visualsyntax

bauhaus 98 & counting . . .

the 100th anniversary of the founding of the bauhaus, in weimar, is in two years . . .

a mere three years before the beginnings of the bauhaus in 1916, the founding father of the assembly line, of mass-production, and the ford motor company,
henry ford, proclaimed that “history is more or less bunk.”

first, in weimar, relocated to dessau, relocated yet again to berlin, the original school of design existed only for a total of 14 years, before being closed under pressure from the nazis in 1933. bizarre as it seems, this truly was a surreal stroke of good luck; the dalai lama says, “remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” bauhaus faculty and students became educational émigrés in the united states as well as many other countries, transplanting the fledgling teaching theory into practice in numerous other educational communities. walter gropius and marcel breuer taught at harvard’s graduate school of design. lászló moholy-nagy was the director of the new bauhaus in chicago, which became the school of design, then the institute of design and finally in 1949 a part of illinois institute of technology. ludwig mies van der rohe was appointed head of the architecture school at chicago’s armour institute of technology, later renamed illinois institute of technology. herbert bayer settled in aspen colorado and was pivotal in the development of walter paepcke’s aspen institute. anni and josef albers taught at black mountain college until 1949. lyonel feininger taught at mills college in the san francisco. johannes itten became the director of the kunstgewerbeschule in zurich, switzerland. bauhaus student max bill became a teacher at the kunstgewerbeschule in zurich and was subsequently invited by inge aicher-scholl and otl aicher, to found the hochschule für gestaltung ulm,
et cetera . . .

the bauhaus university weimar used the following 2004 quote from pratt institute’s iD professor leonard r. bacich for their 90th anniversary in 2009:

I came to see a museum and I found a school . . .

germany celebrates 100 years of bauhaus