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СКАЧАТЬ and art critic Herwarth Walden (1878–1941). These included the painters Paul Klee (1879–1940) and Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), who were later appointed Masters at the Bauhaus. These painters’ specialities lay in the great sensitivity and vividness with which they reacted to the changing society and profound transformation of the scientific view of the world. Design methods considered appropriate responses to the contradictions of the time usually involved the rejection of the outdated concept of faultless rendering as well as a focus on abstraction and expression, cubism and futurism. An in-depth analysis of the artistic means of design as well as an exploration of their innate laws assisted in the search for a new intellectuality by means of cognitive progress on the basis of an enlightened rationality.

      Politically, the Bauhaus developed after and in reaction to the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, the 1918 November Revolution in Germany and the end of World War I. The situation after the war and the radical political changes were general premises for the intended renewal of art and architecture. It is evident from Gropius’s programmatic texts that the Bauhaus founder was clearly aware of this connection and that he himself, as many of his contemporaries and later comrades-in-arms, wanted to make a contribution to the creation of a new, democratic society. For Gropius, World War I was more than just a lost war. For him, his world had ended and in 1918, he was looking for radical solutions to the problems of his time. In the end, he was credited with making an attempt in his thinking to unify some of the most important cultural influences, impulses and trends of the past and present and to develop an image of the new world in synthesis. The Bauhaus was solidly anchored to this concept.

      The Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar (1919 to 1925)

      Probably no other school in Germany was so closely connected to the cultural, political and socio-economic developments of the Weimer Republic as the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus foundation date of 1st April 1919 coincided with the negotiations of the constitutional assembly in the Weimar Hoftheater, which adopted the so-called Weimar Constitution on July 31st. Only a few weeks after Hitler’s seizure of power, on 30th January 1933, police searched the Bauhaus for Communist materials and closed it down, before the Academy was dissolved on 19th July 1933 in a final act of freedom of decision.

      In between lay two site changes, in 1925 to Dessau and in 1932 to Berlin, as well as two changes of directorship, in 1928 to Hannes Meyer and in 1930 to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, which were all politically motivated. Local parliaments always played a part in the development of the Bauhaus, the Thuringian Landtag in Weimar until 1925 and the Dessau City Council until 1932, and even longer with political activities and legal proceedings.

      As early as March 1920, extremist right-wing military personnel and politicians led by Wolfgang Kapp (1858–1922) and Walther Freiherr von Lüttwitz (1859–1942) tried to destroy the young republic with a military coup (Kapp Putsch). This coup d’état was put down by a general strike during which numerous demonstrators were shot by the rebels. For those killed in Weimar, Gropius created the Memorial for the March Victims in the Main Weimar Cemetery in 1922, and in that same year he also designed a memorial plaque on the German National Theatre for the Weimar Constitution. The memorial for the murdered Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919) and Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), created by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and commissioned by the KPD (Communist Party of Germany), was inaugurated in Berlin’s Friedrichsfelde Cemetery in 1926. The poverty of the post-war years, which was dramatically increased by the reparations ordered by the Treaty of Versailles, led to the economic collapse of 1923. While the exchange rate for the Dollar to the Mark was still at 1:8 in January 1919, the figure fell to 1:50 at the beginning of 1920, to 1:200 in 1922, to 1:7,000 at the beginning of 1923, and until the currency stabilisation at the end of 1923, it was 1:4.2 billion! The period of economic upswing and relative stability – ”the Golden 20s” – in Germany lasted from 1924 to 1929, when “Black Friday” at the New York Stock Exchange started a worldwide economic crisis on 25th October 1929.

      The Bauhaus became the focal point of the avant-garde in education, design and architecture: in 1923 with the large Weimar Bauhaus Exhibition and Attached Exposition of International Architecture, in 1926 with the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, in 1929/1930 with the Travelling Bauhaus Exhibition, and in 1930 with the German section at the Exposition de la Société des Artistes Décorateurs, led by Walter Gropius in Paris.

      Discussions and conflicts within the Bauhaus in Weimar and the programmatic and structural changes often dramatically mirrored these connections: the Groß Case in 1919, the secession of former Art Academy professors and the refoundation of the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts in 1920/1921, Theo van Duisburg’s De Stijl course and the Constructivist Congress in Weimar, the Gropius-Itten conflict and the foundation of a Bauhaus development co-operative in 1922, a Bauhaus limited company and the Society of Friends of the Bauhaus in 1924 up to the politically forced change of site to Dessau on 1st April 1925.

      Building of the former Grand-Ducal Saxon Academy of Fine Art in Weimar, architect: Henry van de Velde, 1904/11 (UNESCO World Heritage Site)

      Building of the former Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar, architect: Henry van de Velde, 1905/06 (UNESCO World Heritage Site)

      Between Vision and Reality: The 1919 to 192 °Construction Phase

      After Belgian artist Henry van de Velde had submitted his petition for release from his post as Director of the Großherzogliche Kunstgewerbeschule (Grand-Ducal School of Arts and Crafts) to the Weimar Grand Duke on 25th July 1914, just a few days after the outbreak of World War I, his contract finished on 1st October 1915, the date that the school closed. As his successors, Van de Velde recommended to the Grand-Ducal Saxon State Ministry the German architect August Endell (1871–1925) and Walter Gropius, as well as the Swiss sculptor Hermann Obrist (1863–1927). Since October 1915, a lively correspondence had developed between Fritz Mackensen (1866–1953), the painter and director of the Großherzoglich Sächsische Hochschule (Grand-Ducal Saxon Academy of Fine Arts) in Weimar, and Walter Gropius regarding the attachment of an architecture and visual arts department, of which Gropius was to be the head. He was staying in Weimar in December and was granted an audience with the Grand Duke to discuss the appointment. On 25th January 1916, Gropius, at the request of the Weimar State Ministry, submitted his Suggestions for the Founding of an Educational Establishment as an Artistic Advice Centre for Industry, Trade and Crafts.[1] One year later, the professorial staff of the Academy of Fine Arts submitted a list of reform suggestions to the State Ministry, particularly asking that the educational programme be extended to include architecture, arts and crafts and theatre arts.

      On the 3rd November 1918, revolution began in Germany and reached Weimar five days later. On the 9th, the social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann (1865–1939) proclaimed the “German Republic” in the Reichstag, and two hours later Karl Liebknecht proclaimed his “Free Socialist Republic” at Berlin Castle. The Kaiser and all the German princes abdicated without any far-reaching radical social changes.

      On 3rd December 1918, the first meeting of the November Group took place in Berlin. It was an association of artists and architects such as Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956), Wassily Kandinsky, Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and also included Max Pechstein (1881–1955), Otto Dix (1891–1969), George Grosz (1893–1959) and Hans Poelzig (1869–1936), who wanted to make their contribution to the building of the young republic. Parallel to this gathering, the Working Council of the Arts was formed, including a group intent on reforming the education system led by architect Otto Bartning (1883–1959), with whom Gropius also collaborated. A central question was the creation of equal opportunities for all students by means of a unified school, in connection with the idea of a working school. Special emphasis was placed on the reform of fine arts academies. The results of these discussions were also expressed in an only slightly modified form in Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus Programme СКАЧАТЬ