SW 8

ALISHA BIJU | SAJI ANIETA | SWETHA MARIA | SRILALITHA RAVURI

INTRODUCTION
The first prominent artist who expressly used the term “less is
more” was modern architect Mies van der Rohe. In 1919,
Walter Gropius, who had previously worked for Peter Behrens
with Mies van der Rohe, founded a progressive art school
Bauhaus in Germany. The school originally had three aims:

1.To abolish the “arrogant” distinction between artist and

craftsperson by recognizing the knowledge and skills common
to both

2. To mobilize all arts and crafts towards the creation of total

design environments

3. To foster links between the school and local manufacturers.

Mies van der Rohe

WALTER GROPIUS
Walter Gropius one of the pioneers of modern
architecture, as well as the founder of the
Bauhaus, a revolutionary art school in Germany.
Born in 1883, Gropius was taught by his father
who is an architect himself. Like many
modernists of the period, Gropius was
interested in the mechanization of work and the
utilitarianism of newly developed factories.
His Principles were:
1. Use of simple geometry like
rectangles
2. Use of modern materials such as
RCC, steel and glass
3. Smooth surfaces
4. Use of primary colours
5. Linear and horizontal elements
6. Having a grid system

MetLife Building, New York

EARLY WORKS OF GROPIUS
1. Fagus Factory, 1911
The main highlight of this structure is the simplicity
and confidence in the architecture. The structure
was actually a combination of brick columns with
steel beams , concrete floor slabs and stairway.
2. Sommerfeld House, 1921

Sommerfeld House, built by Walter Gropius in

collaboration with Adolf Meyer, is the first major
joint project of the Bauhaus. The exterior and
interior decoration is inextricably linked to the
building, showing the recovery of post-war
German expressionist forms, which became the
foundation of the Bauhaus Gropius for Wimar.
The house built on a stone base, was built with
wooden blocks to represent thereby the
customer’s business.
THE BAUHAUS
"Art and the people must form an entity. Art shall no longer be a
luxury of the few but should be enjoyed and experienced by the
broad masses. The aim is an alliance of the arts under the wing of
great architecture."
Founded in 1919, The Bauhaus had a vision to make art
accessible to the masses, not just a luxury of the few.

In spite of its short 14-year existence, it made a huge

impact due to its fundamental philosophy of the
integration of the arts with crafts, as well as architecture
thereafter.

Baby Cradle by Peter Keler Nesting Tables by Josef Albers

The school existed in three German cities—
● Weimar, from 1919 to 1925
● Dessau, from 1925 to 1932
● Berlin, from 1932 to 1933
under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928; Hannes Meyer from
1928 to 1930; and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 until 1933.
Diagram of the curriculum of
the Bauhaus
Weimar
Bauhaus Universitat Weimar
 Dessau
Staatliches Bauhaus
 Bauhaus - Archive

Berlin

Round haus

The Weiss Stadt

Tempelhof Airport
In this way, art would also come within reach of the
‘common man’ and spread across such fields which
contributed immensely to its widespread reputation
as it filtered through textiles, products, visual arts,
sculpture, furniture, theatre and architecture.

Door Knob by Walter Gropius Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich
The desk lamp and chair illustrated
here are so familiar and so simple
that they don’t seem to have
required a designer, but they were
as radical in their time as they are
commonplace now, and their
apparent simplicity was the result of
a thoughtful and meticulous design
education and design process that
remains a model today.

Marianne Brandt, Kandem Bedside Marcel Breuer, Chair (model

Table Lamp, 1928, B33), 1927-28
 Combining beautiful with useful. In Gropius’ vision, the
Bauhaus school would produce a new generation of architects
and designers, producing both functional and elegant homes
and utensils. These creations would become available to
everyone.
 Tea infuser by Marianne Brandt

MT8 Lamp by William Wagenfeld and Carl Jakob Jucker

Bauhaus homeware
Bauhaus Chess Set by Josef Hartwig
Munich-born artist Josef Hartwig designed a 32-piece
chess set for the Bauhaus between 1923 and 1924
using minimal lines, circles and squares.
Functionality Dictates Form
The basic rule of the Bauhaus Manifesto is
that functionality gets to dictate the form. It is
all about products being functional and
unique. Making things durable and
economical while covering its essential
functions is also very valuable.

Smart use of Space, Materials,

and Money
That brings us to the next very important
issue of the Bauhaus Manifesto – economic
way of thinking. They wanted to achieve
was a controlled finance, productive
time-consuming projects, precise material
use, and a spare space. It is all about the
smart use of resources, with a zero-waste
ideal in mind.
All New, All the Time
Bauhaus is all about new techniques, new
materials, new ways of construction, new
attitude – all the time. It emphasizes going
forward, strong progress, and constant
evolution of architects, designers, and
artists, as well as their work.

Bauhaus also influenced the development

of graphic design in the early 1920s. Before
that, typography used to be rather
overwhelming and fulfilled with imagery.
Simplicity and Effectiveness
There is no need for additional (unnecessary) ornamenting and
making things more and more ‘beautiful’. It is all about so-called
organic design, revealing the nature of objects. Bauhaus celebrates
pure forms, clean design, and functionality. Or, should we say –
multi-functionality. Bauhaus movement was determined to clear the
form, while still keeping the artistic side to it, only far more simple
than it used to be.

The Weisse Stadt in Berlin

How did History Unfold for the Movement?
● After five years, further work in Weimar became impossible, so the Bauhaus was up to finding a new place for
development.
● Frankfurt was one of the options, but the final choice for Bauhaus Masters was Dessau, an industrial city in central
Germany, partly because there was an opportunity for a new school building over there.
● Everything went on greatly for the movement from just until 1932 when this school of design was closed under the
pressure from National Socialists.
● Later on, in 1987, it merged with two educational institutes to form the Bauhaus Dessau, and in 1994, it became the
Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.
● In 1996, it was declared a World Cultural Heritage Site, and the complete restoration followed, which ended in
2006.
● Today, the Bauhaus is living its second youth as a vital place for experimental design, research, and education,
working on contemporary urban issues, truly similar to the Bauhaus legacy.
 Bauhaus was grounded in the idea of creating a Gesamtkunstwerk ("comprehensive artwork") in which
all the arts would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus style later became one of the most
influential currents in modern design, modernist architecture and art, design, and architectural education.

The Bauhaus building in Dessau was designed Typography by Herbert Bayer above the
by Walter Gropius. It was the longest serving of entrance to the workshop block of the Bauhaus
the three Bauhaus locations Dessau
BAUHAUS BUILDING IN DESSAU
Architect : Walter Gropius
Year : 1925 - 1926
Location : Dessau, Germany
BAUHAUS BUILDING
With the move from Weimar to Dessau, the Bauhaus
had the opportunity to create a building which would
provide the optimal working conditions to develop its
own design, which was taken forward by their very own
Walter Gropius.
CONCEPT
The building is distributed over three main wings, interconnected by a bridge element,
whose X-shaped form breaks with the concept of symmetry and gives its functional
efficacy precedent over its aesthetic coherence.
FACADES
The façades testify that the Bauhaus is very much a typical
building of modernity. Each façade corresponds to the
requirements of the activity which takes place inside.
The stairs were designed in three parts:
the part in the middle is the widest and
leads to the upper floors, the narrower
laterals descend the levels.
 POST BAUHAUS
Though Hitler forced the school to
shutdown in 1933, the Bauhaus didn’t
really cease to exist with its demise in
Germany. Most of the school’s faculty
emigrated to the US. They brought with
them things such as lightwighted,
welded steel furniture and some of the
creative incarnations of reinforced
concrete.

In 1937, the New Bauhaus was

founded in Chicago by Lászlo
Moholy-Nagy. Walter Gropius and
above all Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
became the most important and
influential architects in the USA
The New Bauhaus in Chicago
 The post-war period also
initially made it possible to
build on the Bauhaus
concepts in the late German
Democratic Republic(GDR)
Era. The Bauhaus once
again became an important Walter Funkat
Marianne Brandt point of reference in the
late-1960s. Among others,
the Bauhaus members Peter
Keler, Marianne Brandt,
Richard Paulick, Hajo Rose
and Walter Funkat lived and
worked in the GDR.

Richard Paulick
Peter Keller
THANK YOU