A look at Bauhaus, a cultural movement that’s had a lasting effect on modern urban life
D – 10785 Berlin, Germany
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Bauhaus Archive – Museum Of Design
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.
Its influence can be spotted everywhere
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 Wassily chair (above). It dates from 1931 and yet it could’ve been conceived yesterday.
There’s 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.