The key education principles of the Bauhaus were to combine art and technology into a new unity, design based on elemental forms, and use forms that capture the Zeitgeist or the spirit of the times. The Bauhaus School was structured to encourage the unlearning of what was considered European “academic” traditions in order to focus on a “pure type” (Curtis 185). Every student would pass through the foundational courses. Their design principles focused on abstraction and geometry. The Bauhaus, pre-World War 1, originally, was focused on the idea of primitivism in an expressionist sense, following an interest in African art (186). The Sommerfield House, commissioned in 1920, was far from the idea of mass production and the machine-age that it later would become. Through the instruction of the first teacher at the Bauhaus, Johannes Itten, there was a focus on the connection between “certain visual configurations and certain states of mind” (186).
However, following the war, the Bauhaus’ idea of Zeitgeist, dictated by Gropius, became more and more focused on the basic forms. There seems to be a shared visual grammar from 1923 onwards within the Bauhaus, that being the use of these basic forms and abstracting them. These forms were used in a way that would, as stated by Gropius, display “the machine to be our modern medium of design” (193). This emphasis on the machine resulted in students learning about how to design for mass production and the values of the machine-age. Although there was this new emphasis, Gropius still held the pre-war idea that “the brutality of mere utilitarian design and the kitsch of consumerism” must be avoided and there should be a middle ground (193). This, to Gropius, meant creating “…a clear, organic architecture whose inner logic will be radiant and naked, unencumbered by living facings and trickery” (194). These ideas were unified in Bauhaus at Dessau, built in 1926. It was built quickly with a factory-like aesthetic. The building was made of reinforced concrete. It was clearly visible that the concrete held the workshop wing, including the use of concrete piers and floors. There were indeed no trickeries in the workshop wing where the it featured a glass curtain wall in order to allow the viewer to understand how the building was put together. A glass curtain wall hung in front of the vertical columns so that the concrete support sits back from the glass surface. This means that if one were to take the glass off, nothing would happen because it did not have any structural value.
Furthermore, in the first landing, there are chains that open all the windows, like a factory. Throughout the Bauhaus, there was big factory windows that really emphasized its connection to the ideals of industry, efficiency, and the connection to industry. In a way, the windows also tell a lot about the space one was in within the Bauhaus. There were strict windows for the classrooms and wide windows for the workshops. Beyond architecture, the Bauhaus created items that also exhibited its ideals. One example is the lighting. There were exterior lights which were perfect spheres held by prongs. This was simplistic to make and goes back to the idea of utilizing the basic forms to create a new type of design that emphasized an absence of ornamentation, simplicity, and the ideas of the machine. However, lights such as these, intended to also rely on the idea of controlled repetition and carefully chosen components was prone to being read the by the public as lifeless and bland (197).
Although I have spent much of this essay talking about the relationship between the Bauhaus and factory, the Bauhaus was not against craftsmanship. They wanted to elevate craftsmanship and get the industry on board with it. They also liked simplicity but wanted hand-made components. One example of this would be Tea and Coffee Services, designed by Marianne Brandt in 1924. The teapots could be mass produced and functional, but they were not cheap. The idea of “fashion” was associated with the design and it was not always easy to manufacture. The weird shapes of the tea set, in my opinion, are obviously not there for functionality. They are also not there to be purely for mass production. I think it goes back to the idea that the kitsch of consumerism and brutality of utilitarian design have to be moderated. The forms of the tea set might, for some people, resemble something that comes out of a factory but it is important to note that this resemblance is in fact a style. It involves the craft of knowing exactly what “pure” forms result from a machine, and utilizing that to create something new, something that, in this case, is actually harder for the machine to make.
Works Cited
Curtis, William J.R. Modern Architecture since 1900. Phaidon, 2013