‐Nagy in the teaching of the materials course.122 Importantly, within
this course an economy of materials was initiated through the integration with industry. I
would argue this was the most significant differentiation between the two Vorkurs. Itten had
said on introducing material studies to his teachings: “I hope that in this way the stroke, the
line, will also be felt as something material, that the love of the line will grow from the love of
silk.”123 By comparison, and in total allegiance with Moholy‐Nagy’s economic and
environmental concerns, Albers introduced the second Vorkurs by stating: “Nothing unused is
permitted in any form. Otherwise the calculations will not work out because chance has played
a role. This is thoughtless because it derives from habit.”124 Materials would be addressed quite
differently and the course Moholy‐Nagy and Albers Materials and Matière course.125
What did remain common in both Vorkurs were Itten’s investigations into material structure
and measured contrasts and these were merged into Moholy‐Nagy’s and Albers’ teachings. The

122
Albers had entered the Vorkurs having taught in the workshops but more importantly he was a product of
Itten's Vorkurs.
123
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 106. Prior to teaching at the Bauhaus Itten had taught the appreciation of
materials and their usages in his courses in Vienna.
124
Ibid., 182. In this statement Albers had fundamentally employed the ideologies of not only the Bauhaus
manifesto but the economic context that Germany had found itself in following World War 1.
125
Ibid., 176. In 1923, due to Albers' efforts at the Bauhaus as a student, he was quickly elevated to the' made to
measure' position of junior master.
41

goal of these explorations was to acquire a feeling for materials through juxtaposition and
relationship. Itten, Moholy‐Nagy and Albers all sought in their investigations of materials,
structure, surface aspect and texture. They all concurred that experimentation and discovery
were vital to the student’s understanding of materials. Moholy‐Nagy and Albers certainly
enriched the materials programme. Material structure now referred to the qualities of surface
that revealed how a material might grow or be formed. The surface aspect referred to the
qualities of surface that reveal how a raw material may have been treated technically and the
texture is the presence of a combined use of both structure and surface aspect. The teaching of
an economy of materials, more aptly described as frugality or prudence, was also considered
fundamental to the investigations into spatial awareness leading to an emphasis on lightness
and transparency. Both lightness and transparency become synonymous with the Bauhaus
aesthetic. Banham wrote of Gropius’ Dessau buildings: “The ponderousness of the old methods
of building is giving way to a new lightness and airiness. Gropius is able to make genuinely
original contributions to the formal usages of the growing International style. The Bauhaus
(Dessau) remains a masterpiece of this new architecture.”126 This economy, lightness and
spatiality can also be attributed to the design works of Bauhaüslers Herbert Bayer (1900–1985)
in typography and Brandt’s (1893 ‐1983) home and office wares.

Figure 11: Universal Typeface 1926. Bayer attempted to make a world alphabet

126
Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, 282.
42

Figure 12: Marianne Brandt tea and coffee set, MT50‐55a. Silver, ebony handle and glass lid to
sugar bowl

The economic use of material and spatial qualities in Breuer’s tubular steel furniture ranks it as
one of the finest examples of Moholy‐Nagy’s ideologies expressed in objects. Additionally, the
economic use and techniques applied to construction materials in Gropius’s 1928 Dessau
Bauhaus make it a superior example of architectural lightness and transparency.127 Although
simplistic in plan, layout and linking, the Dessau school, built to accommodate the workshops
and the school’s spiritual life, was complex. This building is a quintessential example of the
accomplishments of Vorkurs teachings. Gropius has exemplified Pestalozzi’s and Froebel’s
theories of haptic and optical engagement, Itten’s visual language to compose and to juxtapose
forms, Moholy‐Nagy’s ‘vision in motion’ technique to allow appreciation of form and space and
Albers’ economic rationale. Gropius himself expresses the fundamentals of Moholy‐Nagy’s
theory when he described the Dessau campus. “One must walk round this building in order to
understand its form and the function of its components.”128 I would assert that although

127
Naylor, The Bauhaus Reassessed.Sources and Design Theory, 125.The shift to Dessau, an industrial city,
provided Gropius with the opportunity to redefine the aims of the school with the workshops now called
laboratories becoming the heart of the Bauhaus.
128
Ibid., 131. Gropius, although never acknowledging the impact of Moholy‐Nagy’s teachings on his own work
never ceased to support his colleagues pedagogical endeavours both within the German Bauhaus and the
American iteration that would follow in 1932.
43

Gropius has been gifted the accolades for the Dessau buildings, the impetus for such work
came from the Vorkurs pedagogy.

Figure 13: Bauhaus building Dessau workshop façade 1926

Entrenched with Itten’s founding ideologies Moholy‐Nagy’s Vorkurs was a major influence in
the design of the Dessau buildings. Sadly, Moholy‐Nagy would never enjoy the fruits of his
pedagogy. Perhaps considered abrupt or untimely, and amidst the rise of Hitler’s third Reich,
Moholy‐Nagy a socialist and a Hungarian Jew, felt both his political views and religious
affiliations were becoming of interest to the Nazi party. In 1928, only four days after Gropius
departure into private practice, Moholy‐Nagy resigned. However, this would not be the end of
Moholy‐Nagy’s relationship with Gropius or the advancement of Bauhaus ideology. In the
meantime, Moholy‐Nagy’s politically motivated departure handed Albers, the apprentice and
junior master, the role of Master of the Vorkurs. Albers remained at the Bauhaus and in this
position throughout the on‐going difficulties faced by the school until its forced closure in 1933.

2.12 Josef Albers and the Vorkurs

It was, as the student that became a teacher, that Albers would make his mark at the Bauhaus.
Historian Friederike Kitschen wrote Albers was: “a teacher who wanted to be a student and the
44

student that became a teacher.”129 It was in the Vorkurs that Albers would merge his own
ideologies and those of both Itten and Moholy‐Nagy consolidating much of what became
Bauhaus ideology. Artist Lux Feininger (1910‐2011), the son of Bauhaus master Lyonel Feininger
(1871‐1956), disagreed, stating: “the concept of the course so drastically that nothing but the
name remained.”130 Although Albers did bring a distinctive focus and unique enthusiasm to the
Vorkurs, I will assert that the fundamental tasks of the preliminary course remained intact.

Albers was already teaching in Munich when the discovery of a leaflet containing the Bauhaus
manifesto and his thirst for expertise and knowledge drew him toward Gropius’s new academy.
When interviewed in later life about this radical shift Albers stated: “I was thirty‐two. I threw all
the old junk overboard and went right back to the beginning again. It was the best thing I ever
did in my life.”131 In 1915, having gained a teaching certificate Albers began teaching in Bottrop.
While there he also studied at the School of Applied Arts in Essen. The old junk to which Albers
refers is the large number of academic works he achieved while studying at these institutions.
In 1919, Albers moved to Munich where he attended: “the profitable Max Dormer course in
painting techniques.”132 Albers’ studies in Munich were not as inspirational as he had hoped
prompting the shift to Weimar. In retrospect Albers stated: “All I knew of the Bauhaus was
derived from a single sheet, the first manifesto. This program gave me the impulse to try out
the new idea.”133

Entry into the Bauhaus was not easy. There were limited places and rejections after the six
month Vorkurs were numerous. Despite this, Albers was enrolled as a student at the Weimar
Bauhaus and entered Itten’s Vorkurs in 1920.134 As a student of the Vorkurs, Albers stood out.
Unlike Gropius’ or Itten’s childhoods, Albers had not been exposed to the pedagogy of

129
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus, 308.
130
Lux Feininger, "The Bauhaus: Evolution of an Idea," in Bauhaus and Bauhaus People: Personal Opinions and
Recollections of Former Bauhaus Members and Their Contemporaries, ed. Erkhart Neumann (New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold, 1993), 190.
131
Neil Welliver, "Albers on Albers," Art News, 31, no. 64 (1966).
132
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus, 308. Albers also studied with Franz von Stuck at this time but wasdissatisfied
with Stuck's teachings as Albers felt that at thirty years oldand having experienced Cubism first hand the course
did not pffer any innovative content applicable to him.
Verlag, 2000), 166.
134
Whitford, Bauhaus, 69. Other students that were singled out for excellence in the Vorkurs were Joost Schmidt,
Gunta Stolzl and Marcel Breuer.
45

Pestalozzi or Froebel.135 Cynical of conventional education, described by Albers as ‘knowledge
schools,’ Albers, as a teacher had been inspired by the educational reforms of John Dewey.
Aware that the way to discover one’s own powers of seeing, judgment and reason was through
explorations Albers immersed himself into student life at the Bauhaus, approaching learning
with an open mind and a “determination to always improve and compete.”136 His willingness to
acquire numerous craft skills, his imaginative use of materials in Itten’s Vorkurs and the various
workshops made it clear that Albers was “one of the most gifted students of his generation.”137
His particular interest in the assemblage of discarded materials would become a significant
influence not only on his own work but also the Vorkurs pedagogy that he would develop
having advanced to the: “student that became a teacher.”138

Figure 14: Albers teaching in the Vorkurs 1928‐1929. Teaching was central to Albers’ own
development

135
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 174. Gropius, Kandinsky, Klee and Itten were all exposed the the Froebel and
Pestalozzi ideals in their early childhood education.
136
Ibid., 166. John Dewey's (1859 ‐ 1952) "The School and Society and Democracy and Education" were translated
into German in the early 1900s and were highly influential on Albers formation of his own pedagigical ideas of
both learning and teaching.
137
Whitford, Bauhaus, 133. It was Albers outstanding results in the Vorkurs that had led Gropius to invite Albers to
become a junior staff member and to teach the use of materials to the preliminary year students.
138
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus, 308.
46

2.13 Itten’s Legacy Continued

Albers held an unprecedented position in the Vorkurs. He had been Itten’s student, an
experience that had solidified his principles of learning and where he had witnessed the
establishment of a universal language of composition and form. He had also worked as a junior
master under Moholy‐Nagy who had expanded the experimentation of materials in search of
light, form and space beyond Gropius’ expectations of both innovation and profitability. These
experiences, I will assert, enabled Albers to supplement the Vorkurs ideologies with his own
brand of tenacity. It is noteworthy that upon taking over the Vorkurs, Albers criticised Itten’s
preliminary course and questioned the goals Itten had set for his charges. He denounced Itten’s
work unequivocally in a letter to a 1923 Bauhaus masters committee saying: “The failure of the
students seems to me to have been partially caused by the way the preliminary instruction was
handled. The way it is carried out is not right and that it produces in many of the students the
exact opposite of what was sought.”139 This criticism was hypocritical and, if not obvious at the
time it was certainly evident by 1933, when Albers was teaching in the United States. The
hypocrisy lies in the criticism of individualism and vanity he levels at Itten. These same
criticisms could be directed towards Albers when, after leaving the Bauhaus in 1933 he focused
his own work and teachings on painting and the artist thereby supporting the subjectivity he
claimed to denounce. I would argue that in 1923, riding a crest of popularity with the remaining
Bauhaus masters, any acknowledgement by Albers of Itten’s input into his pedagogy would
have been seen as counterproductive to the advancement of his career. Additionally, Gropius
would have admonished any acknowledgement of Itten’s input during his continued reign as
director of the Bauhaus beyond 1923 and Itten’s departure. In spite of the criticisms, possibly
encouraged by the overtness of Albers criticisms and the retrospective knowledge of his
American endeavours, I would suggest that Albers was directly influenced by Itten’s and the
reformist’s prerequisite pedagogy.

Albers did however acknowledge Dewey’s writings as influential to his enthusiasm for reformist
pedagogy and, I would propose, Dewey as the catalyst for Albers’ ability and relative ease with
which he shuffled between teaching, learning and doing for the entirety of his career. Albers,
like Dewey, professed learning and not teaching, trial and error experiments and learning by

139
47

discovery as the maxims when teaching creativity.140 The extra‐ordinary versatility that
students such as Albers, Herbert Bayer, (1900–1985) Brandt and Breuer displayed while at the
Bauhaus, “testified to the efficacy of the courses and the Masters that taught them.”141 Albers
aimed to pass on to his students his spirit of versatility, by example. His own works through
painting, glasswork, photography, topography and furniture exemplified his ability to translate
Itten’s common language of composition and form into industrialised objects.

Albers and Moholy‐Nagy had referenced hierarchy, rhythm, scale, proportion and symmetry
across numerous disciplines. By also referencing these principles in his teaching Albers had
engaged and disseminated the universal visual language cultivated by Itten and thereby
continued the legacies of Pestalozzi, Froebel and Ruskin into this next iteration of the Vorkurs.
But importantly, the versatility Albers demonstrated in the use of these principles, allowed
Gropius’ deepest wish of a shared visual language that would break down social barriers.
Albers, like Gropius, believed everyone should understand artistic creativity and worked
continuously throughout his career to replace the prevailing elitist restrictions surrounding the
understanding of art and architecture.142 In his 1919 manifesto for the Bauhaus Gropius had
demanded: “The ultimate, if distant, aim of the Bauhaus is the unified work of art, the great
structure, in which there is no distinction between monumental and decorative art.”143
Although we have established Gropius had altered the direction of the Bauhaus in 1923 and
steered it towards mechanisation and technology, his fundamental desire to reach the hearts
and minds of all users of art or architecture never diminished. Gropius would continue
throughout his lifetime to call for: “the development of an artistic culture to be as broadly
based as possible that would not depend on idiosyncrasies of an artistic elite.”144 Varnelis
argued that by including Itten’s fundamental principles in both Albers and Moholy‐Nagy’s
pedagogy the visual language become universal. He stated: “Albers and Moholy‐Nagy hoped to
go beyond simply teaching artists. They intended that their method of erasing student’s

140
Ibid., 174. Dewey's belief that a school should prepare a student for current life also influenced Albers as he
would later regard history as an inappropriate subject to be taught alongside art or architecture.
141
Whitford, Bauhaus, 70. In particular this versitallity allowed many Bauhaus graduates to disseminate their
talents into a variety of disciplines including architecture and interior decoration.
142
Achim Borchardt‐Hume, ed. Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World (London: Tate
Publishing, 2006), 74. Albers commitment to versitality and universal understanding was somewhat undermined in
America when he confined his work and teaching to painting at Black Mountain College and Yale University.
143
Gropius, "Bauhaus Manifesto and Program." Ed.The Staatliche Bauhaus(Weimar:The Bauhaus1919),2
144
Founding Years, 68.
48

preconceptions and habits of seeing would create a radically new perception of the world for
everyone.”145

2.14 Albers Contribution to the Vorkurs

Wick argues that the materials course under Albers, named Materials and Matiére was: “his
(Albers’) most original and unmistakable contribution to the pedagogy of the Bauhaus,”146
Albers was fascinated by the properties and potentials of materials and while at the Bauhaus
he acquired a new view of “materials, not noticed before.”147 He would use the simplest and
least likely materials to teach fundamental lessons of construction that engaged with art,
architecture and engineering. Paper, as basic as news print, used razor blades and spent
matches were composed into “the most impressive structures.”148 Paramount to Albers
teaching was the preservation and respect for a materials inherent qualities and characteristics.
Albers would challenge himself and his students with the slogan: “try to make something out of
a material that is more than you have now.”149 Albers believed the process of folding was
natural to paper. Folding it yielded this pliable material stiff. He demonstrated that by folding
and standing paper up, the material visually activated.

Material investigations held great significance within the Bauhaus methodology and the
versatility shown with the knowledge gained from this course bestowed a meaningful
contribution to the universality of both the Bauhaus method and result. Albers developed a
visual language of unity for the artist or designer to develop utilitarian objects for universal use.
It was an all‐inclusive language in which the designer, manufacturer and consumer would all be
able to understand and appreciate the compositional and material essence of the form and its
function. I will argue that it was from this new desire for a shared understanding and the
efforts of the Vorkurs masters to disseminate it, that the elitist grip on the comprehension and
use of artistic and architectural forms was loosened. Varnelis stated that “The development of

145
146
147
Ibid., 166. Although Johannes Itten and Josef Albers were both trained as teachers and were the same age
Albers happily took instruction from him as Albers appreciated Itten's teaching methods were far reaching.
148
Feininger, "The Bauhaus: Evolution of an Idea," 190.
149
49

a new visual language in architecture would be based on the translation of Moholy‐Nagy and
Albers work into three dimensions.”150

We have established that fundamental to all pedagogy within the Bauhaus was the desire to
liberate a student’s creative powers. Each master came with agendas and theories to enable
this to be established. One such theory, held as paramount and shared by Gropius, Itten,
Moholy‐Nagy and Albers was the concept of the instructor as a guide, not a leader to be
mimicked. This philosophy was not held by all of the successive directors of the Bauhaus. After
the departure of Gropius and Moholy‐Nagy, Albers would be left at the Bauhaus to negotiate
the path forward for the Vorkurs that would in 1930 see him engage with Mies van der Rohe.
Miesian pedagogy strongly enforced that although the universal language was to be engaged
with it should be understood that the way Mies himself engaged with it, was best.151 Bauhaus
student Hurbert Hoffman retrospectively wrote: “Mies was the worst educator one could
imagine, because, unlike, say, Gropius, he was not interested in what possibilities existed or
could be awakened in the student but only whether and to what extent the student was in a
position to think Miesish.” Hoffman went on to say Mies would often, due to his inability to
teach, shove a hand drawn sketch to a student saying: “try doing it like this.”152 The idea of
repeating work appalled Albers and his philosophies of individual creative freedom via a
universal visual language and thereby it also contradicted his beliefs in the teaching of historic
references within artist pedagogy. Unlike Gropius, Albers was a reluctant writer. It was not until
1924 that Albers would offer some transparency towards his theoretical or ideological
foundations. His first essay Historic or Contemporary expressed his views with great acuity. His
later effort in 1928, Form Teaching in Craftwork, also elucidated what Albers saw as
problematic robustly. In particular, Albers believed the teaching of historical ideologies,
methods or understandings were fruitless. “A lot of history leaves little time for work. The
reverse, little history and much work, is our task.”153 Albers asserted that historical knowledge
hindered production and to pass on old knowledge was senseless. He rather indelicately

150
Varnelis, "The Education of the Innocent Eye," 216. Varnelis also argues the significance of Moholy's and Albers'
work in the 1976 essay Transparancy:Literal and Phenomenal where Rowe and Slutzky lay the foundation for this
translation
151
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 85. Mies has been described as an "elitist jail warden" seizing control of the
school in an authoritarian way.
152
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus: 85.
153
Josef Albers, "Werklicher Formunterricht," Bauhaus 2(1928), 6. More extensive quotes are included in Rainer K
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, trans. Stephen Mason and Simon Lèbe (Ostfildern‐Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000)
50

described teaching history as: “taking a meal without a stool to follow.”154 This discourse would
by in large be played out in the United States but Albers assertions towards the exclusion of
history in artistic or architectural education would bind his pedagogy to Gropius’s as they both
sought to conquer the Transatlantic modernist landscape.

In 1933 Albers and his Bauhaus colleagues would all be forced to leave the Bauhaus when,
under political pressure the Nazis closed it down. Albers took with him his passion for both
learning and teaching and actively sought new posts beyond the frightening confines of Europe
as WWII approached.

It is clear the unification of the theories of Pestalozzi, Froebel and Ruskin continued to impact
on teaching at the Bauhaus. This is nowhere more obvious than in Itten’s Vorkurs which is
retrospectively referred to by many historians as the backbone to Bauhaus pedagogy. Equally
as clear is the refusal of Gropius, Moholy‐Nagy and Albers to recognise Itten’s contributions
and impact on their own pedagogical ideals. I would suggest this is primarily due to the unease
felt by Itten’s more conservative colleagues in relation to Itten’s overtly alternative lifestyle
choices which they felt had no place in the modern world. For Gropius it was political. Itten
commanded great popularity and threatened his standing and power in the school. With Itten
gone, each pedagogue, Gropius the architect, Albers the artist and Moholy‐Nagy the
photographer would mature the foundation teachings in their own way facing their own
unique challenges. With this further understanding of how Albers and Moholy‐Nagy matured
the Vorkurs in Germany we enter the next phase of Bauhaus teaching as it is transposed into a
wholly different context, the United States. These challenges will be explored within the next
chapter to illustrate not only the difficulties each Bauhaus master faced in the United States
but also to again solidify the continued relevance of Itten’s teaching within their Vorkurs styled
pedagogy.

154
Josef Albers, "Historisch Oder Jetzig," Junge Menschen 8 (1924), 171.
51

Chapter Three
The Bauhaus In America
3.1 The Bauhaus Tenets Transposed and Translated in America

With the abrupt closure of the Bauhaus in 1933 by the Nazi regime, my study now fractures
from a review of a collaborative reform effort to propagate the ideals of the Bauhaus outside
of Germany. I will now investigate the translation of Bauhaus pedagogy from within Germany
to the transatlantic efforts made by three specific Bauhaus émigrés in the United States,
namely Albers, Moholy‐Nagy and Gropius. This chapter will focus on two of the three émigrés,
Albers and his efforts within the discipline of Fine Arts at Black Mountain College and Yale
University, and Moholy‐Nagy’s work in industrial design at The New Bauhaus and the School
of Design in Chicago. I will explore the separate journeys of translation undertaken in pre‐
WWII the United States by each Bauhaüsler and unveil the opportunities afforded and
restrictions placed upon their pedagogical interpretations. I will examine what aspects of the
Bauhaus pedagogy, particularly the Vorkurs, were utilized and how this was to affect their
attempts to sustain a universal visual language within a wholly different cultural and economic
situation.

3.2 Part One.
Albers: the First Bauhaus Émigré in America

Albers would lead the Bauhaus émigré as part of the intellectual and artistic diaspora of the
thirties, to the United States, where they would all contribute to the translation of the Bauhaus
pedagogy. Unlike Gropius and Moholy‐Nagy who had left the Bauhaus some years before,
Albers had remained at the school through all its iterations.155 But with the Bauhaus’ closure
Albers had sought work outside of Germany. In fact, after his arrival in The United States Albers
had commented to Alfred Barr (1902–1981), a director of the Museum of Modern Art in New
York, that he and his young wife Anni had “sat on packed trunks waiting for new professional

155
Gropius had left the Bauhaus in 1928 to concentrate on private practice and Moholy‐Nagy resigned the same
year under pressure from the National Socialists as he was Jewish. Both men left Germany for England before they
immigrated to America.
52

opportunities.”156 The pedagogical philosophy Albers had developed within his distinguished
tenure at the Bauhaus was already well regarded internationally. 157 In 1933 Philip Johnson
(1906–2005) and Alfred Barr, of the MoMA convinced the founders of the newly established art
school, Black Mountain College in North Carolina, John Andrew Rice (1888–1968) and Theodore
Dreier, to actively pursue and recruit Albers.158 Albers pedagogical beliefs, and his empathy
with the Dewey inspired reformative aims of both Rice and Dreier made Albers the obvious
candidate for not only employment but leadership at Black Mountain College.159 Having
overcome some initial immigration issues around the accreditation of Black Mountain College
and Albers’ salary both Josef and Anni Albers “acknowledged the warmth and spirit that their
journey had been organised in” and sailed to the United States.160 Albers would be the first
Bauhaus master to take up a teaching position in America. He was welcomed with great
enthusiasm by both the Ashville Citizen and the New York Times, which wrote on November
24th 1933: “The coming (to America) of Professor Albers heralds the beginning of a new era in
America in the teaching of art.”161 The fervour for his new opportunity was mutual. At forty‐five
Albers again embraced a new life with the same exuberance and tenacity he had displayed
when at thirty‐two, in his own words he had “thrown all his old junk over board” to begin his
new education at the Bauhaus.162 It would be both an uplifting experience for Albers and his

156
Karl‐Heinz Füssl, "Pestalozzi in Dewey's Realm: Bauhaus Master Josef Albers among the German‐speaking
Emigres' Colony at Black Mountain College (1933 ‐ 1949)," Pedagogica Historica 42, no. 1 & 2 (2006), 84.The fact
that Anni (nee Fleischmann) was a Jew added tension to their desire to leave Germany. But as she was now
married to a non‐Jew her status added no weight to the urgency of their visa applications. James Sloan Allen, The
Romance of Commerce and Culture (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
157
Due to his own restricted experiences as a student in what Albers described as “knowledge schools” Albers
found Itten’s experimental and discovery based pedagogy within the Vorkurs at the Bauhaus enlightening and built
on these ideals within his own teaching career. Both Philip Johnson and Alfred Barr had met and corresponded
with Albers while he was still teaching in Germany.
158
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus, 63. After Albers had met Barr in Berlin and corresponded with him about
opportunities outside of Germany, Alfred Barr and Philip Johnson convinced Rice to cable Albers directly to offer
him the position of Head of the Art Department at Black Mountain.
159
The incumbent Beaux‐Art system of artistic education was under pressure from Pure Design theories and
Dewey inspired ideals for reformative education. The Great Depression in America was seen by Black Mountain’s
founders as an opportune time to modify the rigid “grade” educational system.
160
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World, 104. As Albers was not a Jew,
immigration assistance was less accessible. Edward Warburg, a wealthy young volunteer at the MoMA paid for the
first class steamship travel and the Black Mountain acted as guarantee with a salary of $1000.00 promised to
Albers.
161
Vincent Katz, ed. Black Mountain College‐ Experiment in Art (Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina
Sofia, 2002), 24.
162
Welliver, "Albers on Albers." Albers lifelong thirst for knowledge and expertise had made him a willing
participant in Itten's Vorkurs where abandoning previous learnt knowledge and skills was considered necessary in
order to realise new potentials.
53

wife and a tenuous one as life in Europe for their families and friends became increasingly
dangerous.163 Although not a part of this study the contrasting poles between German and
American cultures and the impact of new freedom and abundance in the United States were
evident in Albers work and his life’s goals.164

Figure 15: 1933 Josef and Anni Albers, from “Germans on Faculty at Black Mountain School”

At this time, conventional American college instruction was heavily influenced by the Beaux‐Art
methods of teaching and only available, in the most part, to the financially privileged. It had
been a fundamental dissatisfaction with this situation that had led Rice and Dreier to develop a
Dewey inspired “learning by doing” curriculum based on democracy, observation and
experimentation. Both men believed that these attributes were to be placed at the foreground
of the educational canon in contrast to the exclusive emphasis placed on printed matter.

163
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 108. Both Josef and Anni
Albers juggled the complexties of their existance deftly to assist family and friends in their escape from Germany
and other parts of Europe during WW11 while still pursuing their work at Black Mountain.
164
Albers responded to the American and Mexican landscape by picking up his paintbrush again. This led to his
passion for painting being ignited again.
54

Dewey himself visited and corresponded regularly with Rice165 In one letter of support sent in
1940, he wrote: “The work and life of the college are a living example of democracy in action.
The college exists at the very ‘grass roots’ of a democratic way of life.”166 Paralleling Rice and
Dreier’s ideals were Albers’ own experiences of the intellectual system which had ignited in him
the belief that formulaic, non‐sensory teaching was destructive to creativity.167 In 1999
historian Paul Betts wrote: “Black Mountain College, NC” that: “Albers’ teaching nicely meshed
with the college’s guiding objective of discouraging imitation and mannerism in order to
develop independence, critical ability and discipline.”168 Even though Black Mountain College
was established after the closure of the Bauhaus and the schools shared many ideological
beliefs, Black Mountain was not merely a continuum of the Bauhaus. However, it was in
retrospect recognised as an important outpost for Bauhaus pedagogy and diaspora due mostly
to the introduction and influence of Albers.169 Albers would, over his sixteen year tenure at
Black Mountain, integrate many Bauhaus influences and continue to develop the universal
visual language cultivated at the Bauhaus. JoAnne Ellert describes one important commonality
that served as a vital thread for the Bauhaus legacy in America. She posits: “John Dewey was
not too far removed from one of the basic ideas of the introductory Bauhaus course – the idea
that there exists in every human latent artistic power which needs to be awakened.”170

All Bauhaus pedagogues concurred that fundamental to their pedagogical ideologies was the
belief that intellectual education offered a limited palette of understanding. This primary
standpoint was unwavering within all adaptations of the Vorkurs by its masters either at the
Bauhaus or within any of the transatlantic versions of these teachings. The influence of
Pestalozzi and Ruskin within Itten, Moholy‐Nagy and Albers’ preliminary courses at the

165
According to Karl‐Heinz Füssl Rice and Albers fell out over Rice’s consistent experimentation within the
curriculum. Rice was forced to resign from Black Mountain in 1938. Rice stated that he felt only John Dewey truly
understood his endeavours.
166
Füssl, "Pestalozzi in Dewey's Realm.Bauhaus Master Josef Albers among the German‐speaking Emigres'Colony
at Black Mountain College (1933 ‐ 1949)," 81.John Dewey also served as a member of Black Mountain's advisory
board.
167
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus, 174. Both the Beaux‐Art system and the apprenticeship system of learning
encouraged imitation not innovation.
168
ibid., 64.
169
ibid., 63. Black Mountain attracted many influencial European and American writers, artists and architects to
participate. Buckminster Fuller, John Cage, Robert Motherwell, El Lissitzky and Edgar Kaufmann were among those
who attended Albers' summer classes.
170
JoAnne C Ellert, "The Bauhaus and Black Mountain College," The Journal of General Education 24 no. 3 (1972),
144. Johannes Itten believed everyone had the innate ability to be creative. These abilities were to be awakened
within his 1919 ‐ 1923 version of the Bauhaus Vorkurs.
55

Bauhaus continued to be fundamental within the American translations. This lineage of
educating the student holistically encouraging vision and perception through an ‘innocent eye’
remained important. Each Bauhaus pedagogue had inherent differences in their pedagogical
beliefs that had been, to varying degrees masked, under an imposed unity at the Bauhaus.

Figure 16: Black Mountain logo 1933.This logo owes a debt to the Bauhaus signet by
Schlemmer

Once the pedagogues immigrated to the United States, the translations of the beliefs and their
idiosyncrasies would be uncovered and challenged. This ultimately caused the individual
interpretations to undergo manipulations. Albers endured the least criticism as he had brought
his rigorous teachings in drawing, design and colour to Black Mountain where the liberal
unfettered curriculum embraced Albers ideals. While at the same time Moholy‐Nagy would
endeavour to engage with entrepreneurs and capitalism in order to create a design institute in
the heart of the industrial Midwest.171

3.3 Itten and Dewey’s Influence on Albers’ Black Mountain Werklehre

Black Mountain College (1933‐1956) was an experimental community located in North Carolina
and considered an exemplar in innovative art, education in America. Within the liberal arts
programme an emphasis was placed on the visual arts with literature and music also major

171
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 69. Although Albers and
Moholy‐Nagy are coupled together in this chapter they did develop very different stratagies for the universal
visual language in America that did not always gain eachother's approval.
56

contributors to the creative environment.172 The social agendas that Albers had formulated at
the Bauhaus would be well supported at Black Mountain. The new environment had radical
left‐leaning patronage both politically and educationally. Albers would, unlike Moholy‐Nagy or
Gropius, be more accepting of the Dewey influences established at Black Mountain. Dewey’s
books The School and Society and Democracy and Education had inspired Albers prior to his
indoctrination to Bauhaus principles.173 Albers slogan “experimenting takes priority over
studying” was a derivative of Dewey’s motto “learning by doing.”174 For Albers these two
reformative slogans were epitomised in Itten’s Vorkurs. Itten’s teachings had served as
principle foundations in Albers’ own work and continued to be informative in his development
of pedagogical ideals. Albers and Moholy‐Nagy’s Vorkurs was portrayed as a revolt against
Itten’s course and the subjectivity imbued within it. However, Albers would integrate much of
Itten’s pedagogical programme into his American iterations of the Vorkurs. Pestalozzi and
Ruskin would continue to be formidable influences as Albers progressed towards his mission
“to open eyes.”175Albers merged the German and the American reformative pedagogies of
Dewey and the Bauhaus and in doing so accelerated the shift from Beaux‐Art to modernist
education within Fine Arts in America.

Although I have established a number of influences that had shaped Albers’ idealistic intensions
he also, most importantly, brought his own distinct pedagogical blueprint to Black Mountain.
Dewey’s theories had not addressed a belief in a universal understanding or visual language but
Albers would adhere to and develop the ideals of universality inherent in the Bauhaus ideology
in his Black Mountain programme. At Black Mountain Albers renamed the Vorkurs the
Werklehre which when translated, means ‘learning through working or doing.’ It is important to
appreciate that although Albers would in his role at Black Mountain College address these
pedagogical ideals within Fine Arts alone, he still held to the Bauhaus tenet that “our desire for
the simplest and clearest forms will make mankind more united and life more real, more

172
ibid., 98. Albers arranged for Gropius,Feininger ,de Kooning, Twombly and Cage among others to visit and
lecture at Black Mountain. The encounters were described at in some cases cataclysmic..
173
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 174. Before entering the Bauhaus as a student Albers had been inspired by the
writings of Dewey. He then by chance found a brochure adertising the Bauhaus and Walter Gropius manifesto
which led him to enroll at the Weimar school.
174
ibid.
175
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 106.
57

essential.”176 As part of this belief, Albers maintained a principle ambition within his teaching to
sensitise his students to “open their eyes.”177 At both Black Mountain College and his next post
Yale University, Albers would canonise this doctrine. Within his Bauhaus and Dewey inspired
programme Albers continued the tradition of holistic teaching. To this experimental community
Albers brought the analytical focus he had learnt in Itten’s classes and developed in his own
Vorkurs. He did however make one vital change to the Bauhaus methodology. He abandoned
the interdisciplinary ethos taught at the Bauhaus.178 He offered courses in drawing which
stressed techniques for visualisation, composition and spatial relationships. Interestingly, after
Itten’s departure Albers and Moholy‐Nagy had removed colour studies from their Vorkurs but
here, in the Black Mountain Werklehre Albers would reintroduce it. He would also teach
painting in his advanced colour course. Albers would in his own work, detach himself from
industrial design focusing on the fine arts and become a painter in his own right. Sandler
argues: “It must be stressed that Albers’ exclusive commitment was to art and not, as often
believed, design.”179 Although unlike Gropius and Moholy‐Nagy, Albers would not address form
or space three dimensionally in his work, the relationships between form and colour to create
or suggest space formed the nucleus to his artistic investigations.180 Albers may not have
engaged in making form beyond the Bauhaus but his beliefs in a shared pedagogical approach
or creative value never altered.

Figure 17: Albers at Black Mountain College.

176
Irving Sandler, "The School of Art at Yale: The Collective Remininiscences of the Twenty Distinguished Alumni.,"
Art Journal 42, no. 1 (1982),16.
177
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 106. Albers believed it was
more important that the student grow into their own world than be led by the teachers background.
178
ibid., 98.
179
Sandler, "The School of Art at Yale: The Collective Remininiscences of the Twenty Distinguished Alumni.," 16.
180
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 99.
58

With this dramatic change in his own direction of work one could postulate that Albers had
returned to the beliefs of subjectivity so venomously criticised by Gropius and van der Velde
within Itten’s Vorkurs. There is certainly an element of truth in this argument and Albers time
at Yale will illuminate this discourse more fully. In Albers’ defence, the teachings of the
universal language at Black Mountain were not discarded, indeed he had broadened them to
include not only a universal understanding between artists but most importantly he wanted art
to be an enlightening experience for the viewer.181 Author and curator Achim Borchardt‐Hume
writes: “They (Albers and Moholy‐Nagy) wanted their art to be immediate and inclusive,
intelligible without any art‐historical knowledge or academic education.”182 This had been a
central tenet to all Bauhaus pedagogues in their translations but would for some, namely
Gropius at Harvard University, be fiercely challenged.

3.4 Bauhaus Versus Black Mountain–A Competition

Albers’ ethos was questioned, indeed comparisons and reservations were made between the
Bauhaus and Black Mountain College. Ellert compare Black Mountain to the Bauhaus and
maligns “the revolution carried out by Gropius and his Bauhaus colleagues” as a “mere palace
revolution” and claims the founding of Black Mountain College as a definitive “revolt against
the entire system of standard higher education.”183 The commonalities within their intentions
are more evenly balanced than she purports. To further quote Ellert:

The new school in Black Mountain was to be an experiment in pure
democracy and the ‘education of the whole man.’ It was also to be an
experiment in self‐deprivation on the part of the faculty in starting a college
without funds in the midst of the worst depression America had ever
known.184

One may debate the imprudence of the author’s comparison of Gropius’ and his colleague’s
efforts within the highly charged political, ethical and economic climate that existed for them in

181
ibid., 74.
182
ibid. Borchardt‐Hume curated the 2006 exhibition "Albers and Moholy‐Nagy." at the Tate Modern, London.
183
Ellert, "The Bauhaus and Black Mountain College," 145.
184
ibid. The reference to educating the whole man is one that has roots in the teachings of Pestalozzi and Ruskin a
century before the Dewey theories were introduced to American education.
59

Germany at the inception and during the tenure of the Bauhaus to Rice and Dreier’s struggles
to establish Black Mountain within a depressed and conservative climate in the United States.
But beyond the financial difficulties placed on both of the schools and their faculties, Ellert’s
description of the tenets of the Black Mountain teachings show mirror like aspirations to the
Bauhaus’ belief in the democratic education of the whole man.

Although both the Dewey and the Bauhaus pedagogical approaches were integrated into
components of Albers teachings it is of interest that a certain element of competition seems to
exist within historical records in relation to which of the ideologies, Bauhaus or Dewey played
the greater role in ridding America of the Beaux‐Art method of teaching where imitation, style
and illustrative codification were paramount. Ellert’s acerbic description from the American
perspective evidences a disregard for the context in Germany within which the Bauhaus was
conceived and developed. It is plausible to interpret this rather disparaging description by Ellert
as a dismissal of the Bauhaus’ successful development of a creative and reformative pedagogy
and to claim this pioneering effort for Dewey’s American disciples. Although Ellert gives
significant weight to a depressed economic situation within America at the time of Black
Mountain’s inception, to applaud Black Mountain for instigating a reformation during a difficult
period of time within a nation while downplaying the efforts of its European counterparts in
similar if not more oppressive conditions seems ill informed. I would argue that these
comments are moreover, incorrect. Albers himself made explicit references to the depressed
economic situation in Germany within his teachings. He is known to have stated in the
introduction to his preliminary course at the Bauhaus: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are poor, not
rich. We cannot afford to waste material or time. We have to make the most out of the least.
Notice then, that often you will have more by doing less.”185 In addition to Albers’ frugality, a
tenuous political and economic context led to self‐denial and self‐ deprivation within other
areas of the Bauhaus’ framework. Parsimony was also encouraged within the spirituality of
Itten’s Vorkurs. The edification of spirituality was primarily through the belief in the Mazdanan
philosophies. The exercise of self‐deprivation discussed by Ellert was not exclusive to Black
Mountain College as alluded to in her article. A former Vorkurs student confirms this situation
by stating: “great demands were made on our self‐denial, and if we occasionally faltered when

185
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 181. Albers was particular in his theories of economy of material and effort to
gain maximum effect. His work was precise and economical.
60

conditions were too hard or hunger and thirst too great, on the whole we felt happy and
privileged to have the firm support of our doctrine.”186

Whether one adheres to Ellert’s claims that Black Mountain’s plight was greater than the
extremes felt within the Bauhaus’s struggles or the opposing view, this discourse highlights my
argument that there are antagonistic comparisons being made where between the two
schools. It would seem important that within the writings of Ellert, Black Mountain be
understood as the more pious example of enlightened educational reform. Beyond these
debates it is still nevertheless true that finances were unstable at Black Mountain College just
as they had been at the Bauhaus. Black Mountain’s pecuniary support was reliant on the
passions and financial capabilities of the institute’s benefactors, and although Rice and Dreier
were both wealthy men (and Theodore Dreier was considered an accomplished fundraiser on
the behalf of Black Mountain College) the donations did eventually begin to subside. Post WWII
conservatism, criticism from competing institutions and political suspicions of communist links
within the United States took its toll on the left leaning experimental college.187 Attempts to
retain funding could not avert the inevitability of bankruptcy. In 1956 the remaining staff and
students voted to disband the school.

Albers would again need to seek employment and a new start. With the dissemination of
Bauhaus teaching gaining traction in the United States, in part due to the arrival of its founder
Walter Gropius at Harvard University in 1937 and the pedestal some had placed him upon,
Albers had been offered other opportunities to teach in America. In fact Gropius would
continuously attempt to encourage Albers, “the backbone of the preliminary course”, to join
Harvard’s faculty.188 But although Albers did lecture on occasion at Harvard’s Graduate School
of Design he was never a member of the staff. Whether Albers declined Harvard because he

186
Katerina Ruëdi Ray, Bauhaus Dream‐House. Modernity and Globalisation (New York: Routledge, 2010), 50.
Ruedi Ray offers an insightful twist on hardship at the Bauhaus. She suggests that the extent of the fasting was as a
result of a lack of food available but embraced under tutelage of Itten and the guise of Mazdanan to empower
spirituality and creativity.
187
Füssl, "Pestalozzi in Dewey's Realm.Bauhaus Master Josef Albers among the German‐speaking Emigres' Colony
at Black Mountain College (1933 ‐ 1949)," 87. Post WW11 Black Mountain was criticised by Princeton's award
winning psycologist Eric Bentley as having massive deficiencies and a democratic education for the elite. Both
Harvard and The University of Chicago supported this rhetoric.
188
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 469. Albers was viewed by many in
America, including Joseph Hudnut, the founder of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, and Gropius himself
as the most vital instructor of the preliminary course at the Bauhaus.
61

found the school too elitist and the pay too little as some have suggested, or whether Harvard
declined to employ an artist in an architectural programme as argued by Pearlman could be
seen as immaterial. But this discourse does illuminate a fracture between some former
Bauhaüsers in mainstream American pedagogy. Albers ideals did not sit as comfortably outside
Black Mountain College.189 Despite the relative isolation of Black Mountain, Albers had
considerable impact on mainstream America. Having exhibited in 1938 in New York it was
enthusiastically reported in Time Magazine: “A Bauhaus alumnus who has had better luck than
Moholy‐Nagy since he landed in the U.S in 1933 is Josef Albers, a gigantic little man.” 190

In spite of the fact that his earning capacity was seriously limited by the college’s finances
Albers remained loyal to the school that had removed him from the German Nazi environment.
This was not an expression of gratitude but more a display of Albers commitment to teaching
as a vocation and the fulfilment he gained from it.191 He had never regarded his stay at Black
Mountain as a stepping stone to other more professional positions in America. He had not
sought the pedestals or accolades of some of his Bauhaus colleagues.192 Importantly to Albers,
he had been able to address art education on two levels within his methodology. He had taught
art to those with no experience of it with the aim of encouraging a common understanding and
appreciation of the visual language, and equally as significant Albers had influenced an entire
generation of artists and designers. Having studied at Yale under Albers, Michael Craig‐Martin
considered Albers to be one of the most influential educators in the history of American art
education. In 1995 he wrote:

Albers’ teaching can be seen as having directly contributed to several
important movements. Yet at its heart, his teaching was about attitude and
values rather than any particular type or style of art. It would be no

189
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 109. Albers often found
himself having to defend his work when exhibited. This was in the most part due to misinterpretations of his work
that had became more and more about visual deception and trickery and not universal understanding.
190
ibid. This quote also acknowledges the difficulties being experienced by Moholy‐Nagy and not by Albers.
191
Füssl, "Pestalozzi in Dewey's Realm. Bauhaus Master Josef Albers among the German‐speaking Emigres' Colony
at Black Mountain College (1933 ‐ 1949)," 89. Albers had declined other earlier offers to leave Black Mountain. His
committment to teaching is evident as the artist did not take up painting for himself until he left Black Mountain.
He then began his famous "Homage to the Square."
192
Both Gropius at Harvard and Moholy‐Nagy in Chicago gained more exposure in America due to the institutes
and personalities they were associated with.
62

exaggeration to see Albers as the father of the last generation of American
modernists.193

The isolation of Black Mountain and the socialist tendencies of some of its teachers and
students had sheltered Albers from the capitalistic consumer environment that inevitably
caused anguish and misunderstanding to both Moholy‐Nagy and Gropius. His next step into
mainstream education would see changes to Albers’ methodology but not his intentions.

3.5 Albers at Yale

After his sixteen year term at Black Mountain in 1950, Albers sixty‐two, took up a post at one of
America’s most prestigious schools, Yale University. Albers progressed from Black Mountain
College to become the Director of Design at Yale University, where he continued his teachings
concerning the ‘whole man’ and the ‘innocent eye’. By the time Albers took up this post the
reform of artistic and architectural education was well underway in the United States. Beyond
the success of Albers to disseminate, throughout the United States, the new teachings from
Black Mountain, Gropius had also arrived and been a very vocal and prolific propagandist for
his Bauhaus ideals. Although he had strong opposition at Harvard for some of his tenets by
1950 he had finally managed to introduce a Harvard version of the Vorkurs.194 Moholy‐Nagy
had, after an assertive and dogged effort, also carved a path for the Bauhaus methodology but
sadly he had already died of leukaemia some three years before Albers would arrive at Yale.
With the ground pre‐prepared by his Bauhaus colleagues Albers entered Yale on a pedestal
equalled only by the one that Gropius had been elevated to by Bauhaus supporters upon his
arrival some thirteen years earlier. Art critic Irving Sandler stated that Albers’ teaching at the
Bauhaus had made him a historic figure. Albers’ stature was enhanced greatly by his efforts at
Black Mountain and Sandler asserted: “Albers was one of the most influential teachers of
modern art in the United States, if not the world. Even the mass media reported on his

193
Michael Craig‐Martin, "The Teaching of Josef Albers: A Reminiscence," The Burlington Magazine 137, no. 1105
(1995), 252.
194
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 473. Gropius had fought a long and
loud battle for the a Vorkurs at Harvard and although it was 13 years before he would achieve this other
universities throughout America were quicker to indoctrinate his tenets into their curriculum.
63

teaching; Life Magazine featured Albers in a four page picture story that helped spread the
word.”195

Yale offered a number of new challenges to the Bauhaus’ and Albers’ ideals. Like all other
versions of Bauhaus teachings in the United States Albers would need to adapt his tenets once
again to suit his new situation. Although Yale saw Albers and his teachings as clearly aligned
with a progressive modernist, there are important distinctions between the Bauhaus, Black
Mountain College and Yale. These distinctions included the calculated student selections
cultivated by Albers, the training of the innocent eye and his seemingly autocratic view that his
own ideas were paramount. In Chapter One, we addressed Albers’ distinct personality. He was
an abrupt and at times, rude man who was never anything but serious about his students’
work. This seriousness, Sandler asserted “enabled the students to make allowances for Albers
frequent hot‐headedness and nastiness to students and his authoritarian posture. Students had
to learn to cope with Albers and some could not.”196 Albers personality did not alter in this new
more traditional environment. The illustrious environs of Yale were a comfortable fit for Albers’
autocratic characteristics, where he was always considered the student’s master with
competition fiercely encouraged and criticism always public.197 As both a student and a teacher
Albers had always encouraged competition and he had always demanded exactitude and
excellence from his charges (and of course, himself). Itten and Albers had both demanded of
their Vorkurs students that they challenge themselves. Albers would expect no less of his
American students than he had of his Bauhaus students. He had always assimilated learning,
teaching and doing as one. Wick asserts that Albers the student, Albers the teacher and Albers
the painter were interwoven facets of the one man.198 His thirst for knowledge and his passion
for sharing it were what defined him as a great teacher and in later years gained him the
accolades for his own works. Sandler states: “Albers’ genius as a teacher depended less on
what he taught than on the example he himself set: his utter devotion to making art and to

195
Sandler, "The School of Art at Yale: The Collective Remininiscences of the Twenty Distinguished Alumni," 14.
Irving also notes that although Albers did not achieve recognition for his own work until his mid‐sixties, while at
Yale, he had been considered an eminent pedagogue for nearly three decades.
196
ibid., 16. His demeanour was described as his "prussianism." Other students who could cope with Albers
temperament found him aloof but sensitive to their individual works.
197
ibid. Sandler also stated that some students did request private critiques with Albers. But he would dissect their
work thoroughly and investigate the students intensions rigourously. These sessions proved no less intimidating
than the public critiques.
198
Fiedler and Feierabend, Bauhaus, 308. Albers the artist was often hidden behind Albers the teacher and it was
not till Albers reached Yale that Albers the artist re‐emerged as primarily important to Albers.
64

teaching. Indeed his seriousness as a teacher inspired his students to be equally serious as
students.”199

At Yale, the demographic of the student would be wholly different to that of the liberal Black
Mountain College. Black Mountain had as its student body an enlightened radical fringe, and
Yale, considered one of the most powerful conservative institution in the United States,
catered primarily to university postgraduates. The Bauhaus ideal of universal understanding by
means of a universal language was no less a component of Albers teaching at Yale than it had
been at Black Mountain, but it would be the structure for teaching universality within his Yale
programme that would require adjustment to both the Bauhaus and Black Mountain
methodologies. Albers needed to again embrace the interdisciplinary mode of teaching that
had been fundamental at the Bauhaus and that he had dispensed with at Black Mountain. It
was within the wide and variant selection of disciplines at Yale that included not only fine arts
and architecture but engineering, drama, law and finance that Albers formed his new
incarnation of the Vorkurs and selected his pupils. It was not intended that the pool of
potential students be moulded into artists. The aim was to develop through visual experience
and awareness a basis for understanding art.200 At Black Mountain Albers had fostered art
education as part of a system of general education. We know from the Vorkurs that creativity
was believed to be innate needing to be awakened. Albers believed that although art could not
be taught it could be learned. This he endeavoured to do through exercises in sharpening
observation skills.201 This belief formed the basis for his Yale courses and informed his selection
of students.

Sandler explains that Albers introduced an eight week cross‐examination and selection process.
From this rigorous course of action Sandler posited that Albers felt he could more confidently
select a multi‐disciplinary collection of students. Albers was considered by his Yale colleagues
as a great recruiter and he induced many of the other art schools finest graduates to attend
Yale, therefore instantly assembling a potentially unequalled student body. Albers was

199
200
Craig‐Martin, "The Teaching of Josef Albers: A Reminiscence," 248. Craig‐Martin was a Yale student who was
taught in the Albers method by his successor Sewell Sillman who considered it his mission to keep Albers teachings
in tact and unaltered.
201
Füssl, "Pestalozzi in Dewey's Realm. Bauhaus Master Josef Albers among the German‐speaking Emigres'Colony
at Black Mountain College (1933 ‐ 1949)," 84.
65

considered to have great skill for recognising talent. He was not tempted by a student’s abilities
but more interested in the person, or to use an established term of reference ‘the whole man.’
Albers would gauge their intelligence, seriousness, enthusiasm and energy as his measure.
Irving Sadler writes of the student selections: “They were also looking for students who seemed
on the basis of their work to be professional and intelligent, to possess substance, and to be
open to new ideas and experiences.”202

Figure 18: Albers at the Yale School of Art, 1950‐1970

I would assert that this selection process, although a first glance seems to address the desired
attributes, fails to include fully the demands of innocence, egalitarianism and universality that
had been apparent at Black Mountain. The selections are in my opinion, elitist. These were
highly educated and due to the exclusivity of education at Yale most likely wealthy students.
This argument is supported by the writings of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) and
architectural sociologist Garry Stevens who propose that those most able to decipher modern
art and architecture are those individuals whose social position allows advanced educational
opportunities.203 This argument, which I will unravel presently, becomes more germane in my
discussion of Albers intentions for the innocent eye.

202
203
Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University
Press 1992), 2.
66

3.6 The Innocent Eye becomes the Educated Eye

Once accepted into Albers’ programme the students were encouraged in the spirit of the
Vorkurs, to wipe their palette clean. We have established that fundamental to Albers and many
of his Bauhaus colleague’s ideologies individual discoveries were imperative to creativity. This
stripping away of inherited ideas and beliefs was considered by Albers to increase creative
potential. Albers believed that once the individual sought this void they were able to make new
discoveries. In an interview with Albers at the latter part of his career he is said to have stated
to his students, after they described themselves as amateurs compared to the master:
“amateurism is a type of emptiness and I accept it because it has no preconceived ideas or
rules applied to it. For me this is a most welcome situation.”204 This concept of innocence and
openness to new vision within Albers’ courses at Yale does however, elicit certain reservations.
I would argue the innocent eye is being handpicked and specifically trained in perception and
observation. A selective and trained eye suggests a new imposed understanding and the notion
of exclusivity or speciality. Implied is a specific tool for those able to engage and demonstrate
proficiency in a specific task. Bourdieu, for example, asserts that a belief in pure aesthetics, of
which the innocent eye is a manifestation, is founded on class distinction. He argues that:

Perceiving a work of art is an act of deciphering, decoding which presupposes
practical or explicit mastery of a cipher or code. The cultural competence
needed to perform this act is the result of our upbringing and functions as an
indirect marker if class. Those who, at whatever cost, do make the successful
transition to the innocent eye are able to put themselves in a position above
the vulgarity of the masses.205

Bourdieu’s views in regard to Albers teaching at Yale require consideration. Albers’ concept of
a universal language not only for artists but for everyone is magnanimous but as Bourdieu
suggests it involves exposure to culture and education, which is not available or always
considered necessary by the masses. Although in principle the Bauhaus had instigated a free
policy of entry where gender, race and ability were not judged and Black Mountain was of a

204
John H Holloway, John A Weil, and Josef Albers, "A Conversation with Josef Albers," Leonardo 3, no. 4 (1970).
205
Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University
Press,1992), 2.
67

similar standpoint there were still obvious demographic omissions to the patronage at Yale.
Albers seems to be hand picking his “innocent” protégés from an already educated elite sector
of society. Albers had explicit criteria, albeit liberal, that he wished the students to display upon
being processed and interviewed.

Although this process could be considered overly selective and elitist in its criteria for student
screening, Craig‐Martin discovered during interviews with Yale alumni, that the students
themselves considered the calibre of their classmates in Albers’ courses to be challenging. They
stated the diversity within the students of gender, class, ethnic background and style, brought
about by the removal of academia as a prerequisite and enriched their experience.206 Craig‐
Martin went on to say: “There was an atmosphere of serious mutual endeavour and support
combined with intense and forthright competition.”207The students were now in an
environment of competitiveness where they were encouraged to prove themselves in a new
light, a new way and therefore the students were unable to rely on established abilities. Under
Albers and in this environment the students were required to start afresh. They were seemingly
forced to not only see, as ordained by Albers, but to look again, for themselves under their own
illuminations. “Put another way, to venture beyond seeing into vision.”208 He maintained his
strict doctrine for an economy of materials which led, like Itten’s Vorkurs, to the ability to
recognise and express the essence, the essential components, in an art work.

3.7 Albers Taught Me to See

In a poem written by Albers in 1964 called ‘Seeing Art,’ he described his approach to art and art
education.
Art is not to be looked at
Art is looking at us
Thus art is not an object
but experience
To be able to perceive it

206
It is interesting that Craig‐Martin would discuss the removal of academics from the student selections as all of
the students were post graduates from prestigious universities.
207
Craig‐Martin, "The Teaching of Josef Albers: A Reminiscence," 249.
208
68

we need to be receptive
Therefore art is there
where art meets us.

He explains in this piece that to experience a work of art we do not necessarily require
knowledge of rules or criteria but more importantly we need ‘vision.’ Albers encouraged his
students to go beyond problem solving, knowledge, skill and discipline into what he described
as visual poetry. To venture beyond seeing was the quest. The training in observation offered in
Albers courses was well utilised and popular amongst the Yale students. Students were mostly
impressed by Albers’ ability to see paintings with incredible discipline and focus. “Albers taught
me to see” is the reply invariably given when graduates are asked by Sandler how they most
benefitted from studies with Josef Albers.209 It is important to appreciate at this time that
Albers investigations into colour theory became a principle component in his teachings. Not
only were students being taught drawing and material qualities where the teaching methods of
the Vorkurs were completely integrated Albers had reintroduced colour as an essential
component to his teachings. His colour theories took the viewer beyond understanding
relationships between colours but asked the viewer to gaze longer to see between the colours
where he often revealed form and space. When commenting on Albers paintings during this
time Craig‐Martin stated:

Albers’ space is utterly uncanny; in no way does it resemble natural space.
While the shapes and colours are as concrete as they can be, the space
sensations they project are weirdly ambiguous. In some instances they quiver
and pulsate; in other instances they become muted and serene or entirely
silent.210

Albers’ use of the education of the innocent eye as perceived by Pestalozzi and Ruskin and
advanced at the Bauhaus by Itten falls into question at this point. Interestingly, Sandler
considered Albers to now be ambivalent towards innocence. He argued that Albers believed in
aspiring students finding their own way while at the same time wanting to impose his own

209
ibid.
210
Burton M Wasserman, "Josef Albers: His American Years," Art Education 19, no. 7 (1966), 11.
69

attitudes and beliefs on the students. Sandler quotes Albers as having said: “Stay off the
bandwagon. Your bandwagon is to follow me, follow yourself.”211 Although Black Mountain had
been considered an experiment in democratic education and Albers had been a fundamental
component in its facilitation, I would assert that Albers’ professed ideology at Yale offered a
different educational structure. Albers demanded his students discard sentiment and self‐
indulgence and implied his profound insight as paramount. I would conclude Albers had
embraced a Miesian approach in the studio which encouraged the master as an exemplar not a
facilitator as Moholy‐Nagy and Albers had practiced at the Bauhaus.212 There is no doubt that
Albers students at Yale were requested, as the Bauhaus and Black Mountain students had been,
to approach design with an innocent eye but an adversary to this ideology could interpret this as
an imposed innocence.

I would argue that Albers’ own investigations into colour theory, documented in his 1963 book
Interaction of Colour moved his teachings beyond that of a universally accessible visual language
to one of explicit exclusivity. The universal visual language was merely an entry level
understanding of art that Albers, as a teacher, was profoundly committed to. But Albers the
artist developed well beyond these teachings in his years at Yale. Former Black Mountain student
Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) commented on Albers’ later works saying: “with Albers one is
never certain: for all his interest in the gestalt forms, his primary concerns were discrepancies
and deception.”213 At Yale, Albers was now more interested in ambiguities of perception than the
truth of materials that was synonymous with the Bauhaus Vorkurs.

According to Borchardt‐Hume, Albers complemented his new study of modern vision with an
old attention to natural forms and found things.214 Although Borchardt‐Hume makes no
connection to Itten’s course in material studies that was the precursor to Moholy‐Nagy and
Albers’ matière course, I would assert that Albers had reverted to Itten’s pedagogical tenets.

211
212
Bauhaus in America, DVD directed by Judith Pearlman (1995, ed. Paul Goldberger (New York: Cliofilm Ltd,
1995). In discussion with the director of "Bauhaus in America" Philip Johnson says that although Mies van der
Rohe believed in a universal visual language he encouraged his students to consider his aesthetic outcomes via this
common language as the ideal. Howard Dearstyne, a former student of the Bauhaus and Mies argued that Mies
taught the universal through his own vocabulary.
213
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 100. While at Yale Albers
began his painting series "The Homage to the Square." Albers investigated the illusions of space and perception
and in some instances he engaged in pure deception.
214
ibid., 98.
70

These tenets were after all, Albers first introduction to the Bauhaus when he arrived as a
student in 1920. Albers’ obsession with colour and the theories he discovered around it were
further testament to a relapse back to the original Itten Vorkurs where composition, colour and
materials were believed to be crucial in artistic endeavours. Both Pestalozzi and Itten had both
encouraged the cultivation of a student’s powers of seeing. Itten had written in one of his early
diaries: “I want to train the eye and the hand and the memory as well. Clear simple thoughtful
observation of that which can be perceived by the senses.”215 Although Albers had embraced
Gropius 1923 manifesto of a new unity with technology, having graduated from Itten’s
preliminary course there was no trace of technology in his teaching or work beyond the
Bauhaus. Sandler argued that Albers encouraged a spiritual quest of intuitiveness and
instinctual responses which I would argue were not dissimilar to Itten’s pedagogical tenets of
thinking and feeling, intuition and intellect and expression and construction. Unfortunately
Sandler also saw this shift to intuitiveness and emotion as a shift away from design. This
interpretation of art being distinct from design would halter Gropius endeavours to include
Albers in the teaching faculty at Harvard. Albers disagreed with these arguments. He asserted
in a retrospective interview of his teaching Albers said: “The unique qualities of perceptual
understanding in visual education are that they are applicable to all areas of art‐ architecture,
fine art, design, photography, and all the crafts perceptual understanding is always relevant,
since it transcends all styles and time frames‐ it is never out of date.216

Albers taught his charges to comprehend spatial relationships, to better understand the illusion
of form and to realise that in visual art, suggestion is equally as, if not more powerful, than
delineation. Nicholas Fox Weber quotes Albers’ own lecture notes: “An element plus an
element must lead to at least one interesting relationship over the sum of the elements. In art
1 + 1 can equal 3.”217 Varnelis asserts that Bauhaus masters Moholy‐Nagy and Albers
developed a coherent method of teaching space in art by linking visual language to John
Ruskin's ideal of the innocent eye:

215
216
Rob Roy Kelly, "Recollections of Josef Albers," Design Issues 16, no. 2 (2000), 5.
217
Nicholas Fox Weber is the director of the Josef and Anni Albers FoundationBorchardt‐Hume, Albers and
Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 109. This quote also appeared in TIME Magazine in December
1938.
71

The act of perception had thus been divided into two events: what Moholy‐
Nagy called “vision in motion,” leading the eye around the canvas, and the
moment of illumination that would finally lead to an understanding of the
work. The glance of the eye that Ruskin had defined had lengthened into a
reverie.218

I would suggest that Varnelis was also suggesting that Albers had moved beyond a simple
commonality of understanding a visual language to a more complex and educated analysis of
what the viewer was to decipher. There is no doubt that Albers was considered highly in the
world of fine arts and painting. Craig‐Martin is only one of a number of historians that bestows
emeritus accolades on Albers: “To assess the impact of Albers’ teaching on American art is not
easy because it was so extensive and profound. He made Yale the most important art school in
the United States as he had previously done at Black Mountain.”219

There is also no question that Albers had been a pivotal instructor at the Bauhaus. The duress
under which he had left Germany in and the opportunities that had eventuated in the United
States lead Albers down a more singular path that he may not have followed if the Bauhaus had
remained open. Beyond the Bauhaus, Albers never attempted to translate his theories into
three dimensional works. The lack of direct attempts at three dimensional works by Albers did
not deter other Bauhaus émigrés from developing their ideologies into the built environment.
In fact, in spite of Albers single focus on painting his theories of spatial perception were
embraced by architectural pedagogues and students alike. Varnelis argues that Albers theories
of ambiguity were the basis to a major shift in architectural language and understanding:

Just as the advent of modernism created a void in American art education
that was filled by the visual language, a similar disciplinary crisis led to its
translation and adoption in architecture. The development of a new visual
language in architecture would be based on a translation of Albers, Moholy‐

218
Varnelis, "The Education of the Innocent Eye," 216‐17.
219
Craig‐Martin, "The Teaching of Josef Albers: A Reminiscence," 252. Joseph Hudnut was the principle opposition
to Albers appointment at Harvard.He believed Albers to be a painter and worried what he may bring from Black
Mountain to Harvard.
72

Nagy and Kepes’ (Moholy‐Nagy’s assistant in America) work into three
dimensions.220

The translation into three dimensions was undertaken most predominantly by Moholy‐Nagy at
the New Bauhaus, and by Walter Gropius at Harvard University’s School of Architecture.
Although Gropius fought to have Albers join him at Harvard his employers would not support
Albers appointment, in part due to the political dispositions associated with his leading role at
Black Mountain, but principally because Albers had never tested his theories in three
dimensional forms. Albers was fully aware of the struggles Gropius and Moholy‐Nagy were
experiencing in their respective institutions and armed with this knowledge, Albers could see
the difficulties posed for architecture and design in the United States both politically and
economically. He chose to avoid that challenge. That is not to say that Albers would not
influence a large number of architects and designers with his pedagogy which due to his
popularity led to a vast number of guest lectures all over the United States.221 Albers remained
at Yale for ten years until his retirement in 1960. He continued his paintings, principally his
Homage to the Square until his death in 1976 at the age of 88.

Although Albers had advocated for the universal understanding of the modern aesthetic
coupled with the science of visual perception, the social agendas imbued within the Bauhaus
pedagogy were not characterized in his work. These issues would have to wait for László
Moholy‐Nagy to champion them within Chicago’s industrial empire.

3.8 Part Two.
Moholy‐Nagy: tests the Transatlantic Environment

Moholy‐Nagy and Albers embraced Itten’s polarities of feeling and thinking as principle tenets
of pedagogy. In doing so, they had helped establish a universal visual language. Both
pedagogues believed that this universal visual language would bring about a unification of art
and technology, culminating in new architecture and design, and just as importantly, social

220
Varnelis, "The Education of the Innocent Eye," 216. Varnelis suggests that Rowe and Slutzky laid the
foundations for this new translation in their essay '"Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal." The Texas Rangers
would be the next generationof American architects and educators to explore these ideas.
221
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 353.Albers would speak at Pratt University, Trinity College in
Connecticut,Universidad Catolica in Santiago and the University of Hartford to name but a few.
73

change. However in the translation of this universal visual language from Germany to post war
America, the ideological component of social change was to a degree bypassed producing the
formally defined and codified aesthetic of the International Style. Although within the
American environment the Bauhaus aesthetic was embraced the rhetoric of social reform was
principally ignored or discarded. With ten years of experience in the American environment
post‐WWI and pre‐WWII, Moholy‐Nagy asserted in his 1947 book Vision in Motion, that while
new tools and new technologies for industry may facilitate social change, mankind’s emotional
prejudice remains the greatest hindrance to social reformation.222 His experiences within
America’s capitalist economy would include a false start, many acrimonious arguments with
and about his teachings, and unfortunately his untimely death. But Moholy‐Nagy did, in spite of
the short time frame and the impediments mentioned, “gift design pedagogy the tools for a
design literate population to evolve.”223

In 1937, just four years after Albers had immigrated to Black Mountain College, the Director of
the Association of Arts and Industries in America, Norma Stahle, offered Walter Gropius the
challenge of opening a New Bauhaus in Chicago. Having already accepted a position at Harvard
University Gropius suggested his good friend Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy as the best candidate. In his
reply to Stahle, Gropius paid homage to his colleague describing Moholy‐Nagy as “the best man
you can get … endowed with that rare creative power which stimulates the students.”224
Moholy‐Nagy was invited to cross the Atlantic on the first available ship in order to open the
New Bauhaus in the short timeframe of just three months. Design historian, Alain Findeli
described Moholy‐Nagy’s response to this challenge as enthusiastic and the rather short time
frame as a detail that “was certainly not perceived as an obstacle by the fiery Moholy‐Nagy.”225
Moholy‐Nagy was excited about the prospect of what he described “as being able, after all

222
This book was published posthumously in 1947 a year after Moholy‐Nagy's death in 1946. Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy,
Vision in Motion (Chicago: Paul Theobold and Company, 1947).
223
Fern Learner, "Foundations for Design Education: Continuing the Bauhaus Vorkurs Vision," Studies in Art
Education 46, no. 3 (2005), 224
224
Alain Findeli and Charlotte Benton, "Design Education and Industry: The Laborious Beginnings of the Institute of
Design in Chicago in 1944," Journal of Design History 4 no. 2 ( 1991), 93.Moholy‐Nagy resigned from the Bauhaus
just four days after Gropius.He and Gropius remained great friends and supported eachothers career paths and
goals throughout their lives. Gropius would be required to speak on Moholy‐Nagy's behalf several times.
225
Alain Findeli, "Moholy‐Nagy Design Pedagagy in Chicago (1937‐1946)," Design Issues 7, no. 1 (1990), 5.
74

these trivialities, to produce something positive again.”226In the same correspondence to
Gropius, Moholy‐Nagy expressed his confidence in “the universal validity of the teaching
principles of the Bauhaus and the possibility of adapting them in America.”227 As with both
Albers’ and Gropius’ experiences in America, Moholy‐Nagy would need to make adjustments
within his pedagogy to suit the new political and economic climate he now found himself
teaching in.

Although Moholy‐Nagy maintained a preliminary course and remained faithful to the ideal of
holistic and interdisciplinary education in his American versions of the Bauhaus teachings he
was put under pressure and consequently forced to accommodate certain market demands
within his student training.228 For this he was criticised by some of his Bauhaus peers, namely
Albers, but I would postulate that due to his untimely and premature death in 1946 his
intentions were not fully revealed until after his second wife Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy began to
elucidate them in her writings.229

3.9 Albers and Moholy‐Nagy’s Pedagogical Differences

Although Albers and Moholy‐Nagy had seemingly worked in a collegial and collaborative
manner within the inter‐disciplinary Bauhaus Vorkurs, the pedagogical demands of the new
American environment and the advancement of specialisations within design placed the ex‐
colleagues in different economic and political realms. Albers and Moholy‐Nagy found
themselves to be on very distinct paths. In 2009 art historian Gabriele Diana Grawe wrote that
both men: “were perceived as being mutually opposed, even virtually irreconcilable.”230 The
principle distinction made between the two Bauhaüslers was that Albers was now considered

226
Findeli and Benton, "Design Education and Industry:The Laborious Beginnings of the Institute of Design in
Chicago in 1944," 98. Moholy‐Nagy wrote this in a letter of gratitiude to Gropius. Moholy‐Nagy referenced as
trivialities the work he was doing in England where he felt unchallenged.
227
ibid.
228
Wolfgang Thoner, ed. Bauhaus:A Conceptual Model (Ostfildern: Hajte Cantz Verlag 2009), 349. These pressures
were played out in the protracted series of varied transformation of the school and the methodology.Gropius
would play a large part in the negotiations between Moholy‐Nagy, the school's board and industry.
229
Judith Paine, "Sybil Moholy‐Nagy: A Complete Life," Archives of American Art 15, no. 4 (1975), 16. Sibyl Moholy‐
Nagy was a loyal exponent of her husbands beliefs. Not only did she write his biography after his death she
lectured and continued to write about design to ensure Laszlo's legacy was cemented in design history.
230
Thoner, Bauhaus:A Conceptual Model, 347.
75

an artist and Moholy‐Nagy a designer.231 A position that Albers, through his contentment at
Black Mountain had seemingly, been happy to occupy. In 1966 during a candid interview with
then Ph.D. student Leonard Finkelstein, Albers rebuked a connection to Moholy‐Nagy saying:
“when you relate me to Moholy, that’s impossible because I hate that man because he was
never original.”232 American art critic and historian, Hal Foster writes: “In the end Moholy and
Albers are fraternal twins, like and unlike in equal measure.”233 Foster asserts that although
both men believed in art as an objective mode of experimentation and research, both tended
to privilege perception over aesthetic appreciation. Even though both were modernists and
humanists, they were deeply divided in their beliefs towards industry. As discussed earlier, I
believe Albers the artist, reverted away from Gropius’ theories of industrial integration to the
subjective nature‐based doctrines of Itten. Conversely Moholy‐Nagy the designer, concentrated
predominantly on the new doctrines of the mechanised and industrial world. One could
conclude that the left leaning politics of Black Mountain where Albers had found his niche did
not entertain the notions of the capitalist environment that Moholy‐Nagy was attempting to
educate and indeed integrate with.

Furthermore, unlike Albers’ pedagogical methodologies at Black Mountain which were
symbolic of academic freedom and an experimental spirit, the increasing specialisation and
advancement of disciplines within design had led Moholy‐Nagy’s endeavours away from Albers
tenet of learning by doing. Moholy‐Nagy’s pedagogy relied on objective knowledge and
theory.234 Albers’ vocal disapproval with Moholy‐Nagy’s shift into the capitalist environs again
act as evidence that Albers’ tenets now resembled a more Itten styled Vorkurs. I would suggest
that the political and economic environment that Moholy‐Nagy now resided in plus his denial
of the Dewey inspired mantra ignited Albers’ accusations that Moholy‐Nagy now lacked
originality. In Albers’ opinion the importance of the ‘innocent eye’ was primary to innovation,
therefore Moholy‐Nagy’s removal of this innocent viewpoint or naïve state from his pedagogy
guaranteed a lack of originality. But, Moholy‐Nagy had not, I would assert, exiled an innocent

231
Ted Shen, "From Bauhaus to Her House. Hattula Moholy‐Nagy Put Her Famous Father's Affairs in Order,"
Chicago Reader, April 25 2002, 2. Hattula is quoted as having said that even though her father experimented with
photography,colour, materials and space: "Moholy always considered himself a painter first."
232
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 109. Borchardt‐Hume felt this
statement by Albers was not justifiable. He believed this outburst told the reader more about Albers' cranky
personality than the state of the men's real relationship.
233
ibid., 101.
234
Thoner, Bauhaus:A Conceptual Model, 349.
76

and open minded viewpoint from his pedagogy any more than Albers had. Both men were now
in fact reliant on a greater understanding of what one saw than the mere innocence of the eye
provided. Moholy‐Nagy felt that the addition a third element, science to Gropius’s 1928 canon
“Art and Technology: A New Unity” brought with it a new insight and understanding just as
Albers had intended with his use of perception.235 The adjustments both Albers and Moholy‐
Nagy had made to their teachings proffered an insight into the intended direction of both their
pedagogies. Findeli considers Moholy‐Nagy’s developments to be extremely positive and assets
that: “by introducing the scientific method into the basic structure of the Bauhaus curriculum,
Moholy‐Nagy made his program (in Chicago) the first and most ambitious of its kind.”236

3.10 The Reception of Moholy‐Nagy’s Teachings in Chicago

Moholy‐Nagy describes his intention: “To rid every student of fear and self‐consciousness, the
most serious psychological hindrance in life and to make man, not the product, the end
result.”237 The framework of Moholy‐Nagy’s American programme effectively followed the
Bauhaus structure of a compulsory Vorkurs now renamed Foundation Studies, followed by
three years in a specialised workshop but the course contents were brought completely up to
date.238 The workshops now were referred to as specialised laboratories and were geared
towards professional practice. Industrial design, graphic design, photography and textile design
now replaced the Bauhaus workshops of stone, metal, wood and glass. Moholy‐Nagy did
however continue to plan exercises that would “tap into the student’s emotional and
intellectual resources simultaneously.”239 Interestingly, Moholy‐Nagy’s had not strayed far from
Itten’s Vorkurs intentions of combining the polar characteristics of thinking and feeling,
intellect and intuition and expression and construction. These exercises illustrate an alignment
of Moholy‐Nagy’s ideals closer to both Ruskin and Itten’s beliefs in a holistic education than he
had been happy to admit in his Dessau tenure.

235
Alain Findeli, "Moholy‐Nagy's Design Pedagogy in Chicago (1937‐46)," Design Issues 7, no. 1 (1990), 7.
236
ibid., 9‐10.
237
Moholy‐Nagy, Vision in Motion, 26.
238
Chicago in 1944," 98. Physical,life and social sciences were added along with music, poetry, film and graphics to
the traditional Vorkurs.
239
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy, "Moholy‐Nagy and the Institute of Design in Chicago," Everyday Art Quarterly 3, no.
Winter/Spring (1946‐1947), 2.
77

Moholy‐Nagy occupied a new political and economic landscape in the United States. He was
determined to offer more than just the technical training that the American industrialists were
demanding because he believed that the effects of the shortcomings of such an education
would be counterproductive. Moholy‐Nagy argued that: “only the designer who understands
the social, biological and physiological implications of each problem will be able to produce
completely satisfactory results.”240 Findeli discusses that Moholy‐Nagy’s commitment to
integration went beyond the bounds of art and technology to an integration that considered all
aspects of human activity. When the relevance of Moholy‐Nagy’s ethical, environmental and
social credo was brought into question by the industrialists, Moholy‐Nagy retorted: “the artist’s
work is not measured by the moral and intellectual influence which it exerts not in a life time
but in a lifetime of generations.”241 In the face of capitalist agendas demanding immediacy and
profit Moholy‐Nagy’s ideology fell predominantly on deaf ears in the United States.

Unfortunately, the conflicting ideologies of American industrialists made Moholy‐Nagy’s
pedagogical position untenable causing the closure of the first iteration of pedagogy in the
United States. Art curator Gabriele Diana Grawe argued that the pressure placed on Moholy‐
Nagy by industrialists caused him to compromise his ideals.242 There is no doubt that Moholy‐
Nagy was put under pressure to modify his methodology and his pedagogy by his sponsors, and
some of his more traditional students, but his beliefs and intentions, amid the economic and
political pressure, remained true to those of the Bauhaus.243 Wick states, “these measures
should not lead to a false impression that Moholy rejected his ideals of a comprehensive and
broadly based training in favour of a fast and specialised professional training.”244 Moholy‐Nagy
was profoundly committed to his endeavours in Chicago and his efforts were the most kindred
of any other attempt made by a Bauhaus émigré to those of Gropius’ 1923 manifesto. Indeed,

240
Ibid., 2
241
Chicago in 1944," 102.
242
Bauhaus‐Archiv Berlin et al., eds., Bauhaus: A Conceptual Model (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2009), 347. Grawe is
also a contributing author on Rainer Wick's 2000 book Teaching at the Bauhaus.
243
Shen, "From Bauhaus to Her House. Hattula Moholy‐Nagy Put Her Famous Father's Affairs in Order," 3. Even
though the American industrialists wanted a Bauhuas training to train their new industrial design students many of
the students and industry leaders still wanted a traditional education where teaching was more importatnt than
learning.
244
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 358. The restructuring of the curiculum was vital to the continuation of the
Chicago based school but would never cease to be a bone of contention between Moholy‐Nagy and his financial
backers.
78

Gropius’ continued and active involvement with any and all of Moholy‐Nagy’s pedagogical
endeavours in Chicago supports this analysis.245

Figure 19: Moholy‐Nagy’s curriculum for The New Bauhaus 1937

3.11 The New Bauhaus: Chicago.

The New Bauhaus School of American Design was officially inaugurated on the 9th of November
1937. Gropius was a strong supporter of both the new school and its director, so it was no
surprise he delivered the opening speech, entitled “Education towards Creative Design.” In his
speech Gropius affirmed the founding principles of the Bauhaus, and clarified the importance
of ‘how’ over ‘what’ in both his and Moholy‐Nagy’s aesthetics and pedagogical beliefs. 246

245
Findeli and Benton, "Design Education and Industry: The Laborious Beginnings of the Institute of Design in
Chicago in 1944," Walter Gropius was one of the school's sponsors along with Alfred Barr, John Dewey and Julian
Huxley. Gropius acted many times as negotiator on behalf of Moholy‐Nagy. .
246
ibid., 99. In this speech to his American audience Gropius gave his full support for his good friends project.
79

Figure 20: The New Bauhaus Signet 1938. Again a debt to Bauhaus Master Oskar Schlemmer’s
“A New Man”

The need for this clarification highlights the complications already experienced by Gropius
himself in the translation of Bauhaus ideologies in the American context. Perhaps Gropius’
words were also to serve as a warning to his friend of the difficulties that lay ahead. It would
seem from the pressure placed on Moholy‐Nagy and the problems he would imminently face in
his transatlantic efforts that these warnings were not heeded by the emergent post WWI
entrepreneurs, the industrialists in the audience. Gropius’ and Moholy‐Nagy’s concerns for
methodology or societal issues over aesthetics and consumption went unheeded.247 Although
the founding principles of the Bauhaus offered hope for American design and industry it would
be the economic demands of such a marketplace that would challenge Moholy‐Nagy’s
principles most acutely. In his 1947 book Vision in Motion an extension to his previous work
The New Vision Moholy‐Nagy explains what he considered to be the fundamental difference
between the American and the European environments for design: “Economic considerations
deeply influence and direct design. For example, design in this country is basically different
from that of Europe. America is rich in resources, raw materials and human ingenuity and can
afford to be wasteful.”248

247
Findeli, "Moholy‐Nagy's Design Pedagogy in Chicago (1937‐46)," 6. Moholy‐Nagy would be under constant
pressure from the the school's board to bring his pedagogical programe in line with buisness demands.
248
Chicago in 1944," 100. Vision in motion was published one year after Moholy‐Nagy's death.
80

Moholy‐Nagy’s belief in the economy of materials and effort seemed irrelevant to the wealthy
and consumer orientated pre WWII America. Moholy‐Nagy went on to comment in the same
passage that in comparison to European trends where design endeavours to produce long
lasting goods to conserve raw materials that: “America has incorporated into its structure
frequent change of models, by declaring models obsolete before their usefulness has ceased.”
He questioned what kind of cultural, social and economic concerns such a revision would
cause. But he felt with certainty that, “one comment can be made: the theory and practice of
artificial obsolescence leads‐in the long run‐ to cultural and moral disintegration because it
destroys the feeling of quality and security of judgement.”249 These concerns kept Moholy‐
Nagy at odds with the American industrialists and would continue to plague the funding of his
pedagogical endeavours. Moholy‐Nagy’s eldest daughter, Hattula Moholy‐Nagy wrote in her
essay, “Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy: Transitional,” that her father was “an open‐minded, learned man‐
a secular humanist who imagined a better world through design.”250 She like many of Moholy‐
Nagy’s supporters also believed he had a deep social conscience and had, since WWI, been
determined to make a contribution to society. Hattula also stated that: “Art, writing and
teaching were seen by Moholy‐Nagy as the most effective means to disseminate his ideals.”251
Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy’s efforts to make such a contribution were cut short due to his untimely
death from leukaemia in 1946 but not before he made a considerable impact on the future of
design and pedagogy in the United States.

3.12 The False Start

Moholy‐Nagy had felt from the outset of his journey to the United States that the Bauhaus
teachings he would incorporate into his new iteration of design methodology were universal.
Despite Moholy‐Nagy’s belief in the Bauhaus pedagogical code it was not long before his new
employers would clearly voice their lack of confidence or perhaps a more accurate description
of their feelings was frustration with Moholy‐Nagy’s discourse. Moholy‐Nagy was a determined

249
ibid.
250
Shen, "From Bauhaus to Her House. Hattula Moholy‐Nagy Put Her Famous Father's Affairs in Order."It is
important to appreciate that Moholy died when Hattula was barely a teenager. She has gained her understanding
of the man her father was through interviewing those around him making her view of him most relevant and
unbiased.
251
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 112. After her mother's death
in 1971 and the unexpected death of her sister Claudia, Hattula,named after a favourite city of Laszlo's, became
the sole curator of her father's life and work.
81

advocate and educator, and with Gropius’s support he did not yield to the will of others easily.
His relationship to both design and teaching has been described by both those who support
him and those who do not as impassioned and fanatical.252 His desire to integrate design with
technology has also been describe in the same way. But Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy’s title for her
husband’s biography, Moholy‐Nagy‐ An Experiment in Totality, perhaps offers the most clarity
in portraying her husband’s ardour for his beliefs.253

Moholy‐Nagy’s determination for the integration of art and technology within pedagogy
seemed to progress efficiently, but the relationship between teaching this integration in
readiness for a marketplace and industry’s appetite for profits was less definitive. It is evident
that the industrialists were not convinced by the pedagogical, social or environmental concerns
central to Moholy‐Nagy’s work. Their discontent was apparent in their decision to cease
financial support for the school. In principle, their requirement of the New Bauhaus and
Moholy‐Nagy was the education and integration of skilled industrial designers to design for
mass production, and most importantly profit. The dilemma is made clear by Moholy‐Nagy in
his book “Vision in Motion,” where he proclaimed:

Schools lost sight of their best potential quality: universality.
On the other hand, prosperity increased. With this came the temptation to
enlarge profits. Everyone seemed satisfied. Production figures and balance
sheets “spoke for themselves,” being sufficient justification of training for
profit.254

The market’s demands and capabilities in the United States were completely incongruous with
Moholy‐Nagy’s European experiences. He vented: “Our curriculum doesn’t fit into the
competitive mood of an approaching post war boom, because we refuse to promise a two‐
semester training programme for a bread‐winning job. I shall keep on considering the process
of education more important than the finished result.”255 Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy stated that: “the

252
ibid.
253
Paine, "Sybil Moholy‐Nagy: A Complete Life," 15. Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy often felt her life too was effected beyond
a tenable state by the demands her husband's beliefs placed on her and the family. Her release was writing which
included Laszlo's biography "An Experiment in Totality."
254
255
Moholy‐Nagy, Moholy‐Nagy: Experiment in Totality, 216.
82

whole dilemma of endowed education centered on the simple fact that a school is not a
business.”256 Ultimately this belief would be the fundamental issue that dogged Moholy‐Nagy’s
relationship with his employers. The New Bauhaus was closed on the 11th August 1938 just
short of a year after its establishment due Moholy‐Nagy was told, to a financial crash. But
subsequent history, unveiled by Gygöry Kepes (1906–2001) implies this to be a pretext for
more profound motives.257 Findeli explains: “What Moholy‐Nagy was selling and what Chicago
was buying were two very different products.”258 This short tenure of the first iteration of
Moholy‐Nagy’s pedagogical endeavours would be described by historians as a false start in
Moholy‐Nagy’s impact on American design pedagogy.259 For many this would have spelled the
end, but one would be mistaken to underestimate Moholy‐Nagy’s resolve or his
resourcefulness. Moholy‐Nagy said of himself: “My strongest personality trait: that I am an
optimist.”260 With the assistance of philanthropist and president of the Container Corporation
of America, (CCA) Walter Paepcke (1896–1960), Moholy‐Nagy audaciously moved the school to
a Downtown loft.

3.13 New Beginnings: The School of Design

On the 22nd of February 1939 Moholy‐Nagy reopened The New Bauhaus now renamed the
School of Design. On the school’s administrative board were Paepcke, Barr, Dewey, philosopher
Julian Huxley (1857–1975) and of course, Gropius. Although financial support was precarious
and teachers were for the most part unpaid the large communal studio in which all students
were now tutored was described by Findeli as “a hive of industry in which the spirit of initiative
of students avid for initiation into modern art, architecture and design constituted the principle
resource.”261 The original and ambitious programme set out by Moholy‐Nagy for the New
Bauhaus, to structure the school around the new laboratories dominated by the architecture

256
ibid.
257
Chicago in 1944," 99. Gygöry Kepes, also a Hungarian was a protégé of Moholy‐Nagy’s in Europe and came to
America to teach with him in Chicago. He also worked with Rudolph Arnheim after Moholy’s death.
258
ibid.
259
ibid., 98. Findeli and Benton used this phase to aptly describe the speed in which the New Bauhaus was
conceived,lived and died in.
260
Borchardt‐Hume, Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.From the Bauhaus to the New World, 112. Additionally Moholy‐Nagy
said "What I love most about myself is that I can be happy; at least: that I have a tendancy to become fanatical."
261
83

studio was for the time being abandoned. The new accommodation was not optimum but
embracing this new challenge with his usual self‐proclaimed optimism, Moholy‐Nagy welcomed
his students to the first term at the School of Design by saying: “At this point we can confess
that this school is actually not a school at all in the usual way. Indeed we like to see this place
as an experimental collective.”262

Figure 21: 1942 Moholy‐Nagy is garlanded by his students in celebration of his birthday

3.14 The Problems the School of Design Faced

Paepcke along with Norma K. Stahle were the leading protagonists in the use of the Bauhaus
model in Chicago. Paepcke would, due to his own efforts within his company continue to pave
the way forward in the relationship between design and industry.263 Despite such illustrious
support for his work Wick elucidates one of the fundamental obstacles Moholy‐Nagy faced in
the establishment of the Bauhaus model in Chicago in his statement “little or nothing was

262
ibid.
263
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus,359. Paepcke had employed an artistic director to his company (CCA) to
encourage visual communication between the manufacturer and the consumer. He was also very supportive of
environmental issues therefore aligning him to Bayer and Moholy‐Nagy.
84

known in Chicago about the significance of architecture at the Bauhaus in Germany, as the
discipline uniting all branches of art or about a Bauhaus philosophy.” This general ignorance of
the Bauhaus tenets in the United States, particularly Chicago, not only made progress difficult
for Moholy‐Nagy’s endeavours but led to both a lack of government funding and academic
status for the course. In 1940 Paepcke’s commitment to Moholy‐Nagy’s project and the new
specialisations embraced in his pedagogical structure led Paepcke to begin to support the
school with cash resources thereby “representing a valuable contribution towards the schools
ability to make a name for itself as a place of training of product design.”264 The reputation of
Moholy‐Nagy’s Chicago based Institute as a leading school for “industrial and interior design”
was acquired principally due to the efforts of the Association of Arts and Industries. The
Association had initiated and assumed the responsibility for the founding of the New Bauhaus
but the inclusion of the disciplines of graphic design, photography and film seemed to go some
way towards the school’s adaptation of itself to the demands of the American consumer
culture. But the struggle was not over yet.

By the mid 1940’s acceptance was growing towards modern design by the world of commerce
and business. In 1945 Paepcke held a very successful exhibition entitled “Modern Art in
Advertising,” and with the introduction of an annual design conference in Aspen Colorado titled
“Design as a Function of Management” emphasised a link between designers and industry.
Although this support was of great benefit to the School of Design, the demands of a profit‐
seeking consumer based industry sat diametrically opposed to the original utopian Bauhaus
ideals. In his 1983 book The Romance of Commerce and Culture, James Sloane Allen posed the
question: “having embraced the aesthetics and economic benefits of modern design, what need
had the consumer commerce of the modernists’ metaphysics and cultural anthropology?”265
Additionally, prominent Chicago architect Harry Wesse (1915–1998) asked “who needs to go to
the Bauhaus anymore to learn about space and volume?”266 It was against such attitudes that
both Moholy‐Nagy and Gropius would need to so venomously fight in order to maintain
continued relevance for the Bauhaus principles on American soil. Fortunately for both men

264
ibid.
265
Allen, The Romance of Commerce and Culture, 76.
266
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 359. The exhibition at MoMA in 1932 named "The International Style" played a
large part in shaping America's view of the Bauhaus. By the late 1930's the Institue of Design would find itself in
the crossfire of divergent interests and beliefs.
85

Paepcke had shown a great deal of commitment to Moholy‐Nagy’s project and began a policy of
patronage which would last until the end.267

Despite the constant scepticism of some industrialists and patrons, Moholy‐Nagy had gained a
great deal of respect within pedagogy and American industry. Subsequently he had a number
of powerful supporters. Paepcke, Barr, Dewey, Huxley, and Gropius, had continued to remain in
his defence. Crucially though, of all Moholy‐Nagy’s supporters, it was Paepcke who developed
the most devoted passion for the social, environmental and pedagogical endeavours within the
Moholy‐Nagy campaign. Although Gropius would always lend his intellectual and professional
weight to Moholy‐Nagy, Paepcke offered not only constant financial support but also practical
and emotional support.268 All of this support would be needed as Moholy‐Nagy was soon to
face his biggest and unfortunately his last debate with his industrialist benefactors. It was due
to Moholy‐Nagy’s unmitigated tenacity toward his endeavours that Paepcke referred to
Moholy‐Nagy as the “experimenter in totality.”269 It was Moholy‐Nagy’s total commitment and
determination coupled with Paepcke’s and Gropius’ support that enabled enrolments at the
second incarnation of Moholy‐Nagy’s Bauhaus teachings, to slowly increase even in the face of
low salaries and worsening economic conditions due to WWII. The first graduation was held
with great enthusiasm within the school in 1942 with five graduates. In a moving ceremony,
Moholy‐Nagy acknowledged the seriousness of America’s political situation and the financial
insecurity of the school and he re‐emphasised the importance of the School of Design’s
pedagogical task.270

3.15 Preliminary Studies in Chicago

Although Moholy‐Nagy faced a constant barrage of criticism from industrialists hungry for
production, consumption and profitability he continued to consider the fundamental Bauhaus

267
Chicago in 1944," 100. Paepcke's support continued beyond Moholy's death. Paepcke's ongoing involvement
precured a secure environment within Chicago's IIT for Moholy‐Nagy's courses to continue.
268
ibid., 104.
269
ibid., 98.Moholy has already been described by himself and others as fanatical. This also made him a dogged
and determined opponent to his industrial opponets.
270
ibid., 101. The school held daytime and evening courses to aid financially and ensuring that those already in the
profession could also attend classes. In fact the evening classes had more enrolled students than the daytime
classes.
86

pedagogy relevant in an American context. His continued resolution and commitment towards
a universal visual language and the integration of technological advancement, environmental
concerns and holistic education were evident in his work, his teachings and with those whom
he chose to collaborate.271 Moholy‐Nagy encouraged a perceptive process like that of Albers
where seeing became insightful vision. In order to properly outline a design problem Moholy‐
Nagy promoted “eyesight to insight.” 272 The polar contrasts of light and dark, soft and smooth,
or curved and straight, coupled with the skill of diagrammatical analysis outlined in Itten’s
Vorkurs were augmented into Moholy‐Nagy’s technological doctrines and continued to play a
vital role in his preliminary studies.273

It is in the preliminary exercise named ‘hand sculpture’ that the synchronization of Moholy‐
Nagy’s integrated and holistic methodology is best illuminated. Moholy‐Nagy suggested this
exercise could be understood “as a space–time diagram.”274 Moholy‐Nagy explained that by
documenting the process and results of carving a piece of wood to be rounded,
anthropomorphic, and pleasing to the hand, the diagram or drawing would visually encapsulate
the resistance of the wood to the forces applied by the tools and the intensions of the
maker.275 The process Moholy‐Nagy encouraged in this exercise essentially illustrates the
pedagogical process for which the American industrialists had little time and sympathy.
Conversely, when the project was undertaken and understood in totality, the integration of
ideas with technology and economy was overwhelming. The integration of the workshops and
disciplines was considered exemplary. I would argue that through their ignorance and
impatience the industrials failed to recognise that the morphed forms could then act as moulds
allowing a sheet material to be stamped or pressed over it. The beauty is in the analogy of this
methodology, where the mould acts with great similarity to a single photographic negative
allowing numerous unbroken prints to be cast. Moholy‐Nagy saw the correlation and

271
Ellen Lupton is a curator of contemporary design at the Copper‐Hewitt in New York and the director of the MFA
programe at Maryland Institue College of Art. Ellen Lupton, “Writing Lessons: Modern Design Theory,” (New York:
City University of New York 2009), 1. Moholy‐Nagy had employed Gygöry Kepes at the New Bauhaus and Kepes
followed Moholy to the School of Design. Both men were keen to give the visual language a scientific rationale.
272
Findeli, "Moholy‐Nagy's Design Pedagogy in Chicago (1937‐46)," 12. Gygöry Kepes,Moholy's fellow countryman,
friend and colleague presents a convincing application of this in his book Language of Vision
273
Lupton, "Writing Lessons: Modern Design Theory," 4. Itten's exercises in analysisng the Old Masters allowed the
student to translate the artistic energy into a diagram or an objective language.
274
Moholy‐Nagy, Vision in Motion, 73‐74.
275
ibid., 73‐74.
87

opportunity to further these studies into “furniture, moulded without joints.”276 The elegant
fusion Moholy‐Nagy creates in this single exercise between man, nature, technology and
economy is testament, I believe, to his convictions. Lupton argues that Moholy‐Nagy assigned
both social and aesthetic value to the moulded object, and saw the process as an agent for the
elimination of the division of labour and the ability to bring cheap goods to mass production.277
The process was unappreciated and unsupported by the industrialists but the result was highly
regarded. As Gropius had warned in his early speech this economic environment valued results
over method. But Moholy‐Nagy, with Gropius’ and Paepcke’s support, continued to believe
whole‐heartedly in his teachings of a process. Moholy‐Nagy elucidates his concerns for result
and profit based design in his criticism of the fashion orientated streamlining made
synonymous with American modernism by the U.S designer Raymond Loewy.278 A frustrated
Moholy‐Nagy wrote: “High‐pressured by the salesman, the industrial designer succumbed to a
superficial “styling.” In the last ten years this has meant “streamlining,” just as a generation ago
it meant ornamentation.”279

Moholy‐Nagy referred to his enhanced methodology as “organic functionalism.”280 The
functionalist aspect of this methodology engaged the students in careful analytical, essentially
scientific investigations where they would gather all pertinent information about their design
problem in order to define function not only in purely material or technological terms by also
biological, psychophysical and social terms. Moholy‐Nagy argued that: “the ingenuity of man
has brought forth excellent results in every period of history when he understood the scientific,
technological and aesthetic.”281 Beyond the foundation course Moholy‐Nagy’s interlocking of
nature with technology can be seen as one of the inaugural steps within design and
architecture to integrate nature’s processes into design.282 Moholy‐Nagy identified diagrams
produced by natural and technological processes and used them as explanatory tools. A drawn

276
ibid., 51‐54.
277
Lupton, "Writing Lessons: Modern Design Theory," 6.
278
Nicolas Maffei, "Both Natural and Mechanical The Streamlined Designs of Norman Bel Geddes," Journal of
Transport History 30, no. 2 (2009), 141‐ 67. Maffei gives a comprehensive overview of streamlining in this article
279
280
Findeli, "Moholy‐Nagy's Design Pedagogy in Chicago (1937‐46)," 10.
281
ibid.
282
Lupton, "Writing Lessons: Modern Design Theory," 4. Kepes was also a strong advocate for these developments
and would along with Rudolf Arnheim and Christopher Alexander continue to investigate these theories.
88

line no longer just represents a geometric linear boundary. It is now an expression of motion
from point to point.

Moholy‐Nagy’s acknowledgement of insightfulness within his newly developed scientific and
systematic approach brought him closer to Itten’s ideology of sensory discovery. Also a
Mazdanan follower, although denounced prior to his appointment by Gropius at Dessau, the
spiritual and transcendental qualities of Moholy‐Nagy’s light modulator work exhibit a depth of
intuitiveness that Moholy‐Nagy would now also require of his students.283 He now positioned
his own work and self‐expression closer to Itten’s ideals than he had been comfortable in doing
so during the anti‐Itten era at the Bauhaus pre 1928. Importantly for design Moholy‐Nagy
began to alienate himself from his earlier Bauhaus persona as a stalwart for technological
advancement and now embraced a wider understanding of mechanical and scientific
advancement. Moholy‐Nagy proposed the addition of emotional literacy to the intellectual
literacy offered in design education. Although Albers was critical of Moholy‐Nagy’s teaching
process and believed Moholy‐Nagy’s approach to be too knowledge and theory based, the
introduction of two fundamental corrections to his 1928 pedagogical tenets render Albers’
opinions redundant. Moholy‐Nagy now employed only teachers who were artists as he felt
they needed to be familiar with the intuitive process and he encouraged his students to
consider themselves as individual living organisms, physically and spiritually. He asserted that,
“creativity is not imposed from the outside but developed from the inside.”284 Peder Anker
states that: “Moholy‐Nagy believed the future held the possibility of a new harmony between
humans and their earthly environment if forms of design followed biological functions.”285
Findeli claims that Moholy‐Nagy’s concern for the whole man and increasingly the whole

283
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus. In 1922 Moholy‐Nagy stated that the transendental spirituality of previous
times was now obsolete. Although he did not follow Mazdanan at the Bauhuas he did begin to favour the
characteristics of psychology as a guide to sensory perception.
284
Findeli, "Moholy‐Nagy's Design Pedagogy in Chicago (1937‐46)," 13.
285
Anker is an Associate Professor of Environmental Design at Harvard University and author of the 2010 book
From Bauhaus to Ecohouse. Peder Anker, "Graphic Language: Herbert Bayer's Environmental Design,"
Environmental History 12, no. 2 (2007), 256. Herbert Bayer was Moholy's friend and Bauhaus colleague and he
understood Moholy's struggles within America to gain acceptance for the environmental and social concerns as
both men had brought these tenets to America within their ideologies. .
89

environment as a habitat was steadfastly maintained within his teachings in an economic time
that could easily forgo these concerns in order to maintain profitability.286

3.16 The Moholy Affair

This next period in Moholy‐Nagy’s pedagogical career is known quite aptly as the “Moholy
Affair,” principally because it was laborious and highly charged emotionally.287 Gropius and
Paepcke remained steadfast supporters of Moholy‐Nagy’s experiment but it would be the latter
that would be required to, at every turn and iteration of Moholy‐Nagy’s cause, placate and
convince commercial enterprise of the value in his words. With a full appreciation of Moholy‐
Nagy’s belief in his cause and dogged determination, Paepcke had decided that Moholy‐Nagy’s
pedagogical project should succeed come what may. It was to this end that Paepcke began to
search for a host institution for the school.

Figure 22: Gropius and Moholy‐Nagy at the School of Design during the Moholy Affair

The next iteration of The School of Design came in 1944. Paepcke became President of the
Board of the newly named Institute of Design (ID) with Moholy‐Nagy as acting director. New
management and financial backing demanded Moholy‐Nagy brought the school’s philosophies
more in line with industrial requirements. His position was constantly under threat as the

286
Findeli, "Moholy‐Nagy's Design Pedagogy in Chicago (1937‐46)," 10 ‐12. Moholy‐Nagy's concerns for the
environment and the world were seen by the majority of his employers as distractions at a time when their need
for profit was never more threatened with WW11 on their doorstep.
287
Chicago in 1944," 104. To see everything in this relationship, lay at the heart of Moholy's methodology. This tenet
differentiated Moholy's school and the Bauhaus from all other schools but encouraged a transparancy between
buisness and education that still defies resolution.
90

financial backers and some detractors from within faculty became less convinced of Moholy‐
Nagy’s ability to run a school. Moholy’s failing health and undiagnosed leukaemia exacerbated
the situation. He was exhausted, and in this state his fanaticism became more overt making his
actions appear to his detractors as incompetence rather than passion.288 At this point it fell
once again to Paepcke to navigate a transition. Due to the delicate nature of this requirement
and the resistance Paepcke knew he would face from not only the Board and the industrial
sector but Moholy‐Nagy himself, Paepcke called upon the assistance of some of Moholy‐Nagy’s
closest supporters: Gropius, Bayer and Giedion. 289 Despite the diplomacy required to gain full
Board of Trustee support Paepcke met success. In short, Gropius would be called upon to
diplomatically reassign duties. Moholy‐Nagy would reluctantly reorganise his initial curriculum
and revise some of the basic principles to come into line with consumerism.

To continue to discuss the distress and acrimony during Moholy‐Nagy’s final years seems futile.
Moholy‐Nagy left a legacy, in spite of constant bickering and unsupportive actions. A discussion
of his holistic concerns is more informative. In spite of his illness Moholy‐Nagy’s considered his
endeavours to cement a Bauhaus pedagogy within America far from over. During the final years
of his life, amid constant administrative stonewalling, Moholy‐Nagy continued to expand the
Institute of Design’s curriculum to help cultivate a ‘social conscience’ that would complement
the artistic, scientific and technological training offered to his students. He introduced
philosophy in the hope of “helping the young generation to acquire a philosophy of life.”290
Beyond all the difficulties faced, low student numbers and faculty departures Moholy‐Nagy and
Paepcke were able to sustain the Institute of Design. By 1946, just three months before
Moholy‐Nagy’s death at fifty‐one, enrolments were at a high of eight hundred students and
twenty‐eight faculty members.

It may have taken six years of negotiations, but in 1949 Walter Paepcke succeeded in
convincing the President of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) to incorporate the Institute
of Design. Serge Chermayeff (1900‐1996) was to be Moholy‐Nagy’s successor. Although this

288
ibid., 104. In December 1944 a member of the Rockefeller Foundation suypporting the school initiated the
queries and anxieties over Moholy's ability to act as the administrator.
289
ibid., 106. These discussions and arrangements were made in clandestine meetings without Laszlo's or Sibyl's
knowledge by these men to ensure solidarity before discussing the decisions with Laszlo.
290
Timothy J Garvey, "Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy and the Atomic Ambivalence in Postwar Chicago," American Art 14, no.
3 (2000),28.
91

arrangement certainly solved the financial issues burdening the school, it now faced a larger
more heartfelt obstacle. To the great disappointment of Gropius, Chermayeff, who had always
declared his leadership and would remain faithful to the heritage of Moholy‐Nagy, was to be
considered unwelcome at the Illinois Institute of Technology or as Findeli described it, “in the
temple” of none other than Mies van der Rohe who had years ago at the Bauhaus in Germany:
“made a pedagogical decision, namely, against the “generalized study” in Gropius’s sense and
in favour of specialised study.291The preliminary course was no longer a required and for him
reflections on questions of aesthetic education in the sense of a unified education were totally
irrelevant.”292 Moholy‐Nagy’s experiences within America’s capitalist economy and
aesthetically orientated pedagogical institutes would include a false start, many acrimonious
arguments about his teachings, his untimely death and the removal of his pedagogical tenets
from the Illinois Institute of Technology. In spite of these impediments Moholy‐Nagy is
considered by many historians as: “one of the great teachers of our time” with Herbert Read
(1893–1968) stating: “it was the age that failed this visionary pioneer. We have a duty to
ensure that the lead ha gave is not lost.”293 His pedagogical brilliance, his commitment to the
Bauhaus philosophies of interdisciplinary preliminary education and insightfulness never
diminished, and were continued after his death by Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy. In addition, his legacy
was carried forward to future generations of designers in the pedagogy and writings of Rudolf
Arnheim (1904‐2007), Chermayeff and Gygöry Kepes (1906–2001).

Figure 23: Moholy‐Nagy’s second wife Sibyl circa 1932

291
292
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 83‐84.
293
Learner, "Foundations for Design Education: Continuing the Bauhaus Vorkurs Vision,"217
92

The impact of Moholy‐Nagy and Albers pedagogical endeavours within artistic and creative
endeavours cannot be under‐rated. Albers teachings were accepted into numerous art schools
and universities and would continue to be introduced into pedagogy without opposition.
Moholy‐Nagy had obviously faced huge difficulties within a new consumer based culture and
he would in his short time never come to terms with or accept it. His untimely death was a
deciding factor in ability to amalgamate his ideas and impact on the American design industry,
particularly industrial design within his own lifetime. But, as discussed his legacy continues to
become more and more relevant in an ever modernising world. The efforts of both Albers and
Moholy‐Nagy to disseminate a universal visual language within artistic and design education
were considerable but due to the culture of design education in America were not as
interdisciplinary as the Bauhaus masters may have hoped as they set forth for America. Gropius
was to address the need for the universal visual language to be truly universal in his attempts
at pedagogy which will be explored in the final chapter of this journey by Moholy‐Nagy, Albers
and Gropius.

93

Chapter Four
Gropius’ Contribution to the Bauhaus Translation
4.1 Gropius to Harvard

Gropius would in his time at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design transform it from its old
mould as a school of architecture influenced by the Beaux‐Arts into a “Harvard‐Bauhaus.”294

It is generally perceived that Gropius achieved this transformation single‐handedly and without
opposition. However, upon clarification of this period by Jill Pearlman, Professor of
Architectural History at Bowdoin College, it would be imprudent to continue to suggest that
Gropius alone had forged a new path forward for Harvard, as much of the groundwork had
been laid out before Gropius’s tenure was even under consideration. I will argue that it would
also be incorrect to believe that the acceptance of Gropius’s ideals or the Bauhaus teachings,
although greatly anticipated by many in the United States during the 1930’s, was as absolute
or as eagerly embraced as some historical reports have suggested. I will elucidate this scarcely
remembered preparatory path to Gropius’ invitation to teach at the Harvard Graduate School
of Design by the GSD’s founder, Joseph Hudnut (1986‐1968), and endeavour to give a more
accurate picture of Gropius’s contributions to modernist pedagogy within the GSD.295 I will
show that within the American translation of Bauhaus ideals, particularly the universal visual
language, misunderstandings, misrepresentations and misinterpretations occurred. A clash of
egos also transpired, over personalities and ideologies causing tensions between what a
number of American architects and designers considered modernism and European modernism
as expressed by Bauhaus émigrés. Gropius’ contributions to modernist theories,
interdisciplinary education and the universal visual language were profoundly challenged,
principally by Hudnut, within the Harvard environment.

294
Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007),1. Upon their
invitation America Both Mies and Gropius would be directly ushered into high ranking positions at Illionois
Institute of Technology and Harvard repectively and be part of MoMA exhibits
295
Jill Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 452.
94

4.2 The Preparatory Path of Modernism towards Harvard

By 1781 the first American born architect, Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844), had graduated from
Harvard having studied mathematics and perspective. In 1800, Bulfinch suggested to the
university’s governing board that they introduce the instruction of architecture to the Harvard
programme. In response to his request the board stated that “this ornamental and useful art”
had not yet gained sufficient character to admit it to the company of scholars.296 By 1895
Herbert Langford Warren (1857–1917) finally managed to establish a Department of
Architecture within Harvard becoming the United States’ ninth School of Architecture.
Warren’s aim in establishing the architectural programme at Harvard was not just as a
response to the practical need for architectural training but also for the noble purpose of aiding
in the fulfilment of the cultural and social destiny of America. Warren’s views portray the
beginning of Harvard’s path that Hudnut would in the short span of forty years be asked to
continue. In a 1902 edition of the Harvard Engineering Journal Warren asserted:

In our day and country we are almost without traditions, and, however much
we deplore the fact, we cannot change our circumstances. We must take our
birth right as we find it ....There is only one thing which can substitute for
tradition and prevent architecture from running, as it so often has, into
parrot–like imitation of bygone styles or hopeless and vulgar extravagances
and that is Scholarship.297

In the years preceding Hudnut’s appointment at Harvard much would be established within the
schools pedagogical beliefs. Anthony Alofsin, a contemporary American architect, art historian
and professor clarifies in his book The Struggle for Modernism, Warren’s belief that
“architecture was essentially fine art, the practice of which would be based on a thorough
knowledge of construction.”298 Science and engineering would provide the practical necessities
to form the foundations of the Harvard architectural programme, coupled with knowledge of
culture and the societies that produced it. Alofsin concluded that architectural education at

296
Anthony Alofsin, The Struggle for Modernism. Architecture,Landscape Architecture and City Planning at Harvard
(New York: W.W.Norton and Company Ltd, 2002), 17.
297
ibid., 18.
298
ibid.
95

Harvard was to be a balancing act of art and science that, as noted in the Harvard register of
1902, included “the study of historic examples to learn the practice and theory of design.”299
Over the next forty years prior to Hudnut’s appointment as Dean of Architecture Harvard’s
curriculum would continue to be challenged. Within the writings of Alofsin and Pearlman it is
apparent that the advent of modernism at Harvard, particularly the European model that was
to be accompanied by Walter Gropius, proved to be as much of a defining moment in Harvard’s
architectural history as the faculty’s establishment had been.

Jill Pearlman asserts: “The credit for breaking the barricades of sterile tradition in this country
and opening the frontiers of modern practice must go to Joseph Hudnut.”300 This mantel is
generally handed to Gropius or Mies van der Rohe’s efforts at Harvard or Chicago’s Illinois
Institute of Technology respectively.301 Gropius himself had described Hudnut as “on account
of his modesty, to be much too much in the shade.”302 This modesty was possibly a
contributing factor to Hudnut’s anonymity. In her book, Pearlman specifically investigates
Hudnut’s obscured contribution to Harvard and the emergence of the university’s reputation
described by James Conant, Harvard’s President in 1935 as “the leading school in modern
architecture on this continent and perhaps the world.”303 Pearlman argues that Hudnut played
a vital role in the years leading up to Gropius’s arrival in America and that Hudnut’s progressive
educational views played a large part in the path toward modernism and his, not Gropius’
founding of the Graduate School of Design within Harvard’s academic programme in 1936.304
Pearlman explains in Inventing American Modernism, “Three experiences in particular
determined Hudnut’s path to modernism: first his “civic design” work with the German
planner, Werner Hegemann; second, his sustained interest in the history of architecture; and
third, his engagement with the democratic educational philosophy of John Dewey.”305

299
ibid.
300
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 8.
301
ibid., 3. As Hudnut had given up designing in the 1920's he was now seen predominantely in history as a dean
who wielded power behind the scenes. He was merely as a broker between students and modernists.
302
ibid., 2.
303
Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007), 104.
304
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 452. This accolade has at times been
incorrectly handed to Gropius throughout architectural history.He did not arrive in America till 1937 and the GSD
was founded by Joseph Hudnut in 1936.
305
96

Hudnut had studied law at Harvard, unsuccessfully, before enrolling in the School of
Architecture. He left Harvard before completing his architectural degree to work in Chicago as a
draftsman. Having spent two inspirational years there he completed his architectural degree
with distinction at the University of Michigan in 1917. The architectural programme at
Michigan differed from most of the other universities in America at that time with the more
privileged universities aligning themselves with the French École des Beaux Art methods of
training.

Figure 24: Beaux‐Art styled class work where drawings are copied at Harvard 1925

Selection into these programmes was competitive, learning was by rote, and mainstream
examples of Roman and Renaissance architecture were emphasized, drawing was meticulous
and abided to strict conventions, and sculptural decoration was highly prized. The mid‐western
universities followed a more engineering–based technical approach to architecture. Michigan
University sought to mesh these approaches emphasising both the art in architecture and the
practical construction component. While studying at Michigan, Hudnut was influenced by the
theories of educational reformist John Dewey through the Dewey disciples teaching at the
University. Hudnut elucidated these influences in speeches he later made to national audiences
of architects. In these speeches he made clear his belief that “education was an experience not
an instruction.”306 One such Dewey disciple was Denman Ross at Harvard’s Department of Fine
Arts from 1899 to 1935, whose theory of Pure Design was infused into the first year design

306
ibid., 41. There is no record of Hudnut ever engaging in any serious study of Dewey's pedagogical theories. It is
believed he became aware of these ideals at Michigan University and began to utilise them at Columbia where he
was dean of architecture from 1934.
97

programme at Michigan. In 1906 this course was mandatory for all students wishing to advance
into the architectural programme. 307

4.3 Pure Design: the Progression of Modernist Theories in American Education

Pure design was the culmination of theories developed by Arthur Wesley Dow (1857‐1922), a
director and educator of Fine Arts at Columbia (1904‐1922) and Denman Waldo Ross (1853‐
1935) a design theorist, art educator and collector who taught architecture at Harvard (1899‐
1909) and then Fine Arts within the same university until the mid‐1930s. In the 1890s both Dow
and Ross began to independently develop a series of exercises that relied on the abstraction of
design elements: dots, lines, shapes and colour. The exercises were not intended to create a
new style in architecture or fine art but were presented as an alternative pedagogical approach
to the Beaux–Art method. Both men felt that Beaux‐Art methods of instruction were too
“restrictive and mechanical.” Although Dow and Ross are usually considered collaborators, in
this development they did not share identical views. 308

Both men knew of each other but they worked on the development of their theories
independently. The most significant departure from the commonalities of their theorising was
that, “Dow used the exercises to foster subjectivity whereas Ross aimed at objectivity.”309 Both
Dow and Ross wrote of composition awakening creative faculties, training the eye to
appreciate beauty, a beauty which would be found in harmony, balance and rhythm.310Ross
believed that contemporary artists and educators had strayed too far from science. Ross hoped
with his objective approach to provide a scientific understanding of universal principles and
used geometry and the new science of psychology to argue for the “union of art and science
through design.”311Ross looked for objective ways to bring order to the composition of design
elements rather than rely on the subjectivity of feeling in composition as Itten and Dow had

307
Marie Frank, "The Theory of Pure Design and Architectural Education in the Early Twentieth Century," Journal
of the Society of Architectural Historians. 67, no. 2 (2008), 262. Emil Loch (1870 ‐ 1963) taught the principles of
Pure design in his Elements of Design course taken in the first year at Michigan University in 1906. This course was
a prerequisite to all architecture studies.
308
ibid., 251.
309
ibid.
310
ibid., 252. In 1899 Dow published "Composition: A Series of Exercises Selected from a New System of Art
Education" and Ross wrote in 1907 "A Theory of Pure Design: Harmony, Balance, Rhythm, with Illustrations and
Diagrams.”
311
ibid., 255.
98

pursued. Ross investigated the eye’s perception of form thereby signalling his awareness of one
of the newest sciences in the late nineteenth century, physiological psychology and a link to the
yet to be developed theories of Josef Albers.

In identifying a number of similarities between the theories developed in 1919 within the
Bauhaus’ Vorkurs and Ross and Dow’s endeavours with Pure Design in the United States we
have seen some fundamental commonalities and influences that both theories share but there
does seem to be a chronological anomaly. We read time and again from architectural theorists
that the Bauhaus theories were the answer to the revolt against the Beaux‐Art teachings and
methodologies.312 Yet, Pure Design had been adopted into the architectural programme by
Michigan University in 1906 along with a preliminary interdisciplinary course in design
fundamentals and universal understanding.313 As discussed by Dr Marie Franks, a professor in
Art History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, other universities in the United States
had also been exposed to the Pure Design theories and teaching methodologies prior to the
Bauhaus pedagogues arriving in the United States.314

In addition to the similarities of ideals already discussed between Pure Design and the Bauhaus
it is within the early stages of study that another vital likeness in pedagogical methodology
appears between these two methodologies, the Vorkurs. This preliminary interdisciplinary
course was one of the most distinctive reformative tools used by the Bauhaus in both Germany
and the United States. All Bauhaus pedagogues teaching in the United States during the period
of pre to post WWII namely, Albers, Moholy‐Nagy and Gropius certainly included, or in Gropius’
case, vehemently argued with limited success to include, in their pedagogical programmes
preliminary courses based on the Vorkurs teachings of design fundamentals. Within this course
creativity and independent growth were encouraging through experience and experimentation
which would allow form and space to be expressed objectively using a universal visual

312
Varnelis, "The Education of the Innocent Eye," 215. Varnelis wrote "The Bauhaus refugees' new visual learning
filled a gap left by disciplinary conditions (Beaux‐Art) of American education."
313
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 262. Lorch, the most influencial of
Ross's students was the first educator to make Pure Design a foundation course for all programs within
architecture at Michigan University in 1906.
314
Frank, "The Theory of Pure Design and Architectural Education in the Early Twentieth Century," 263. Ross held
summer classes in Pure design in the 1920's that were undertaken by instructors in architecture,art and design
from the Chicago Art Institute and Drexel, Cornwell, Syracuse, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Wisconsin and Toronto
Universities.
99

language. However, in 1906 the Deweyites, namely Emil Lorch (1870‐1963), Ross’s most
influential student, had already introduced a foundation course within the Pure Design
curriculum, named Elements of Design. In her 1965 article “The Diaspora” Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy
described herself as a self‐appointed “beach‐comer of history.”315 She took particular interest
in that which involved her husband and any of his Bauhaus associates. She wrote “American
architectural school programs were reformed in the Bauhaus image. In the design field,
Dewey’s Art as Experience, published in 1934, propounded educational tenets that were
straight from the Bauhaus theory.”316 Mrs Moholy‐Nagy makes no acknowledgement of a pre‐
existence of Dewey‐inspired Pure Design theories prior to the Bauhaus ideals in the United
States, nor does she mention that Pure Design courses had begun to replace the Beaux‐Art
methods of teaching in the United States some twenty years before the Bauhaus theories were
invited onto American soil. The absence of accolades within historical references for Pure
Design’s contribution to reformative ideals in architectural education in the United States is
perplexing, and it would seem that the Bauhaus ideals were given the predominant recognition
for the reforms and expulsion of the Beaux‐Art system over and above any efforts made by
Pure Design. Perhaps the lack of a visible public persona to carry Pure Design’s torch explains
this, as the dominant figures of the European movement arrived with the support of exhibitions
and elevated pedagogical platforms from which to expound their ideals.317

Amid the accolades bestowed on the Europeans, Hudnut would nevertheless endeavour to
forge a path forward with his pedagogical and architectural beliefs. He considered himself a
progressive architect and teacher. Hudnut cited social reform, cooperative effort and
experimentation, the meshing of ideas and action and democratic education as his defining
contributions to pedagogy. In his position as Dean at Columbia University, Hudnut
“immediately launched a first attack on the French system with a decisive blow.”318 In place of
Columbia’s Americanised Beaux‐Arts program Hudnut introduced “a progressive agenda based,

315
Moholy‐Nagy, "The Diaspora," 24. Moholy‐Nagy described herself this way clarifying that she was an
unaffiliated digger of treasure and debris under the tides of conformity. She was eloquent and outspoken and
tried to stimulate controversy to clarify the essential meaning of design.
316
ibid., 25. Having emigrated to America with Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy, his second wife Sibyl held a particularly
insightful position in the efforts of the Bauhaus in America in particular the efforts of Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy and by
association Walter Gropius at Harvard.
317
Upon invitation to America both Mies and Gropius were ushered into high ranking teaching positions at IIT and
Harvard respectively. Their work was also favoured by the directors of the MoMA and therefore exhibited widely.
318
100

in large part, on the democratic educational principles of Dewey.”319 Having created a new kind
of educational programme at the school Hudnut now needed to employ new teaching staff to
disseminate the knowledge. In 1934, it was suggested to Hudnut by Lawrence Kocher, the then
editor of Architectural Review, that he invite Gropius to Columbia, and although Hudnut
considered this he hesitated as he knew that the Columbia administration would have
considered Gropius far too radial a choice. Pearlman suggests that Hudnut himself was perhaps
not ready to engage with Gropius either, writing that “perhaps Hudnut may have felt that his
programme there and his ideas for modern education were not yet ripe enough to include the
formidable founder of the Bauhaus.”320

By the mid‐1930s, the development of educational reformation in both fine arts and
architecture through Dewey, Ross, Lorch and Hudnut was running parallel to the Bauhaus
courses being taught in the United States. These courses were being taught on different
campuses but on common soil. They would traverse common ground during this period within
architectural education in only one university, Harvard.321 The theories of objectivity taught by
Ross and Gropius, influences of Ruskin’s theory of the innocent eye, Pestalozzi’s reforms,
Froebel’s gifts and both the Bauhaus’ and Pure Design’s use of exercises in composition to
analytically expose the abstract and awaken the creative faculties, all showed principle
commonalities within the aims of the Bauhaus and Pure Design. Both schools of thought had
also sought to establish a common language of visual expression within the foundation courses
they offered. With such fundamental intersections between these pedagogies, it would be the
inclusion of a preliminary course and a common, universal language, fundamental to both
methodologies, along with the relevance of historic reference within Harvard’s architectural
programme that would specifically set Hudnut and Gropius apart. Their distinctions would
outline the venomous debate that would dog Harvard’s GSD for some fifteen years. It is
important to recognise the centrality of introducing a preliminary, interdisciplinary design
course containing a universal visual language in art, architecture and design education. From

319
ibid. Hudnut gleaned two principles from Dewey and his mentor,Werner Hegeman.To build in a meaningful
way an architect must have a wide understanding of social, economical, technical and intellectual currents and a
sound knowledge of historical roots.
320
ibid., 45.
321
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 496. Dewian and Bauhausian theories
also intersected with Albers at Black Mountain. But Albers never tried to assimilate these teachings into three
dimensional work. Any efforts to bring Albers to Harvard were thawted by Hudnut for this very reason.
101

Pure Design in 1906, through the Bauhaus in 1919, and again in the three translations
disseminated by the Bauhaus émigrés in the 1930s this inclusion was critical. In spite of this
legacy Gropius would need to vigorously defend the inclusion of such a course within the GSD
programme against Hudnut’s questionable reluctance.322

4.4 Hudnut to Harvard and the Establishment of the Graduate School of Design

By 1935, and having “completed as much damage as I could possibly do at Columbia,” 323
Hudnut accepted a position at Harvard. By this time Hudnut had established strong ties with a
number of New York architects who were also concerned about the social agendas facing
architecture. Through Columbia University Hudnut was also affiliated with those of influence at
the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr, Philip Johnson and Henry‐Russell Hitchcock. These
associations had enabled Hudnut to gain considerable confidence in his own pedagogical and
architectural voice by the time he reached Harvard.324 Through both personal and professional
associations Hudnut had solid support in his appointment as Dean of Architecture from
Harvard’s President James Conant.325

Figure 25: James Bryant Conant Harvard president 1946

322
Frank, "The Theory of Pure Design and Architectural Education in the Early Twentieth Century,"267. Gropius
took twelve years to establish a "Basic Design" course. Hudnut had opposed it for a number of reasons although it
was also thought that he was playing tit for tat. If Gropius opposed a history course then Hudnut would oppose a
basic design course.
323
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 457. Hudnut heeded Dewey's call for
democratic education and had abolished the Beaux‐Art education at Columbia. He had introduced collaborative
based design studios that worked on community projects.
324
Richard Oliver, ed. The Making of an Architect (New York: Rizzoli International Publications Inc, 1981), 188.
325
Alofsin, The Struggle for Modernism. Architecture,Landscape Architecture and City Planning at Harvard, 117.
Hudnut had been strongly recommended to Conant by his brother‐in‐law Harold Bush‐Brown, a Harvard graduate
and chairman of the Dept of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
102

Alofsin asserts that Harvard had established a commitment towards a modernist reform prior
to Hudnut’s appointment. Modest changes had begun to appear in the fundamentally Beaux‐
Art styled curriculum. Although architecture was still considered to be a fine art based on
knowledge of construction, with the history of architecture still viewed as essential for the
growth and meaning of architectural forms as discussed by Harvard’s first Dean of Architecture
Herbert Langford Warren nearly half a century before, the reformist developments lay subtly,
in the idea that history was no longer a precedent to be use blindly, but instead to be engaged
with “intelligently and with freedom.”326 By the 1930s, in addition to their own curricular
developments at Harvard reform efforts were further fuelled by their awareness and support of
the European developments in modern architecture. The European styles characterised by
American detractors as “an unemotional, planar vocabulary and the idiom neue Sachlichkeit or
new objectivity”327 were now available in United States through periodicals, guest lectures and
exhibitions and would quiet rapidly come to dominate the United States post‐WWII.328

Alofsin asserts that Harvard’s School of Architecture lacked the faculty to drive the school
forward as much of the teaching staff was of the old guard and not impressed by the European
developments.329 Conant, who himself had made strides toward a functional architecture saw
Hudnut as a great ally. From the immediate outset of his time at Harvard Hudnut began as he
had at Columbia, to usher in the modern era. In a very short time Hudnut had brought Harvard
forward from its Beaux Art past by introducing co‐operative design studios, practical group
design problems, and experiments with materials and techniques of construction. Hudnut
maintained that architects should have a wide understanding of the society they were building
for, knowledge of its social world as well as an appreciation of economic, technological, and
intellectual currents. Additionally and in accordance with Dean Warren’s founding thoughts
knowledge of its historic roots still remained fundamentally important.330 In Hudnut’s early
years at Harvard, the inclusion of history within the programme is the only obvious difference
between Gropius’ Bauhaus ideals for architectural education and Hudnut’s convictions. There is

326
ibid., 81.
327
ibid., 82.
328
ibid. Harvard Society of Contemporary Art exhibited Bauhaus artists in 1929 and Harvard School of Architecture
and the Fogg Museum sponsored the seminal exhibition at MoMA in 1932 introducing the International Style.
329
ibid. On the relevance of students visiting a Bauhaus exhibition in 1925 Hudnut's predecessor, George Edgell
commented " I suppose such an exhibition might be useful in instruction the students what to avoid."
330
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 457‐58.
103

no real evidence yet that this difference would ultimately become an insurmountable division.
Hudnut’s reactions toward the historic environs at Harvard certainly gave rise to the belief that
like Gropius he was committed to the removal of the turgid past as it was felt it impinged
innovation. Not only did Hudnut dismember the traditional academic approaches to teaching
architecture, he also physically dismantled the buildings. He purged the building that housed
architecture at Harvard, Robinson Hall, of all vestiges of the old academy which included its
symbols and signs of the past.331 In addition to this he also “destroyed the plaster casts of
antique building fragments and sculpture that had filled the academy and stripped the walls of
Old Master copies and Beaux‐Arts envois, repainting them a pristine white.”332 During his
tenure at Harvard, Hudnut had preferred to leave the teaching to others and concentrate on
the larger goals of pedagogical direction, curriculum and hiring progressive faculty. However,
he did initially teach a history course called Contemporary Architecture in which he discussed
new approaches to architecture and city planning in relation to modern techniques and ways of
living. This allowed for his personal views in relation to the value of architectural history and
the methods by which it should be taught to be disseminated within the new pedagogy.

Upon Hudnut’s arrival in 1935 the faculties of architecture, landscape architecture and city
planning were all operating separately. Hudnut came to Harvard proposing to merge the three
schools into a single new school. Hudnut firmly believed that this was essential in order to
shape a new modern architecture and a sound modern city.333 In February 1936, less than a
year into his deanship at Harvard and with Conant’s full support the university approved
Hudnut’s proposal to dissolve the old Faculty of Architecture and merge its three separate
schools into a single new inter‐disciplinary faculty the Graduate School of Design. This was not
accepted without reservation between the faculty’s academics which were described by Jane
Loeffler in her 2002 Harvard magazine article “Recovered Memory” as ‘turf wars and
personality clashes.’334It would ultimately be Hudnut’s convictions toward the relevance of
history in his pedagogical theories that would lead to his most significant turf war within his yet
to be established relationship with Gropius.

331
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 55. Not only did Hudnut strip Harvard buildings of the traditional
aesthetics he had all books published pre 1936 removed from the library and transfered to archives.
332
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 460.
333
ibid., 459.
334
Jane Loeffler, "Recovered Memory," Harvard Magazine 2002, 31‐32.
104

Figure 26: Joseph Hudnut in his Graduate School of Design office 1946

Warren’s 1895 founding manifesto for Harvard’s School of Architecture which included inter‐
disciplinary collaborations and both cultural and societal concerns, which coupled with
Hudnut’s own more modern version of these beliefs were embedded within his pedagogical
agendas. This aligned him, in principle, to the European mould of modernism and its education.
Additionally Hudnut’s beliefs in a Dewey styled education which shared the mantra of ‘learning
by doing’ with the Bauhaus methods of teaching brought him into line with Gropius’
developments for an interdisciplinary education for architecture. Both the Bauhaus and the
Dewey system, through its influence of Pure Design, believed in an inter‐disciplinary
preliminary course which would allow the discovery of common visual keys. But a significant
distinction between which disciplines and exactly who both Gropius and Hudnut believed
architecture should share a common language or turf with would set up a debate that outlined
a primary distinction between Hudnut and Gropius’ aims for both Harvard and architecture.

Although Hudnut sought a common understanding between Harvard’s disciplines of
architecture, landscape architecture and city planning, he did not fully embrace the initial
concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art that had been sought by Gropius and his
colleagues within the Weimar manifestation of the Bauhaus. This concept of unification had
never been included in the Pure Design ideology or the Dewey principles. This distinction
105

between the Dewey and the Bauhaus methodologies would become another disparity between
Hudnut’s intensions and Gropius’ agendas for not only Harvard’s curriculum but architecture as
a whole.

The fundamental differences can be seen between Gropius profound belief that within the
preliminary course an objective universal visual language that could be used and understood by
everyone in a collective and collaborative community would be discovered and disseminated.
Gropius sought “a universal language of form that would represent the elimination of social as
well as national barriers.”335 Hudnut, translated Gropius’ aims as “impersonal and endlessly
standardised therefore excluding the joyousness of life.”336 Hudnut believed that architecture
could only reach people on an emotional plane if it spoke “its own language in an eloquent
way.”337 It would seem that the development of an elitist language of form specifically by
architects for architects to eloquently discuss and explain their idiosyncratic aims and ideals
flew in the face of any ground made to this point in architectural history in uniting architecture
with man’s physical, emotional, or psychological needs. Gropius and other Bauhaus disciples
felt the attributes of universality and egalitarianism were vital components in bringing art and
architecture into the hearts and minds of those who used it. When discussing Gropius’
fundamental aims within architectural education in the United States Pearlman stated:

At the Bauhaus and now at the GSD, Gropius was seeking to end the
individualistic era so utterly unrelated to the collective life of man. With a
new language providing the ‘common key’ for understanding the visual arts
people can believe again in the basic importance of art and architecture in
their daily lives.338

335
Naylor, The Bauhaus Reassessed.Sources and Design Theory, 9.
336
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 21. As discussed by Wick "Morris
beliefs in the joy of ones efforts manifesting in the end product failed to completely mesh with industrialisation
and mass production by remaining too expensive for the middle class therefore his work remained elitist."
337
ibid., 471. I would assert the notion of a private language, architecture’s own language, leads architecture down
a path of elitism and seriously limits the notion of a universal understanding not just between architectural and
design disciplines but mankind.
338
ibid., 470. It is also important to appreciate that this universal visual language was to serve as a "common
denominator' for the understanding of all visual arts.
106

4.5 Gropius Joins the Harvard Turf Wars

On arrival in 1937 Hudnut greeted Gropius with: “Welcome to America where happiness and
success awaits you.”339

Figure 27: Ise and Walter Gropius, New Hampshire 1930

The majority of the old guard Harvard faculty members found it increasingly difficult to
function within the new modern regime of the GSD and one way or another they became
casualties of it. Gropius would join the school and the impassioned discourse that prevailed in
1937, but he had impressive competition for this position. Hudnut had initially carried out his
search for a new design professor in secret. He kept only Conant and Barr from the MoMA
informed.340 Barr had approached J.J.P Oud, Mies van der Rohe and “failing these two” Gropius
about the possibility of working in collaboration with an American architect on a museum
building in New York. 341 Oud declined for personal reasons which left Mies and Gropius. Due to
lack of support from the museum trustees the collaboration was never to eventuate, but
Hudnut quickly took up the conversation with the Europeans.342 Hudnut visited Mies in Berlin

339
On arrival in New York Gropius was greeted by this telegram from Hudnut.
340
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism: 65. Barr proved to be insightful to Hudnut’s search as the museum
had been looking to engage a European modernist to collaborate with an American architect on a new building at
the museum.
341
ibid.
342
ibid., 17.Hudnut believed Oud would be the most successful in America, Mies to have given little to education
but was the most original of the Europeans and Gropius was a leading educator and more likey to forge ties with
industry.
107

and Gropius in London during the summer of 1936. Mies was the preferred candidate as
Hudnut summarises in a memo written to Conant after his meetings with both men:

Mies is perhaps the most original architect among the modernists. He
impresses me as a vigorous and altogether honest person who seems to have
every quality for leadership in the teaching of architecture. He is somewhat
vain and I imagine that he might be more difficult to work with than Mr
Gropius.343

Pearlman points out that Conant’s scientific background and a strong interest in German
culture and education inclined him towards modern architecture and ultimately the Bauhaus,
virtually guaranteeing Mies’ or Gropius’ selection.344 Ultimately Mies’ vanity and personality
was his downfall and Gropius’ perceived affability won over Conant, who had as much to say in
the final decision as Hudnut.345 In December 1936 Gropius was offered a life appointment at
the GSD and assured that he would be “the greatest possible value to the cause of architects in
this country.”346 As Herbert Read’s speech to farewell Gropius from England to Harvard in 1937
gives a clear appreciation of the magnitude of Gropius’s support within international
architecture at that time. Read stated: “Gropius belongs to the whole world.”347 In contrast to
the perception that Gropius was a highly valued, affable, well dressed and stylish European,
Hudnut was described by a colleague as “the least modern individual you could find.”348 His
tweeds, his unremarkable appearance and his modesty belied his innovation and intellectual
prowess. The stylish Gropius and the understated Hudnut would attempt to work side by side
for some fifteen years at Harvard’s GSD. Despite the differences that would mount between

343
ibid., 67. Needless to say Mies' vanity, impatience, his dislike for Gropius and the fact that Gropius was also
being considered for the position cost him the job opportunity.
344
James Conant, "Mr Conant and Germany; A Presidential Autobiography " Harvard Alumni Bulletin 38 (1936),
812‐19. Conants beliefs in the German education progress would ultimately be beneficial to Gropius as the
relationship between Gropius and Hudnut became untenible and Conant would have to play peace keeper and
eventually make decisions over both men.
345
346
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 70. Gropius had startegically negotiated the terms of his position
particularly in relation to retirement. This proved to be strategically potent in out foxing Hudnut's plan to outlast
him at the GSD.
347
Harlan Hoffa, "Walter Gropius Innovator," Art Education Vol 14, no. 1 (1961), 12. After working in London for
three years Gropius was the guest of honour at a dinner in London on the occasion of his departure to
Americas.Guests included Breuer, Moholy‐Nagy, Maxwell Fry, Sigfried Giedion, Wells Coates and Julian Huxley.
348
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 11. Hudnut was was considered to be quiet and shy with an
unremarkable presence unlike his more fashion conscious contemporaries Gropius and le Corbusier.
108

these two colleagues, Pearlman claims that, “The GDS was so successful in disseminating its
brand of modern architecture and urbanism in an era of unprecedented building that is no
exaggeration to say that the school transformed the physical landscape worldwide.”349

Upon arrival at Harvard’s GSD in 1937 Gropius’ initial statements were ambiguous; perhaps in
hindsight they illuminated Gropius’s skill for dual and persuasive rhetoric. Faculty member
Holmes Perkins (1904‐2004) recalled: “on the one hand Gropius resolved to collect a thorough
knowledge of the country first before presuming to help Hudnut shape a new pedagogy. On the
other hand he told numerous American audiences that the Bauhaus education had universal
validity and regarded it as a master plan.”350

Almost immediately a fracture began to manifest between the aims of Hudnut and Gropius. In
an explanation of his views on a “Harvard‐Bauhaus” to his colleagues Hudnut stated, “it is far
from our idea to establish an imitation of the Bauhaus here. Any system of education has to be
judged in reference to time, place and circumstance and that any philosophic abstractions in
respect to it are decidedly dangerous.”351 Hudnut had wanted to employ a modernist architect
for the GSD not an educational blueprint. Unfortunately for Hudnut, this was not what he
would to receive, as Gropius would clearly demonstrate. Initially both Hudnut and Gropius
collaborated well in revamping the curriculum to ally the three disciplines of architecture,
landscape architecture and city planning towards each other and modernism. Gropius and
Hudnut also worked well together to build a new faculty. It was only as Gropius began to
attempt to recruit other Bauhaus masters that the tensions would emerge.352 Gropius’
selection of Bauhaus masters considered appropriate to disseminate the Harvard‐ Bauhaus
curriculum was influenced by an important credo within the Bauhaus ideals‐the universal.
Gropius wanted all members of society to become appreciative of art and architecture.
Therefore the teachers would need to also be interdisciplinary and understand form when
expressed two dimensionally and three dimensionally. Hudnut was not a disciple of the

349
ibid., 1.
350
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the "Harvard Bauhaus"," 464. Gropius was keen on arrival at
Harvard to pick up where he had left off ten years earlier in dessau.america clearly met Gropius'
expectations.
351
ibid., 467. Holmes Perkins stated in an interview with Jill Pearlman that he felt Gropius would never had said
directly that he wanted to impose something foreign as he insisted on democracy. But he did really want to
recreate the Bauhaus at Harvard.
352
ibid.
109

universal but instead wanted commonality of understanding and appreciation only within the
disciplines of the GSD.353

It is obvious from the debates between Hudnut and Gropius that reconciliation between the
two men over how and where the Bauhaus methods should and would be used was not to
eventuate. Unfortunately for Gropius, Hudnut was his superior and therefore Gropius would
need to formulate his way forward carefully. As an effective propagandist of his own beliefs,
the opportunity to hold a prestigious post at Harvard was not lost on Gropius. Harvard was a
highly visible stage for him to occupy and spread his ideas on modern architecture.354 Gropius
had felt that his architecture had never been fully appreciated in Europe, but prior to his arrival
at Harvard he had felt confident that his work would reach a wider and more receptive
audience in the United States.355 It was believed by many that American architectural pedagogy
had not found a home‐grown comprehensive alternative to the Beaux‐Art pedagogy and
system of design which was becoming increasingly irrelevant to architects within the rapidly
changing environment they were now designing for.356 Thus, Gropius’ arrival was keenly
anticipated by many American architects and viewed as a remedy to this situation.357 Gropius
would find great support for his arrival from those that knew him. Acclaimed historian and art
critic Siegfried Gideon (1888–1968) wrote, “The power to diffuse his influence over his
surroundings is an attribute of this great educationalist. Walter Gropius was predestined for
this role.”358

Enrolment in architectural schools generally surged in the United States in the few years prior
to its involvement in WWII. This was due to economic improvement and constant talk of

353
ibid., 466. Unlike Morris, Ruskin or Gropius, Hudnut had always argued that architecture differed from all other
arts in the part in played towards building communities.
354
ibid., 464. Although Gropius was dubious about a university as a breeding ground for architects he was
reassured by Hudnut's rejection of the Beaux‐Art system.
355
ibid. Hudnut had promised to help Gropius set up an architectural practice in Cambridge America and find
commissions and advisory positions upon his arrival.
356
Pearlman, "Bauhaus in America." Edward Larabee Barnes stated that the Beaux‐Art method of drawing in itself
was totally irrelevent to the contemporary architectural practice as it was excessively slow and contained little
expression of construction techniques.
357
Alonfsin also states that The International Style exhibition of 1932 solidified Gropius as a celebrity and gained a
cultural imprimtur of his work.
358
Sigfried Giedion, Walter Gropius (London: The Architectural Press, 1954), 53. Giedion wrote this book to
coincide with an exhibition celebrating the awarding of the "San Paulo Prize" for contribution to contemporary
architecture to Walter Gropius in 1954.
110

building. Most architectural school’s enrolments jumped twenty‐five per cent whereas with
Gropius now completing his first full year Harvard’s GSD, enrolments there jumped by forty per
cent. The lure of the Bauhaus master was great and Bruno Zevi (1918–2000) a former Harvard
student and art critic referred to Gropius’ arrival at Harvard as “a bomb being placed in the
foundations of academic training.”359 Hudnut, as a pioneer in the path towards modernism in
American architectural pedagogy, was well aware of the state of both architecture and
architectural education in the United States and was initially genuinely eager to have Gropius at
Harvard. This eagerness, for reasons we will investigate, would subside.

Before addressing Hudnut’s difficulties or regrets and any perceived or real contributions
Gropius’ made to Harvard’s GSD, it is again necessary to acknowledge that Hudnut had not
employed Gropius for his pedagogical doctrines. Hudnut had wanted an architect to push the
modernist agendas within architecture itself. Hudnut saw the GSD was a platform for this. The
ideas of collaborative work between the disciplines of architecture, landscape and city planning
in practice was one of Hudnut’s principle goals and Gropius’ architectural examples and voice
were, I believe the tools Hudnut felt would advance these agendas.360

As eager as Hudnut was initially to have Gropius at the school, Gropius’ was equally as eager to
have his Bauhaus colleagues Albers and Breuer there as well. From the moment Gropius
arrived at Harvard he began urging the GSD to bring these two vital personalities from England
and Black Mountain College respectively. “Gropius insisted that both Albers and Breuer could
offer GSD students a modern design education that no American instructor could match.”361

4.6 Harvard and the Bauhaus Artist ‐ Albers

To both Gropius and Hudnut, Albers personified the Bauhaus’ first year preliminary course.
Unfortunately although both men shared this view it was this parity that would illuminate the

359
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 216. Bruno Zevi, a Gropius student from 1940‐1940 went on to
become one of Italy's leading architectural polemicists. Although he had supported Gropius's efforts at Harvard
initially Zevi did eventually find fault in Gropius teachings.
360
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 465‐66. Pearlman also discusses that
after WW11 Gropius had never intended to return to Germany and the oppotunity to work in America clearly met
his expectations of being able to start again where he had left off with the Bauhaus.
361
ibid., 467.
111

reasons why Gropius wanted Albers and Hudnut did not. The first year preliminary course had
served as the moral fibre of the Bauhaus’ curriculum and in Gropius’ eyes, Albers was the
backbone of the preliminary course. Gropius wanted a preliminary course at Harvard to serve
as an “indispensable prerequisite” to all further study, just as it had within the Bauhaus. 362
Gropius wanted all GSD students to undertake a preliminary course for six months before
embarking on their chosen discipline. Gropius believed that the preliminary course, if taught as
Albers instructed it, embraced the two primary aims at the Bauhaus. These aims were, to foster
individual creativity and to establish a universal language of form accessible to all people,
regardless of nationality or social status.363 Hudnut claimed budgetary limitations as the reason
he could not engage Albers. He did in fact have several misgivings about Albers. Albers’ leftist
politics and his approach to design were at the forefront of Hudnut’s concerns. Although the
universal nature of a visual language was also a focal issue for Hudnut it was most perceptibly
the fact that Hudnut considered Albers a painter engaging with form and space in two
dimensions not an architect who engaged three dimensionally that worried Hudnut. This
concern made Hudnut feel unsure as to what Albers might bring to the GSD.364 This illustrates
the disparity of Hudnut and Gropius’ opinion about Albers. The fact that Albers was an artist
was the precise reason Gropius wanted him.

Despite Gropius’ relentless efforts to have Albers join the Harvard faculty it never eventuated.
Hudnut had made a somewhat empty offer of a position at Harvard to Albers on considerably
less remuneration than Albers was receiving at Black Mountain at the time. Albers declined.
Pearlman suggests that Albers did make a few short visits to Harvard where he gave several
lectures to the Fine Arts and GSD students. By limiting Albers’ pedagogical influence to sporadic
and fleeting visits and failing to meet Albers expectations financially, Hudnut had, in one most
strategically placed cut effectively limited the volume of Bauhaus voices at Harvard. Gropius
had believed that Albers was crucial to the preliminary course and therefore crucial to the
implementation of the universal. As discussed in an earlier chapter Albers was always aware of

362
Hans M Wingler, Das Bauhaus,1919 ‐1933 Weimar, Dessau, Berlin [The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin,
Chicago] (Rasch: Bramsche 1962), 108.
363
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 469. Gropius' views that a universal
understanding of architecture should be accessible to everyone never changed. Hudnut seemed to only want
certain academic disciplines to share a knowledge of the fundamentals. Leaving architectural appreciation as
elitist.
364
ibid.
112

Gropius’ struggle within this elite and time honoured university and had, I believe, deduced
himself that the advancement of the universal visual language within form was a more
foreboding challenge within the GSD than any he encountered at Black Mountain or Yale in the
Fine Arts department. Theodore Dreier stated in an interview with film maker Judith Pearlman
that upon returning to Black Mountain after a short sabbatical at Harvard Albers stated he
would find it impossible to work in “such a mausoleum.”365

4.7 Harvard and the Bauhaus Architect– Marcel Breuer

Conversely it was without any internal struggles or debate between Hudnut and Gropius that
architect and furniture designer, Marcel Breuer, who had studied and taught at the Bauhaus,
joined the GSD in 1937 only a few months after Gropius. He remained at Harvard and as
Gropius’s partner in their Cambridge architectural practice until 1946 when a falling out with
his Bauhaus and Harvard colleague saw Breuer leave Harvard and Cambridge to set up his own
architectural practice in New York. Interestingly, the relationship was seen on the surface as a
successful one, as Breuer flourished in the role of teacher at Harvard and his architecture was
well received in the United States. Within Gropius and Breuer’s nine year period together on
the GSD campus their roles within pedagogy congealed, with perhaps Breuer’s role rising to the
top. Students had looked to Gropius for more of a philosophical perspective and they looked to
Breuer for inspiration, spatial relationships, practical direction and the behaviour of
materials.366

Figure 28: Breuer with GSD students

365
Pearlman, "Bauhaus in America."Film maker Judith Pearlman is no relation to author Jill Pearlman.
366
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism,111. Upon graduation from Harvard Harry Seidler,worked with
Breuer in New York before emigrating to Australia where his Breueresque works a still celebrated some fifty year
later.
113

The skills Breuer had acquired and become renowned for with his Bauhaus furniture,
particularly the Wassily Chair had remained paramount in his later works and permeated into
his Harvard teachings. Harvard student Edward Larrabee Barnes (1915–2004) said on visiting
the home Breuer had designed for himself in Lincoln Boston: “I was dazzled by the sureness of
his touch, Breuer’s ability to combine totally dissimilar elements and materials and yet not
crowd the space. All unrelated yet held together by their exact placement. This quality of
tension and contrast seems to be a true expression of our lives at that time.”367

Figure 29: Breuer at home, Lincoln Massachusetts 1940

Breuer was looked up to as having tremendous design ability, and more so than Gropius or any
other faculty member Breuer was considered the “taste‐maker “and the “artist” of the
studio.368 These accolades afforded to Breuer, not Gropius, highlights the question of Gropius’
agenda in the United States as an architect as Hudnut had hoped for, or as the educator
Gropius was also determined to be. These agendas would colour Gropius’ relationship with
Breuer who had always, even during his Bauhaus days, seemed to be able to accommodate
within his own abilities both the roll of eminent teacher, architect and designer par excellence

367
Edward Larrabee Barnes, "Remarks on Continuity and Change," Perspecta 9/10(1964‐66), 292.Gropius and
Breuer were among a group of modernist architects that built homes on land owned by Boston philantropist Helen
O Storow who also undertook to pay building costs. She rented these homes back to the architects with an option
for them to buy.
368
114

without needing to rely on any other faculty member for support. 369Gropius had, at every turn
in his career, as an architect or an educator sought and succeeded in surrounding himself with
some of the best artists, designers and architects of the time. He had succeeded in this at the
Bauhaus, with his engagement of such eminent artists as Itten, Klee, and Kandinsky.
Additionally within his architectural practices Gropius had relationships with Peter Behrens,
Adolf Meyer, (1866‐ 1950) Maxwell Fry (1899‐1987) and now Breuer.370 Gropius had also due
to his inability, lack of confidence and dislike of drawing engaged draftsmen to ensure his
designs were received with appropriate respect.371 He had again now achieved success with
Breuer by his side at Harvard.

Figure 30: Frank house by Gropius and Breuer Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

Award winning architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote that “The work of Walter Gropius
was uneven, seemingly influenced in quality by the men with whom he collaborated.”372
Recognition of authorship of the work done by the Gropius/Breuer architectural practice had
also become an issue, with Breuer feeling that Gropius gained undue credit for the firm’s work.
Chermayeff, who had replaced Moholy‐Nagy after his death in Chicago, stated that, “Marcel

369
Christopher Wilk, "Marcel Breuer: Furniture and Interiors," MoMA 19(1981), 2. Wilk, stated in the 1981 MoMA
Breuer exhibition that Breuer alone had fulfilled Gropius' desires.
370
Gropius would in his next association form The Architects Collaborative with a group of Harvard Alumni.
371
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 20. Gropius referred to his lack of drawing ability as "My absolute
inability to bring even the simplist design to paper." His remedy to the situation was to decide that drawing was a
"support activity" to architecture.
372
ibid., 110.
115

Breuer did all the work that Gropius claimed. He (Breuer) had left Gropius because he claimed
all to be the author, the designer of their projects together.”373 This dispute would lead to a
downfall of their relationship. It could be concluded that Breuer had become aware of his role
in Gropius’ personal agenda within the American context or perhaps he had always been aware
but was now, having himself used Gropius’ fame for his own advancement and established
enough credibility in his own right could now, successfully move on alone.

4.8 Gropius and Hudnut–A Symbiotic Relationship

It seems fair to say that Gropius was not averse to conflict during his pedagogical career from
fractions both external and internal. The unrelenting political struggles he engaged in as
founder of the Bauhaus at Weimar have been well documented, as has his conflict with Itten
who bore the brunt of Gropius’ shifting ideals while shaping the Bauhaus toward industry.
Within the United States there would also be groups harbouring animosity toward Gropius and
his work. Shortly after crossing the Atlantic, Gropius lectured for a number of Boston Architects
and included slides of his own work. The audience, many of whom were Harvard alumni, “were
repelled by Gropius’ work, seeing not architecture, but engineering; their disenfranchisement
from Harvard began immediately.”374 Gropius’ personality and perception of his role at Harvard
also created tensions of their own. Some faculty members felt that Gropius perhaps took
Read’s accolades too literally, seeing himself in far too favourable a light. After a time short
time in his new position at Harvard President Conant would describe Gropius as “acting as if he
were the Dean and the centre of the world of architecture. He was not a convenient or
pleasant man as a faculty member.”375 Amid undertones of mistrust and dislike of Gropius and
his modernist leanings, Hudnut would emerge as the next major opposition to Gropius.
Patterns reminiscent of Bauhaus conflicts would also emerge.

Like Itten, Hudnut and Gropius had seemingly begun with a common goal but just as at the
Bauhaus, time had revealed otherwise. Suffice to say Gropius was a committed but, more

373
ibid. Scholars J.Driller and W.Nerdinger both credit Breuer with the majority of the houses Gropius and Breuer
built together as "principally or entirely" the work of Breuer.
374
Alofsin, The Struggle for Modernism. Architecture, Landscape Architecture and City Planning at Harvard, 135.
Nerdinger wrote of a number of lectures given by Gropius that also received criticism.
375
ibid., 239. Richard Filipowski who was Gropius choice of teacher of his Harvard preliminary course, although
fond of Gropius also discusses in his writings that Gropius could be very aloof.
116

importantly a strategic opponent. The relationship between Gropius and Hudnut at the GSD
had proved within the first few years of their fifteen years together to be a difficult one. Their
personalities and their apparent beliefs would be exposed and challenged in a very personal
and public way on the Harvard stage. Their difficulties with each other would become quite
public and intrusive to both members of the faculty and student body alike.376 While both men
continued to clash at Harvard, this particular intersection of personal characteristics illuminates
some interesting dependencies each man had on the other. I would assert that Gropius and
Hudnut had a symbiotic characteristic to their relationship. This reciprocator‐like manifestation
between the two men played a significant role in their failure, not their success, to augment a
cohesive pedagogical programme together.377 Both were dominant personalities within the
Harvard environment, with strong agendas to address, but I would contend that neither man
was able to successfully reach their goals alone. In considering the discourse surrounding both
Gropius’s and Hudnut’s successes and failures I have noted that although Hudnut had
anticipated Gropius would be the other half of his modernist crusade in the United States, and
Gropius had certainly initially needed Hudnut as an ally in his own American endeavours, both
men seemed to require one another for something more to fill the voids in their individual
competence. Each of these men’s strengths and weaknesses seemed to act as a counter to the
others. Although Hudnut could draw with the precision equal to that of a Beaux‐Art graduate
he was no longer a practicing architect. Therefore he lacked the ability to lead by example.
Gropius on the other hand still practiced as an architect but oddly lacked drawing skills. Hudnut
himself described Gropius as “an excellent propagandist able to weld great influence.”378
Indeed Gropius enjoyed the public domain whereas Hudnut was less egocentric on a public
stage. Hudnut was remembered by some from his lectures as “a small man with a lisp, audible
only as far as the second row.”379 Although both men were accomplished writers, Gropius
wrote and spoke predominantly to a scholarly architectural audience while Hudnut, in response
to his own lack of oratory skills, developed a highly eloquent writing style that reached both

376
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 473. Harvard student publication "The
Crimson" depicted the dispute as completely personal and not based on philosophy. Gropius tactically used the
student publication and student voice to rally support when Hudnut cancelled the preliminary course in 1952.
377
Varnelis, "The Education of the Innocent Eye," 216. Varnelis states that due to fixations at Harvard it failed to
stake out an autonomous position in the field of teaching.
378
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 464. In believing that Gropius would
be a great example as a modernist architect not a teacher,Hudnut had underestimated the charismatic nature of
Gropius' personality and the 'devotion and personal enhtusiasm" his students would afford him.
379
117

academics and mainstream the United States in writings for journals. Hudnut purposefully
aimed at a wider demographic than Gropius, including academics and the general public in his
readership.380

It becomes clear the longer these two men engaged on the Harvard stage that Hudnut was in
fact mistaken in his initial thinking that Gropius would be any easier to get along with than the
autocratic Mies. The successes and accolades given to the achievements of the GSD on the
architectural landscape in the United States during this period bellies the struggle contended
between Gropius and Hudnut and their pedagogical agendas. Beyond the distinctions of aims
and personalities, it would be the relevance of history within architectural education and the
inclusion of a preliminary course, predominantly because it contained a universal visual
language that would create the impasse. Unfortunately Gropius and Hudnut both failed to
overcome these differences. Hudnut would ultimately not find Gropius to be the affable and
agreeable colleague he had expected.381

4.9 The On Going Fight between Hudnut and Gropius

In 1937 as the school reopened for the year Hudnut stated, “I think it highly probable that we
shall think of nothing but war now for the next five or six years”382 Although the United States
were not committed to the initial WWII war effort, by 1942 the impact of the war had reached
Harvard. During this period John Humphreys, an elder faculty member, stated to a colleague,
“the school is very grim these days the students we have nowadays are an odd lot‐ mostly 4‐Fs
and foreigners‐ the men that is, and of course the women don’t count.”383 His somewhat
patronising account illustrates the changing situation towards an impending cultural swing and
the emergent, more democratic, student landscape which brought with it a period of change
and vibrancy at the GSD. In 1945 faculty members returned from the war effort and war

380
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 127. Hudnut wrote in both academic journals to reach his scholarly
colleagues worldwide but he also wrote in House and Garden and Mamoiselle to assist the "perplexed housewife
in her quest for good taste." He aimed to widely share his reviews on architecture.
381
382
ibid., 200. Harvard would undergo many changes during the war with staff leaving to assist in the war effort,
women being taken into the programme and buildings being used to accommodate soldier training. Some of these
changes were temporary and some permanent.
383
ibid. From the end of WW11 women were merely retained within the progamme till in 1948 when the faculty
voted officially as quoted by Pres.Conant " as a matter of nothing more than convenience and custom" to admit
women on a permanent basis.
118

veterans crowded into the School of Design. The GI Bill’s financial support for veterans brought
the enrolment policy at the GSD closer to President Conant’s view of a democratic institution
and broadened the student demographic by allowing many well qualified students who would
not normally have afforded a professional education the opportunity to enter the programme.
The removal of both the economic and gender barriers allowed a particularly talented group of
students to enrol.384

The post WWII climate at Harvard seemed to play right into Gropius’ hands in a number of
ways. In spite of or perhaps because of his eroding relationship with Hudnut, Gropius’ fight
towards a Harvard‐Bauhaus seemed to gain momentum. One of the most significant
contributions Bauhaus pedagogy had offered education to date was the Vorkurs and this post‐
war period was possibly Gropius’ most opportune moment during his tenure at Harvard to
press his case for a Harvard version of the Bauhaus Vorkurs.

Of primary assistance to Gropius’ cause was the increase in student numbers during this time,
which increased the need to engage additional staff. Secondly, the student body was now
made up of both men and women, a phenomenon accepted, albeit for the same reasons of
depleted student numbers due to a war, as years earlier at the Bauhaus. Thirdly, the
inescapability of change in the United States brought about by WWII offered Gropius numerous
opportunities to mark out new paths forward within the GSD, particularly in relation to his
Bauhaus ideals and methodologies. The most obvious stage for the dissemination of his ideals
was the studio, and since the increased numbers in students meant that Gropius would need to
employ new teaching staff, beyond seeking to employ Bauhaus masters and graduates, Gropius
utilised a Bauhaus tradition of students becoming teachers. He employed several of his past
Harvard students to assist in the studios which certainly helped disseminate the Bauhaus ideals
throughout the courses gaining some degree of commonality within the visual language prior
to any principle Bauhaüsler delivering it.

384
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 201. The GI Bill was brought about in 1944 under the Pres. Franklin
Roosevelt. It was an omibus bill that allowed veterans higher education. In 1956 by the time the original bill ended
7.8 million WW11 veterns had participated in educational programmes.
119

4.10 The Preliminary Interdisciplinary Course

Gropius, ever the strategist, would continue throughout his entire fifteen year tenure at
Harvard’s GSD to fight the larger battle against Hudnut in defence of his Bauhaus inspired
preliminary inter‐disciplinary course that included a universal visual language. 385 Also aiding
Gropius in his charge towards the inclusion of this course was the introduction of a greater
demographic of students which seemed more in line with Gropius and President Conant’s
desires for democratic education. This would, due to Conant’s interest in democratic education
and the German education system align Conant386 with Gropius and assist in his most decisive
battle with Hudnut who Gropius now saw as his nemesis. 387 The frustration Gropius felt toward
Hudnut is confirmed in a conversation Gropius had with his close ally architect and teacher
Chermayeff where Gropius said: “I have fought like the dickens in favour of a decent Basic
Design course in our School: and, on account of non‐understanding on the side of Dean
Hudnut, I have never succeeded.”388 Gropius had been unable to establish a Vorkurs before the
war but he had in an informal way managed to bring many of its tenets into the Harvard
curriculum. From the late 1930s Gropius and a number of American GSD instructors intrigued
by the Bauhaus principles had been incorporating Vorkurs exercises and principles into their
studios.389

The post war era would mark the beginning of Hudnut and Gropius’ final and most decisive
battle. Hudnut leveraged his superior administrative position and took numerous definitive
steps to limit the influx of Bauhaus ideals into the Harvard programme because he feared that

385
Gropius had from his first contact with Harvard negotiated the security and continuation of his tenure. He used
this 15 years later to outfoxed Hudnut by staying on beyond retirement age and thawt Hudnut's aims against the
preliminary course.
386
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 459. Pearlman states that Conants
deep interest in German culture and education would ultimately align him to Bauhaus thinking. In the final battle
for Gropius' preliminary course Conant would be led by Gropius.
387
ibid. Pearlman states that Conants deep interest in German culture and education would ultimately align him to
Bauhaus thinking. In the final battle for Gropius' preliminary course Conant would be led by Gropius.
388
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 206. Gropius blamed Hudnut directly for thawting any and all
aspects of the Basic Design Course and limiting the influx of Bauahus principles particulary the refusal to engage
Albers at Harvard.
389
120

“the whole GSD would be taken over and become a Bauhaus.”390 Gropius, in response, used his
highly developed lobbying skills to continue in his battle to bring the Bauhaus to Harvard.391
But the preliminary course Gropius sought was still some years off.

When the post‐war era began at Harvard, a new and much anticipated curriculum for first year
students began to be established. This new programme required all first year students of
architecture, landscape architecture and planning to enrol in two papers, Planning One and
Design One. The planning course was considered the central course for first year students and
exposed them to and explored the common principles between the three disciplines. It was
also taught by a team of inter‐disciplinary instructors. This course was considered, by most
faculty members, including Gropius, as a strong addition to the GSD programme.392 The first
year design course Design One, as it was known, was afforded no such salute from Gropius.
This was not the course Gropius wished to see at the centre of the first year programme. In
1946 in what Gropius described as “infuriating behaviour” Hudnut hired a young American
teacher George Le Boutellier to teach the first year Design One theory class.393 Le Boutellier
renamed the course Theory and Practice of Design. He introduced students to “the
fundamental concepts of space, form and function and the relationships by which these are
expressed and controlled.”394 Gropius described Le Boutellier as “a half‐baked teacher” and his
course as “never being sound.”395 In a very superficial way Le Boutellier’s course drew on
Bauhaus principles by introducing the manipulation of materials but the course is remembered
by students as “weak with no real understanding of why we did things.”396 Unfortunately for
Gropius, because Hudnut had strategically engaged Le Boutellier’s as an instructor in
Architectural Sciences in Harvard College and not the GSD, Gropius was powerless to replace

390
ibid., 467.
391
ibid., 218. Gropius efforts were sustained. After 12 years of battling Pres. Conant finally stepped in and funded
the course with a $25,000.00 contribution from his own fund superseeding Hudnut's cries that the school that the
school could not afford Gropius' course.
392
393
ibid., 206. By this stage in the GSD students and faculty alike were beginning to believe that the dispute
between Hudnut and Gropius was not philosophical but personal . Pres.Conant had to attend all faculty meetings
to act as a broker between the two men.
394
395
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 206. Gropius was extremely upset by the course content and the fact
that Le Boutellier was brought in as he described it as "over his head." Hudnut had used his authority as Dean to
ignore Gropius' ideas for the preliminary course.
396
ibid.
121

him.397 Still Gropius had a completely different course in mind for first year students, and the
debate between Hudnut and Gropius over the use of a universal visual language within this
course was fundamental to their acrimonious relationship.

In fact, this preliminary course was considered by Gropius to be essential in the education of all
designers, no matter what their field of specialisation.398 The Basic Design course, as Gropius
would refer to it, would in Gropius’s eyes develop the student’s imaginations to the fullest and
enable them to discover a path towards creativity. The course was essential for the
establishment of a “common language of visual communication.”399 Basic Design was to “foster
creativity and develop a new language of vision. These were to be integrally related,”
synonymous with the Bauhaus aims. 400 It is well established in historical writings that Gropius
had always seen a version of the Bauhaus Vorkurs as the best opportunity to spread the
Bauhaus doctrines, and the GSD Basic Design course was his most opportune moment to
embed the Vorkurs teachings into Harvard. In 1950, Gropius finally succeeded in directly
exposing the GSD student to the Vorkurs in a retooled version of Le Boutellier’s Design One. In
a surprising move and against Hudnut’s advice President Conant provided the funds and
supported the course. Richard Filipowski (1923–2008), a teacher at the Chicago Bauhaus with
Moholy‐Nagy, before his untimely death, was employed to deliver the course for a two year
trial period. 401 The Basic Design course was now renamed Design Fundamentals.

Hudnut remained unsupportive by reiterating to Filipowski and Gropius the temporary nature
of the course. Gropius was not deterred and he proceeded to set up the workshops believing
that abstract design would finally achieve the pivotal place he had always wanted for it.402 An
end of year exhibition was held in 1952 to display the results of the retooled course, and the
catalogue, with a Herbert Bayer inspired graphic content explained that the work represented

397
Gropius was not consulted on the appointments for the preliminary course.
398
399
400
401
Filipowski, a Polish emigrant to Canada taught for forty years in America and his work moved fluidly between two
and three dimensions. This would have made him a more comfortable choice for Hudnut than Albers who
remained two dimensional.
402
ibid. The introduction of workshops into the curriculum via Gropius' Design Fundamentals was another factor
that Hudnut found to be a principle distraction from the "architectural experience" as he felt they were too
construction and technologically based.
122

the discovery by the students of the “fundamental architectural elements of function, space,
scale, light and colour. The control of these elements gave form and through further
experiments led to the organisation of space.”403 Alofsin noted that Gropius was very pleased
with the success of the course and that many faculty members were enthusiastic. Alofsin also
noted that Hudnut was “appalled at the results of the experiment; the course embodied the
abstract formalism in modern architecture, another sign of Gropius’ success, that he had fought
against. Removing it would become a central objective for Hudnut.”404

Figure 31: Three‐dimensional design exercises by GSD students in Design Fundamentals

Gropius’ course, Design Fundamentals in its 1952 mode, symbolised a victory for Bauhaus
ideology over what Hudnut had tried to develop as the American system. With the trial period
over and both faculty and students overwhelmingly endorsing the course it was possibly not
surprising that Hudnut would step in to cancel it. Gropius was, of course furious that Hudnut
had cancelled the course he had been fighting for since 1937 and immediately began a
campaign for its reinstatement. Gropius was solid in the knowledge that most other American
architecture schools now had similar courses modelled after the Bauhaus.405 He was also well
aware that his “whole faculty was in favour of Design Fundamentals.” 406 Gropius began to
campaign through all available means to reinstate his course that he felt had been dropped

403
ibid.
404
ibid., 231.
405
By this time Albers was at Yale having left Black Mountain after sixteen years and both Moholy‐Nagy and Mies
had been very affective in Chicago at IIT.
406
123

“solely because the dean is against it.”407In 1952, to alleviate the deafening conflict between
Hudnut and Gropius and a climate Alofsin referred to as “engendered jealousy among faculty
members, who were increasingly unwilling to collaborate,” a committee was formed to
consider the future of the Gropius’ Design Fundamentals course run by Filipowski. 408 Hudnut
defended his initial decision to drop Design Fundamentals saying that the GSD could still not
afford such a course, and that it was unnecessary and clashed with other more crucial courses,
therefore not allowing the student enough time to study professional training or the Planning
One collaborative course. To Gropius’ dismay, Le Boutillier, who “represented the very
approach Gropius rejected,” headed this committee.409 The result was that Hudnut jettisoned
Gropius’ Design Fundamentals course based on Bauhaus principles and combined the old
Design One and Planning One courses into one course named Design A. This resolved nothing
but time tabling issues, ignoring Gropius’ pedagogical content. In protest to Hudnut’s dismissal
of Design Fundamentals, budget cuts and increased teaching workloads for the now sixty‐nine
year old, Gropius decided a year before his planned retirement, to resign.410

4.11 Universal versus Elite

Gropius’s 1919 Bauhaus manifesto, despite his alterations to it in 1928 and in his 1939
American manifesto, Blueprint for an Architects Education written for his Harvard scholars
never wavered in the call for a universal understanding and appreciation of simple forms and
proportions and honest workmanship. His founding request that “architects, painters and
sculptors must recognise anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as
an entity and in its separate parts” also never changed even as he advanced the Bauhaus
theories further into the twentieth century and design education in the United States. 411
Marcel Francisconi discusses in his book Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus in
Weimar that Gropius at this time called for “the development of an artistic culture to be as

407
ibid. Gropius used the student magazine The Harvard Crimson as an effective weapon to reach a university
wide audience not just that of the GSD.
408
Hudnut was very aware that to allow a preliminary course to succeed so close to his own retirement would
diminish all his efforts to retain history as the success of one would mean the demise of the other.
409
ibid.
410
411
Gropius, "Bauhaus Manifesto and Program."
124

broadly based as possible and that would not depend on idiosyncrasies of the artistic elite.”412
Gropius believed that to base art on such subjective notions as taste and feeling led to an
artist’s “sad isolation.”413 Gropius’ belief in Ruskin’s theory of the innocent eye, Itten’s
denouncement of preconceived ideas and both Moholy‐Nagy and Albers’ consolidations of
these theories illustrated a clear commitment by Gropius that the preliminary education should
be devoid of influence by anything other than a universal understanding. It is central to note
that Gropius sought an individual response using the universal or as he referred to it in his 1948
article “Teaching the Arts of Design” a “foundation of solidarity” to enable each student to
respond with their “own spontaneous expression.”414

The references to Gropius 1919 manifesto continue to be obvious within his later manifesto for
Harvard, The Blueprint of an Architect’s Education. The request for unification of all the
disciplines of practical art‐sculpture, painting, and hand‐crafts as inseparable components of a
new architecture are no less evident. The insistence by Gropius that as an introduction to a
student’s preliminary creative education there be three dimensional experiments harks back to
the reformations of Froebel and Pestalozzi. The inclusion of composition in space and
experiments in materials were like the three dimensional experiments, pedagogical theories
introduced by Itten to the first Bauhaus Vorkurs and subsequent iterations by both Moholy‐
Nagy and Albers. Tools for self‐discovery are listed by Gropius as personal, sensory and
practical, therefore once again acknowledging the worth of Itten’s pedagogical demands
involving students head, heart and hands. Moholy‐Nagy’s and Albers’s course in materials and
matière is also referenced with investigations of surface structure and texture. Again in
Gropius’ Blueprint for an Architects Training Gropius asserted that during the preliminary
course: “He [the student] develops his own language of form in order to be able to give visible
expression to his ideas. After he has absorbed the elementary studies, he should then be ready
to attempt composition of his own inventions.”415

412
Founding Years, 68.
413
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 470. The limitation and isolation
experienced through elitism, subjectivity and individuality had been steadily challenged by Goethe (1749 ‐1832)
within the theories of visual perception in his 1810 treatise Zur Farbenlehre.
414
Walter Gropius, "Teaching the Arts of Design " College Art Journal 7, no. 3 (1948), 160. This article clearly
defines Gropius's ideas and vision for pedagogy within multiple disciplines. He discusses art, industrial design and
architecture as requiring the same motivations in the preliminary year.
415
Pearlman, "Blueprint of an Architect's Education," Twice A Year 2(1939), 53.
125

Although Itten was cast aside in 1923 with his detractors citing his preliminary course as too
subjective, his analytical and reductive simplifications to discover the essence within
compositions or materials remained relevant to the developing modernist theories of
unadorned functionality. Despite Itten’s early departure from the Weimar Bauhaus, many of
the principles within his version of the preliminary course continued to remain fundamental at
the Dessau Bauhaus and beyond, into Gropius’ proposals at Harvard. Moholy‐Nagy and Albers
also continued with many of Itten’s fundamental pedagogical goals of democracy, respect and
the removal of preconceived ideas that had so succinctly expressed the Bauhaus ethos and
distinguished it so unambiguously from the Beaux‐Art.

For all the claims that the clashes between Hudnut and Gropius were personal and not
theoretical I would assert that the issues both men fought over were so entrenched in their
personal ideologies that to separate each man’s professional methodology from his personal
beliefs would be impossible. It would also be misleading to discuss the issue of inclusion or
exclusion of their courses in isolation as the courses were totally interdependent on the use or
disuse of the opposing doctrine. How and at what stage in the student’s education Gropius
intended to teach a universal visual language is possibly in hindsight, irrelevant to the
argument. Simply put, Gropius wanted this commonality of expression and Hudnut did not.
This same belligerence on behalf of both men would also exist in their debates on the inclusion
of architectural history in the Harvard curriculum. In addition to the seemingly unambiguous
arguments between a preliminary course and history, the differing ideological definition of
collaboration was also fundamental to the debate. Notions of who was to collaborate with
whom and how collaboration would function vastly differed for both men. Gropius wanted a
universal approach and Hudnut wanted a selective collaboration. This created the basis for
what I have come to assert is one of the fundamental origins in the failure of architectural
pedagogy to meet Gropius’s lofty aims of placing architecture universally into the hearts and
minds of those who use it.

In short, I would emphasize my belief that the collaboration of an architecture that included
only the three selected disciplines of the GSD, as purported by Hudnut, encouraged an elitism
that Gropius had denounced some fifteen years earlier in his 1919 manifesto and had never
retreated from. The inclusion of a universal language within preliminary inter‐disciplinary
126

education positions the language in a primary role. Gropius and his Bauhaus disciples believed
this tactic allowed a more complete dissemination of an understanding and appreciation of
architecture, art and design to a much boarder demographic than Hudnut would have
encouraged. We already know from Albers’ efforts at Black Mountain and Yale and Moholy‐
Nagy’s work in Chicago that the Bauhaus disciples were wholly committed to a wide diffusion
of the appreciation of art, design and architecture. At the risk of turning Gropius’s manifesto
into a catch cry they never flinched from their commitment to the ideology of unified work.
Pearlman stated: “For Gropius the collective was everything and “individuum” had always
meant only bourgeois narrow‐mindedness and egotism.”416

In summation, Bauhaus pedagogy, whether taught in Germany or America, was committed to
democratic education and a collaboration of art, design and architecture that could resonate
with and for society. Within Gropius’ suggestion that all creative disciplines should culminate
within architecture and lead to the unification of the arts there is perhaps a parody or perhaps
a misunderstanding. Gropius called for sculpture, art and architecture to be embraced
together, rather than for art and sculpture to culminate within architecture. The translation of
Gropius’ proposition in the United States has lead, not to a democratic unification of the
disciplines but to an elitist subordination of all other creative disciplines to architecture and this
has allowed architecture to characterise itself as the definitive discipline and therefore
nullifying the relevance of the universal. Acting as an adversary to Gropius’ efforts, I will argue
that the adoption of the Moholy‐Nagy’s New Bauhaus into Mies van der Rohe’s (1886–1969)
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) following Moholy‐Nagy’s death, Mies’ removal of the inter‐
disciplinary aspect of architectural and design pedagogy, and eradication of the preliminary
course all together and the tyrannical nature of Mies’ pedagogy, coupled with the popularity of
his high‐rise commissions, inflicted a significant blow upon the understanding of the Bauhaus.
As Wick states, “for Mies van der Rohe, who was virtually given a free hand in the conception
of a new curriculum at the IIT the Bauhaus teaching methods associated with the name
Gropius were virtually irrelevant.”417

416
417
Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, 348. Wick also discusses that Mies and his staff disassociated themselves from
the preliminary course and the different orientations of Gropius and Mies in the field of architectural training were
recognised by those in that field immediately.
127

4.12 The Elite

Pearlman implies in a number of her writings that Hudnut was the single loudest voice and
obstacle to the inclusion of a universal visual language in American architectural education.
One could also, from both her writings, and those of Alofsin, conclude that Gropius was a
committed opponent to the inclusion of architectural history within American preliminary
design or architectural education. Gropius, supported by Albers, had abolished history in the
Bauhaus courses and he wanted to do the same at Harvard. In a memorandum circulated by
Gropius during his tenure at Harvard he argued: “as long as we flounder about in a limitless
welter of borrowed artistic expression, we shall not succeed in giving form and substance to
our own culture.”418 Conversely, Hudnut would ponder “How without history, shall we hope for
expression in architecture?”419 Yet quizzically, early in Gropius tenure and at the celebration of
Harvard’s three hundredth anniversary President Conant stated that “the study of the history
of knowledge could foster the spirit of essential unity and point to the fundamental unity of
feeling which binds together the professors in a twentieth century university.”420

Initially perhaps, President Conant had hoped history could unite the two feuding GSD
professors. This was not to be with the relevance of historic knowledge providing a principle
distinction within the debate. Gropius saw history as an elitist threat to innovation and
conversely Hudnut believed historical references enriched the experience of architecture.
Gropius had never viewed history as the enlightening force that Hudnut viewed it as. For
Gropius it was a clear cut situation. History, the past, “bore no relation to present creation in
design.”421 Gropius never succeeded in completely eliminating history from the Harvard
curriculum but he did manage to demote it to a much minimised status. The first concession to
Gropius’ argument came in 1939, two years into Gropius’ tenure. History, in the GSD was
reduced from three courses to one. Another concession came in 1946, during Gropius’ post‐
war hiatus; and the history course was further demoted to an elective. Hudnut’s somewhat

418
419
420
ibid., 130.
421
Gropius, "Blueprint of an Architect's Education," 53
128

indignant response to the post‐war diminishment of history was to suggest that “ten courses in
history would serve the students well.”422

Both Pearlman and Alofsin discuss the significance and the impact of the International Style on
Hudnut’s understandings of modernism and how this influenced his understanding of European
and by default Gropius’ modernism. Alofsin claimed that Hudnut saw the International Style as
a reductive functionalism that discarded cultural, spiritual and emotional contexts and symbols
from design. From this discourse I would argue then that this influence played a large part in
Hudnut’s assertion that history was required in pedagogy to enable architecture to retain
cultural significance. This was a fundamental driver in Hudnut’s desire to retain history within
American architectural pedagogy.423 Sybil Moholy‐Nagy certainly believed that the MoMA
exhibition in 1932 of the International Style did not convey to America the truth behind
European modernism and claimed in 1965 at the second Symposium for Modern Architecture
in Columbia that “neither the Dewey disciples or Hudnut, who played such a decisive part in
bringing Gropius to America, caught on to the fact that ‘Science and Technology’ was purely a
poetic term used by the European functionalists.”424 This particular misinterpretation of the
Bauhaus rhetoric brought to light by Mrs Moholy‐Nagy was one of the most poignant indicators
that the European Bauhaus ideology was misconstrued in the American context. Although in
principle Warren, Conant, Hudnut and Gropius all spoke of similar social and cultural agendas
Gropius differed from the other three Harvard academics in how to secure this. In earlier
chapters it became clear that Gropius’ call for unity within the Bauhaus was derived from both
national pride and the needs of all individuals. Conant, like his Harvard forefathers felt that a
sense of unity within the American society could be reinforced by the study of history in the
broadest sense. He stated: “In the study of our national culture we may find the principle that
is needed to unify our liberal arts tradition and to mould it to suit this modern age.”425 Here
Conant expresses the belief that looking back can offer the keys for moving forward. Hudnut,
who agreed with Conant’s tenet not only felt that cultural significance was lacking within the

422
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 472. Some critics have questioned
Hudnut's adimant defence of history at this late stage of Modernism in America by suggestion that Hudnut having
achieved modernity in the 1930's now rejected it and was returning to the Beaux‐Arts.
423
ibid., 471. In 1945 Hudnut coined the phrase 'post modern" He called for humanistic modern
architecture,history,spontaneity,contexturalism and individual concerns. Although it is not believed that his
former students, Venturi among them were aware of this term.
424
Moholy‐Nagy, "The Diaspora," 25.
425
Alofsin, The Struggle for Modernism. Architecture,Landscape Architecture and City Planning at Harvard,130.
129

current mode of modernism he also felt that it was devoid of a basic humanistic approach.
Hudnut had admired the groundwork laid by European modernism but saw their work only as
the first step.

The unity that Warren, Conant, Hudnut and Gropius all sought was not, in Gropius’ eyes, to be
found by seeking the clues in the past. Nor did Gropius see this unity as anything other than
completely universal. In order to integrate art and architecture into the modern life and to
allow these disciplines to be intelligible and useful to society a new objectively valid language
was required to remove it from the isolation that subjectivity and “taste and feeling” had
forced it into. In an effort to clarify the situation Gropius wrote: “For a long period no common
denominator has guided our expression in the visual arts. But today after a long chaotic period
of l’art pour l’art – so utterly unrelated to the collective of man – a new language of vision is
replacing individualistic terms like taste and feeling with terms of objective validity.”426 Gropius
believed a new language based on visual facts pertaining to “optical illusions, the relation or
solids and voids in space, light and shade, colour and scale‐ scientific facts instead of arbitrary
subjective interpretations of formulae long since stale,” held the key to this collective
understanding and utility not history. 427 The inclusion of what Gropius had described as stale
and outmoded formulae hindered his aim for architectural education to provide, within its
preliminary course, the building blocks of an architecture that epitomised the modern world. It
is interesting to note, perhaps even an anomaly, that Gropius was not completely averse to
learning about architectural history. He wrote in 1957:

A student in architecture will learn more from architectural history in an
advanced stage of his development. I have found that a very young student,
who hasn’t found his own ground to stand on, is sometimes rather
discouraged when he faces the old masters. If however, he understands
already some of the basic issues in architecture in the later years of his
training historical studies are much more fruitful for his own doings.428

426
Gropius, "Teaching the Arts of Design, " 161.
427
428
Walter Gropius, "History and the Student " Journal of Architectural Education 12, no. 2 (1957), 8 . Gropius
believed that in order to understand the methods of the old masters beyond technical approaces the student
should be able to recognise the spiritual goals of architecture.
130

Another incongruity that remains unclear still, to many historians, is why from a seemingly
sympathetic position at the outset of Harvard’s path to modernism in the early 1930’s did
Hudnut waver. One critic wrote of Hudnut’s seemingly nonsensical shift, “Once a strong
champion of architecture grown increasingly squeamish on the subject, Dean Hudnut now
speaks with fond rotundity of his favourite Georgian age and architecture.”429 Hudnut had
played a vital role in achieving modernity at Harvard. Had he achieved all this only to ultimately
reject it and return to the original Beaux‐Arts roots of paper architecture impregnated with
historical references and devoid of handwork, material experimentation or spatial
understanding? Pearlman asserts Hudnut had always posited that history was an important
component of his modernism. Hudnut believed that studying history afforded students an
“experience of architecture.”430 When Hudnut arrived at Harvard in 1936 his actions led his
colleagues and students to believe that he would never have described history as the
cornerstone of architectural education. Hudnut’s modernist crusade at Harvard had begun with
the admonishment of the Beaux‐Arts academic methods which were steeped in traditions and
dogmas. Having achieved this Hudnut’s next opponent, Walter Gropius, was much less passive
against these academic challenges. This battle was against Gropius and what Hudnut saw as an
anti‐historical modernism.431

To concur with Pearlman, I would assert that Hudnut’s belief that history held a place in
architectural pedagogy never changed. I would argue that Hudnut, through a more fluid
approach than his adversary to the relevance of history within pedagogy, was attempting to
wipe the slate clean in order to allow an American modernism to be expressed. Hudnut
recognised as President Warren had that America needed its own architectural references.
Hudnut also identified that the pre‐existing condition of the Beaux‐Art held no relevance to the
establishment of American traditions on American soil and began what he saw as the remedy.
President Warren’s 1895 manifesto and call to avoid “like imitation of bygone styles or
hopeless and vulgar extravagances”432 had never lost validity for Hudnut and would continue to
grow in relevance within American architect’s recognition of regionalism and postmodernism.

429
Pearlman, "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard Bauhaus," 472. These comments were written in
the 1947 July edition of Architectural Forum.
430
Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism, 210. Pearlman believes that Hudnut's personality and lack of political
and personal prowess failed to make his arguments as compelling as Gropius'.
431
ibid.
432
131

By the time Hudnut’s tenure was over he had come to believe that history, spontaneity,
contextualism and individual concerns were the way forward to achieve “genuine modern
form” that was “ more than merely relevant to our day.”433

The conflict between Gropius and Hudnut did not diminish with the either man’s retirement
from Harvard. Their fractious interactions had spawned a generation of thinkers, critics and
insurgents who would go forward, not with one voice, but certainly with verisimilitude. Colin
Rowe (1920‐1999), Kenneth Frampton (1930‐), Bruno Zevi, Harry Seidler (1923–2006), and
Philip Johnson would be some of the frontrunners to either move forward with Gropius’
Bauhaus tenets or use them as a counterpoint to their own work. Either way, the Bauhaus
would continue to be a constant protagonist within architectural and design theory and
education.

433
132

Epilogue

Each of the Bauhaus Vorkurs masters, Albers, Moholy‐Nagy and Gropius carved a path for the
Bauhaus in the United States which, as we have established drew upon each other’s strengths
and when weakened they wove together to become stronger. The Bauhaus ideals disseminated
in the Vorkurs, and future versions of it giving its students the grounding on which to become
some of architecture, art and designs most formative voices. This epilogue is a transitory
preface to the next generation of disciples and critics inspired by the teachings of Albers,
Moholy‐Nagy and Gropius in the United States.

The untimely death of Moholy‐Nagy significantly limited the dissemination of his legacy. Sibyl
Moholy‐Nagy was certainly the most visible and vocal protagonist in the continuation of
Moholy‐Nagy’s work. As European modernism came under scrutiny, Sibyl Moholy‐Nagy was
resolute in her determination to gain acknowledgement and a clearer understanding of both
her late husband’s and other European Modernists’ contributions to American modernism. She
criticised Hitchcock’s and Johnson’s 1932 The International Style calling it a, “mixture of truth
and opinion” and accused both men of having “slew the anti‐aesthetic, expedient, economic
and socially conscious tendencies “of the European Modernists with inadequate and ill‐
informed arguments.434 Although her husband had written two books, The New Vision (1932)
and Vision in Motion (1947), her own emergent career as a fiction writer was side‐lined as she
turned her skills to teaching architectural history and to the documentation of her husband’s
biography, the illuminating and acclaimed, Moholy‐Nagy: An Experiment in Totality. Following
Moholy‐Nagy’s departure from the Dessau Bauhaus, fellow Hungarian, artist, theorist and critic
Gygöry Kepes joined Moholy‐Nagy in Berlin, London and Chicago. Kepes had written his
influential book Language of Vision in 1944 and while teaching with Moholy‐Nagy in Chicago he
continued to develop his theories around the education of vision. Kepes theories of bringing a
modern aesthetic to the masses via contemporary technology and his methodologies for the
abstraction of visual forms to replace written language are a direct extension of Moholy‐Nagy’s
‘typophotos’ where an image could completely replace text. Kepes would go on to teach with

434
Moholy‐Nagy, "The Diaspora," 25. Miesian disciple Howard Dearstyne took offence to Mrs Moholy‐Nagy's
comments and the fact she felt qualified to have an opinion and called her in a letter written in 1965 to the the
Society of Architectural Historians a "an idle or viscious vagrant."
133

Russian‐ born Serge Chermayeff a great friend of Gropius’. Chermayeff, on Gropius’
recommendation replaced Moholy‐Nagy as Director of the Chicago Institute of Design in 1946.
Both Chermayeff and Kepes had endeavoured, to no avail, to merge, what was in its original
state, the New Bauhaus, into IIT under a Miesian dictatorship. Neither survived the tenuous
union. Both Kepes and Chermayeff continued to teach intersecting with Gropius at Harvard and
Albers at Yale. Kepes had asserted: “Visual communication is universal and international. It
knows no limits of tongue, vocabulary or grammar.”435 Interestingly, Chermayeff would go on
to collaborate with Christopher Alexander (1936‐ ) who, at no point acknowledges any Bauhaus
influence in his endeavours to rationalise through observation his fifteen categories of visual
distinction. Alexander proposed a new platform from which architecture could gain new
content and meaning. This new truth, as Alexander refers to it, is based in observation.436
Although not part of this thesis I would argue Alexander too, owes a debt to Ruskin, Itten,
Albers and Moholy‐Nagy.
Although interrupted, Moholy‐Nagy’s work was highly influential towards the use of a universal
visual language and the amalgamation of interdisciplinary works. And although Moholy‐Nagy’s
own efforts were to be cut short his authority can be seen clearly in Breuer’s works, who was
his Bauhaus student and later educational colleague. Breuer, as we have established would also
go on to enlighten the next generation not only within his teachings infused into Gropius’
Harvard Graduate School of Design programme, but also and just as importantly, by example in
his and his disciples many acclaimed buildings, furniture and spatial compositions. Gropius,
who struggled in such an enduring way to introduce the preliminary, inter‐disciplinary and
universal tenets into the elitist environs of the GSD at Harvard University, would have to
contend with his teachings being, for the most part, confined to the Masters programme. This
in itself, as we have established frustrated Gropius as he believed the foundation year to be
pivotal in the understanding of the formative principles. The elitist notions of an educated
understanding of architecture and the position of architecture in society were not completely
understood within the Masters programme.

435
Gygory Kepes, Arts of the Environment (New York: G.Braziller, 1972).
436
Christopher W J Alexander, The Process of Creating Life. An essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the
Universe. Book Two, The Centre of Environmental Structure (California: Berklely, 2002).
134

Figure 32: Gropius with GSD masters students 1946

The misunderstandings, misrepresentations and some of the most hostile critiques of European
Modernism would emerge from under Gropius’ own wings. Forming some of the graduate
contingent of architectural voices from Gropius’ ‘Harvard‐Bauhaus’ were I.M.Pei (1917‐ ), John
Hejduk (1929–2000), Seidler, Johnson, Zevi and Rowe. I would suggest these graduates had also
taken from Gropius’ programme the importance of a commitment to an ideology. Gropius had,
by example, fought for what he believed even when he faced certain condemnation, if not
defeat. He had quite strategically, attempted to surround himself and his students with some of
what he considered the finest contributors to the education of creativity and innovation in a
changing world.

Also, deserving of some contemplation is the influence that Albers had on Gropius’ GSD
scholars. Albers had never accepted or been offered, depending upon on whose recollections
you rely, a position at Harvard. In retrospect, I would suggest that perhaps Hudnut, an astute,
yet underwhelming and insecure character, could see quite clearly the impact and validity of
Albers’ pedagogy. It was widely acknowledged that Albers was a formidable and infectious
instructor and to position both Gropius and Albers under Hudnut’s tenuous watch would most
likely have rendered Hudnut and his pedagogical tenets obsolete years before his retirement.
Albers as both a teacher and a painter would influence both art and architecture beyond the
expectations of his chosen discipline, never experiencing struggles to the same degree as faced
by Gropius or Moholy‐Nagy. Whether his immediate choice at Black Mountain to concentrate
135

on painting suited the American educational climate better or whether his personal convictions
allowed him the indulgence of subjectivity, it cannot be denied that Albers as a painter and in
his teachings as a painter enabled a collaboration between art and architecture that had not
been achieved by any of his Bauhaus colleagues in the United States. He would continue these
collaborations and his methodology would continue to serve as inspiration until his final days.
His influence on architectural forms through his teachings at Black Mountain and Yale
University continued to evoke inquiry and respect. Celebrated art historian and critic Will
Grohmann (1887‐1968) stated in a tribute to Albers: “Whoever succeeded in his work with
Albers reached at least one of the possible goals, if not in the fine arts then another in industrial
design, architecture or the crafts. The architects who owe him enlightenment are as many as
the painters and sculptors.”437

After all Gropius’ fortitude and determination it is almost a disappointment that his ideals of a
pedagogy that offered preliminary interdisciplinary education and universal understanding
would not be acknowledged as the most prolific manifestation in the legacy of the Bauhaus in
the United States. I will assert that it was Albers who was the most successful in the distribution
of the Bauhaus doctrines. This may be because it contained none of the political, economic or
social stigma that Moholy‐Nagy’s or Gropius’ European Modernism was associated with or
perhaps Albers was just the more determined and culturally savvy instructor. Professor of Art at
the Pratt Institute, Eva Díaz noted that Albers: “avoided explicitly politicized or revolutionary
rhetoric. He used a language of careful change, reform and improvement.”438 But whatever the
reason that made Albers’ theories more palatable to artistic or architectural pedagogy, the next
iteration of teachings inspired by the Bauhaus within American architecture would be as
reluctant to openly credit Gropius, Moholy‐Nagy or Albers in its establishment as the these
pedagogues had been to acknowledge Itten. But importantly, the next shift would include both
graduates of Gropius GSD programme and a number of Albers students and disciples.

In 1951 Californian architect Harwell Hamilton Harris (1903–1990) brought about a new
movement in architectural pedagogy when he began his appointment as Dean of Architecture
at the University of Texas, School of Architecture in Austin, Texas. Harris tailored an

437
Will Gronhmann, "A Tribute to Josef Albers on his Seventieth Birthday," Yale Art GAllery Bulletin 24, no. 2
(1958), 27.
438
Eva Diaz, "The Ethics of Perception: Josef Albers in the United States," The Art Bulletin 90, no. 2 (2008),281.
136

architectural faculty of individuals “to teach in any way they found productive” and “be able to
ignite sparks of creative energy,” that was to become known as The Texas Rangers.439
Curiously, although not a supporter of European modernism, describing the work done by both
Gropius and Breuer in particular as Bauhaus clichés, Harris was quietly impressed by the
approach to design he saw as championed by Albers.440 Art historian and author Lisa Germany
describes Harris as a gentle and modest man who never lacked confidence. She asserts that
although not a follower of Gropius’ doctrines, “Harris seemed never to have accepted the
notion that Modern Architecture had anything to do with the creation of the International
Style. Harris’ work existed outside a codified style. It was an attitude toward design, rather than
an adherence to a creed that made Harris a Modern.” 441 Furthermore Germany asserts: “His
[Harris’] work was understood and appreciated and that says something not only about the
strength of his Modern attitude and his ability to communicate it but something too about the
rich diversity and complexity of the movement as it took shape in this country.”442 By 1951,
Bauhaus pedagogy had been prevalent in American art and architectural education for close to
twenty years. Therefore I would conclude that Harris’ predisposition to method not result, his
appreciation that the notion of the International Style as a Bauhaus Style was a
misinterpretation of Bauhaus ideology and his concerns for architecture that could be
understood universally aligned him more closely to the Bauhaus tenets than he was possibly
comfortable with.

I have established that certain pedagogical methods attributed to the Bauhaus existed in
America prior to the arrival of any Bauhaüsler. But there was no establishment of any
environmental, communal or adjustments in teaching or learning a new visual perception in the
United States before any of the Bauhaus émigrés arrived. I have also established American
Modernism, as taught by Hudnut, did not support a universal visual language that Germany
purports as intrinsic to Harris’ work. In a letter to a colleague in 1986 Harris stated: “My ideas
in teaching grew out of my experiences in learning. I consider design to be discovery. I look for
the natural and the simple.”443 Although, these comments smack of the theories espoused by

439
Lisa Germany, Harwell Hamilton Harris (Texas: University of Texas Press, 1991), 144.
440
ibid.
441
ibid., 1.
442
ibid., 2.Harris was adamant that modernism had been evolving in America well before the Buahaus architects
arrive
443
ibid., 142.
137

Froebel, Pestalozzi and Itten and most strikingly of Albers, Harris continued to be openly
unimpressed by the Bauhaus émigrés and referred to them as “salesmen who had to portray a
new product to sell and take credit for it.”444 But, having met Albers while visiting Yale Harris,
quizzically Harris consulted Albers when seeking to employ an artist for the Texas faculty.
Perhaps believing the Bauhaus doctrines belonged to that of an artist and not Gropius the
architect, made the pill easier to swallow.

The infusion of a Bauhaus legacy into the Texas Rangers did not stop there. Harris employed
Robert Slutsky (1930–2005) and Irwin Rubin (1930–2006) both Albers disciples, Hejduk from
Gropius’ GSD Masters programme and two British architects Rowe and Bernard Hoesli (1923–
1984).445
Figure 33: Harwell Hamilton Harris’ faculty, from left to right: Hugh McMath, Lee Hirsche,
Joseph Buffler, Goldwin Goldsmith, Hugo Leipziger‐Pearce, John Hejduk, Harwell Hamilton‐
Harris, Robert Slutzky, Colin Rowe, Bernard Hoesli, Martin Kermacy, Kenneth Nuhn, and Robert
White

There is no debate that the American modernists were rather irritated by the European
Modernists, basically Germans. The blame for the attribution of Modernism in America to
Europeans (and not Americans) cannot be placed at the feet of Gropius and his fellow Bauhaus
émigrés. Germany states that Russell‐Hitchcock and Johnson had in their book International
Style heralded the Europeans as having saved American architecture from languishing in
eclecticism. She states that: “to many architects, critics and historians who had been observing
the years preceding the Bauhaus architects’ arrival, the claim was greatly overstated and even
erroneous.” 446 None the less Harris’ reliance on Albers’ teachings of the perception of space,

444
ibid., 104.
445
ibid., 144. The influence of Harris partner Richard Neutra is not discussed in this paper.But Neutra had met
Gropius at the CIAM III 1930 conference and following this Neutra taught at the Bauhaus as a guest for a month.
446
ibid., 102.
138

even if not acknowledged by Harris, it was most certainly acknowledged by his Rangers.
Varnelis explains that: “For the young Texas faculty, the solution to architectural education’s
crisis was to refocus on its real essence: a rigorous understanding of form. The development of
a new visual language in architecture would be based on a translation of Moholy‐Nagy, Albers
and Kepes’ work in three dimensions.”447 Rowe and Slutsky would go on to lay the foundations
for this translation in their 1964 essay “Transparency: Literal and phenomenal.” It was the
ambiguity of space discovered in Albers work and teachings that the Texas Rangers wished to
explore. The Rangers encouraged Moholy‐Nagy’s techniques of vision in motion. Students
would draw continuously in order to achieve Ruskin’s innocent eye, removing their
preconceptions as demanded by Itten and learn to see space a new. In Alex Caragonne’s 1995
book The Texas Rangers: Notes from an Architectural Underground, he describes an epiphany,
“a mysterious change of vision,” that took place for the student.448 “Slowly, imperceptibly, our
vision changed. We began to see the world differently. New relationships began to emerge. The
spaces in between began to assert themselves, pressing forward into our consciousness. Then
we were ready to begin the study of architecture.”449
As we witness a dramatic transformation in technology and digitization, similar to that which
formed the backdrop to the development of a universal visual language by the Bauhaus, it is
again time to reconsider the interdisciplinary articulation of aesthetic education. Thus, the
importance of a universal visual language, predicated upon notions of the ‘innocent eye’ and
devoid of academic preconceptions has become critical once again. Such an approach offers
the architect or designer new agency amidst the interdisciplinary teams that characterize the
art of making and building today. Gropius’ desire for “the development of a broadly based
artistic culture devoid of the idiosyncrasies of the artistic elite,” is vital once again as
architecture and design increasingly overlap and the boundaries between disciplines are
eroded.450

447
448
Alexander Caragonne, The Texas Rangers. Notes from an Architectural Underground (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1995), 162.
449
ibid., 162‐63.
450
Founding Year,68.
139

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Image Credits (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007), 81

Fig.1. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., Fig.18. Irving Sadler, "The School of Art at Yale: The
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft Collective Reminiscences of the Twenty Distinguished
mbH, 1999), 183 Alumni.," Art Journal 42, no.1 (1982): 15

Fig.2. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., Fig.19. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds.,
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft
mbH, 1999), 422 mbH, 1999), 67

Fig.3. Rainer K Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, trans. Fig.20. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds.,
Stephen Mason and Simon Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft
Lèbe (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000, 92. mbH, 1999), 67

Fig.4. Rainer K Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, trans. Fig.21. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds.,
Stephen Mason and Simon Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft
Lèbe (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000), 68. mbH, 1999), 68

Fig.5. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., Fig.22. Alain Findeli and Charlotte Benton, "Design
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft Education and Industry: The Laborious Beginnings of
mbH, 1999), 393 the Institute of Design in Chicago in 1944," Journal of
Design History 4, no.2
Fig.6. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., (1991): 105
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft
mbH, 1999), 404 Fig.23. Judith Paine, "Sybil Moholy-Nagy: A Complete
Life." Archives of American Art 15, no. 4 (1975): 13
Fig.7. Courtesy of the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin
Fig.8. Rainer K Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, trans. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007), 56
Stephen Mason and Simon Lèbe (Ostfildern-Ruit:
Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000).131 Fig.25. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007), 47
Fig.9. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds.,
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft Fig.26. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism
mbH, 1999), 325 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007), 12

mbH, 1999), 370 mbH, 1999), 623

Fig.11. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., Fig.28. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007).111
mbH, 1999), 336

Fig.12. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., Fig.29. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007).183
mbH, 1999), 432
Fig.13. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007),
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft 177
mbH, 1999), 588
Fig.14. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007),
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft 221
mbH, 1999), 374
Fig.15. Eva Diaz, "The Ethics of Perception: Josef (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007).
Albers in the United States." The Art Bulletin 90, no. 2 107
(2008): 261
Fig.33. Lisa Germany, Harwell Hamilton Harris (Texas:
Fig.16. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., University of Texas Press1991), 144.
mbH, 1999), 62

145

Wick, Rainer K. Teaching at the Bauhaus. Translated by Stephen Mason and Simon Lèbe. Ostfildern‐
Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000.

146

Image Credits

Fig.1. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, eds., Fig.15. Eva Diaz, "The Ethics of Perception: Josef
Bauhaus (Cologne: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft Albers in the United States." The Art Bulletin 90, no. 2
mbH, 1999), 183 (2008): 261
mbH, 1999), 422 mbH, 1999), 62
Fig.3. Rainer K Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, trans. Fig.17. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism
Stephen Mason and Simon (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007), 81
Lèbe (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000), 92
Fig.18. Irving Sadler, "The School of Art at Yale: The
Fig.4. Rainer K Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, trans. Collective Reminiscences of the Twenty Distinguished
Stephen Mason and Simon Alumni.," Art Journal 42, no.1 (1982): 15
Lèbe (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000), 68

mbH, 1999), 67
mbH, 1999), 393
mbH, 1999), 67
mbH, 1999), 404
Fig.7. Courtesy of the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin
mbH, 1999), 68
Fig.8. Rainer K Wick, Teaching at the Bauhaus, trans.
Fig.22. Alain Findeli and Charlotte Benton, "Design
Stephen Mason and Simon
Education and Industry: The Laborious Beginnings of
Lèbe (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000). 131
the Institute of Design in Chicago in 1944," Journal of
Design History 4, no.2
(1991): 105
Fig.23. Judith Paine, "Sybil Moholy-Nagy: A Complete
mbH, 1999), 325
Life." Archives of American Art 15, no. 4 (1975): 13
mbH, 1999), 370
mbH, 1999), 336
mbH, 1999), 432
mbH, 1999), 623
mbH, 1999), 588
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007).111
mbH, 1999), 374

Image Credits


(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007).183

(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007),
177

(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007),
221

(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2007).
107
Fig.33. Lisa Germany, Harwell Hamilton Harris (Texas:

University of Texas Press1991), 144.

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WEAVING WORDS AND DRAWING LINES:

THE BAUHAUS MASTERS ENDEAVOURS TO ESTABLISH A

submitted to Victoria University Wellington

in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Masters of Architecture (by thesis)

Victoria University Wellington

Fig.29. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism

Fig.30. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism

Fig.31. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism

Fig.32. Jill Pearlman, Inventing American Modernism

Fig.33. Lisa Germany, Harwell Hamilton Harris (Texas:

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