Bauhaus Archive — Museum Of Design |

Josef Pohl, wardrobe on wheels, 1930. Berlin/Photostudio Bartsch

Marianne Brandt, tea-extract pot, 1924

Under the spotlight

Design & architecture

Bauhaus force

A look at a cultural movement that's had a lasting effect on urban life

To suss out what makes cities tick, a schooling in the immensely influential Bauhaus movement is advised. At the beginning of the last century its lofty ideals — which strove to remove the line between craft and fine art — were considered world shattering and ruffled Nazi feathers. But now every corduroy-clad arts lecturer embraces those same antiestablishment principles.

The German school of art and design was intended to "reunify all the practical artistic disciplines — sculpture, painting, the applied arts and crafts," according to its founding director, the architect Walter Gropius. It achieved that aim — and a damn sight more. Its influence can be spotted everywhere. Just look at Marcel Breuer's strangely familiar tubular steel armchair (below). It dates from1931 and yet it could've been conceived yesterday.

New York's Museum Of Modern Art is currently running a show focusing on its designs. There's also a permanent exhibition at the Bauhaus Archive — Museum Of Design in Berlin, which includes architecture, furniture, ceramics and photography from the school, alongside works by its leading exponents, such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

The next time you're passing through Germany, go visit to see just how far the Bauhaus' beliefs have spread

Info

Bauhaus 1919 - 1933:
Workshops For Modernity

Until 25 January, 2010 —
The Museum Of Modern Art,
New York

Bauhaus Archive — Museum Of Design, Klingelhöferstraße 14,
D — 10785 Berlin, Germany

Telephone +49 (0) 30 - 25 40 02 0

Website
Bauhaus Archive —
Museum Of Design