Bauhaus. 1919-1933. Michael Siebenbrodt
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Название: Bauhaus. 1919-1933

Автор: Michael Siebenbrodt

Издательство: Parkstone International Publishing

Жанр: Иностранные языки

Серия: Temporis

isbn: 978-1-78310-705-6

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ social need, but also on the basis of achievement. Furthermore, the students received the sales proceeds of their products (less costs for material and machines) and were thus able to help finance their studies with qualified work, even before industry licensing fees had to be paid to employees and students of the Dessau Bauhaus.

      This markedly practical approach in the production workshops meant yet another noticeable push for Bauhaus design work. High-quality furniture by Erich Dieckmann, tea and coffee sets by Marianne Brandt and Wilhelm Wagenfeld, and the Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig were produced.

      The third Thuringian state parliamentary elections on 10th February 1924 brought about a radical political change of course after the victory of the “Thuringian Order Union”, an association of right-wing conservative parties (DNVP, DVP, and DDP). As early as 20th March the new Thuringian Public Education Minister, Leutheußer, informed Gropius that the contracts with the Bauhaus would not be extended. Attacks on the Bauhaus by the manual trade circle, the Weimar Artists’ Council and the German nationalist bloc in the parliament increased, accompanied by the Yellow Brochure, an inflammatory pamphlet by former Bauhaus syndic Hans Beyer. On 9th April 1924 the Thuringian Finance Ministry determined the unprofitability of the Staatliches Bauhaus, which resulted in the government terminating its contracts with the Bauhaus from 31st March 1925 as a “precautionary measure.” The final step in this cultural policy farce was the parliament’s cutting of the budget from 100,000 to 50,000 Reichsmark. A petition by more than six-hundred Weimar citizens in favour of the Bauhaus had just as little effect as the petitions by national and foreign artists, architects and organisations. Even the Society of the Friends of the Bauhaus, formed in the autumn of 1924, which included Nobel Prize winners such as Albert Einstein and Wilhelm Ostwald, could not persuade the state government otherwise. In an open letter dated December 26th, the Masters’ Council declared the Bauhaus in Weimar dissolved from 1st April 1925 on the expiry of their contracts.

      Georg Muche / Gropius Architecture Studio, Haus am Horn, north-west view, 1923

      Call of the Bauhaus for the building of the Haus am Horn, 1922

      Herbert Bayer, Project for the poster of the Bauhaus Exhibition, 1923

      Walter Gropius, together with museum director Wilhelm Köhler, chose the best 165 workshop works from the 2,000 exhibits in the Bauhaus inventory for the National Art Collection in Weimar, works which today form the core inventory of the Bauhaus Museum – almost all of them twentieth-century design classics. The original photographic documentation from the Weimar Bauhaus is preserved at today’s Bauhaus University in Weimar, as is the Bauhaus library with its approximately 500 volumes. The files of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar are almost completely preserved in the State of Thuringia Main Archive in Weimar, and today form the basis of any serious Bauhaus research. After making initial contact in February 1925, the Dessau City Council, headed by Fritz Hesse, decided to take on the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1st April of that year.

      With the foundation of the State Academy of Crafts and Architecture in Weimar under the leadership of Otto Bartning on 1st April 1926, a second “Bauhaus chapter” began in Weimar, since 80 % of the staff were Bauhaus graduates. It ended with a politically-motivated closure in the spring of 1930 by Nazi Minister Dr. Wilhelm Frick (1877–1946), who was executed in the autumn of 1946 and who is also responsible for the destruction of Bauhaus wall designs in the academy buildings as well as the shattering of the Bauhaus collection at the National Art Collection in Weimar.

      Herbert Bayer, Bills from the emergency currency of the Thuringia region, 1923

      Bauhaus Dessau: Academy for Design (1925 to 1932)

      Once it became known that the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar was to be closed, several German cities rallied to take it over. It had reached such a degree of fame that cities like Frankfurt-am-Main, Mannheim, Munich, Hagen, Hamburg, Krefeld, Darmstadt and also the City of Dessau wanted to house the school, should the need arise.

      At the time Dessau was the capital of the State of Anhalt. Workers and employees of companies in the growing chemical and electronics industries lived there. These companies, while they may have been an incentive for the Bauhaus, were hardly apt for actual collaboration, as would soon be discovered. The Bauhaus community, and especially Walter Gropius, found the scenically delightful location of the city between two rivers appealing. Furthermore, they had a lot to catch up on culturally. Since there was a lack of apartments, the Bauhaus had good prospects of carrying out here its ideas of New Building, which had remained at the drawing-board stage in Weimar.

      Dessau’s mayor Fritz Hesse (DDP) had first heard of the Bauhaus in a newspaper article which he had received from Dessau’s chief musical director Franz von Hoesslin in 1923. When the school had entered a state of crisis in Weimar in 1924, he sent the Anhalt state curator, Ludwig Grote, to Weimar; Grote returned with a favourable impression and encouraged Hesse to take over the Bauhaus. Following an initial on-site meeting with Wassily Kandinsky and Georg Muche on 20th February 1925, the Bauhaus made a commitment to move to Dessau. Dessau City and Anhalt government representatives for their part travelled to Weimar on 7th March 1925 to get an impression of the school. Henceforth the president of the Landtag, Heinrich Peus (SPD), and the city councillor and later parliamentary president Richard Paulick were so enthusiastic about the Bauhaus that a takeover was considered in more concrete terms. Many Dessau politicians, such as the head of the city planning and building department Wilhelm Schmetzer and the head of the municipal planning and building department Theodor Overhoff, adopted a rather vacillating attitude towards the Bauhaus. Most of the politicians of the DNVP (German National People’s Party) and the DVP (German People’s Party), as well as wide sections of the middle classes, such as the Home Owners’ Party and a citizens’ association were opponents of the Bauhaus. Even during the initial takeover plans, the Bauhaus was attacked by these groups, but without success since a unique political situation had developed in Dessau. The SPD, classified as more right-wing within the political spectrum, had entered into a coalition with the liberal left-wing DDP (German Democratic Party) and on top of that had positive backing in the Anhalt free state. The KPD tried to exploit the Bauhaus as propaganda for their purposes from the start, and to influence it. The Dessau population, mostly industrial workers, adopted either a policy of wait-and-see or scepticism. Prominent representatives of the industries based in Dessau revealed themselves as supporters of the Bauhaus. Among those who turned toward new technological developments and were culturally open-minded was the scientist, businessman and aircraft engineer Hugo Junkers (1859–1935).

      Quite differently from Weimar, narrower and more definite ideas were crystallising in this political and social sphere, which was favoured by a renewed upward economic trend; the city, as the new supporter of the school, expected from the Bauhaus an initiatory effect for its cultural and structural development.

      After overcoming initial concerns on the part of some Bauhaus Masters, the city’s intentions were largely in harmony with the wishes of Gropius and his comrades. The opportunities in Dessau were far beyond those of any other city. In March 1925, the Dessau city council decided to take over the school. That same month, the city’s finance committee approved the construction of a Bauhaus building and the housing development for the Bauhaus Masters, and thus modified its earlier decision for the reconstruction of a local school for arts and crafts with which the Bauhaus was to merge.

      The Bauhaus Masters had not anticipated this offer from Dessau. Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer moved to Dessau, only Gerhard Marcks staying in Weimar. Not all the students followed. Former Weimar Bauhaus graduates who remained at the Bauhaus took over the workshops as Junior Masters, which actually would have allowed for the removal of the workshop leadership separation of Masters of СКАЧАТЬ