Bauhaus

The Bauhaus movement introduced it self into the history in 1919 in Weimar and in its short period of time it was intended to introduce different ways of thinking when it comes to design and design education. The blame for its short period of time is the Nazi government which interfered in the education facility of Bauhaus.

Bauhaus building in Weimar

Founded by German architect Walter Gropius, the intentions of Bauhaus were to introduce different style of design education were it combine the elements of art with elements of design. students that came from different areas of studies and community were introduced to the preliminary course which introduced the student to the study of materials, Color theory and formal relationships in preparation to more specific studies further on.

One of the concepts of Bauhaus was to make a reform in art education to boost the German economic stability.It was intended to further strengthen it's labor force and with more professional and thoughtful approach to design, Germany was to become an exporter of more Hi-quality and sophisticated product to contradict the lack of natural resources that Germany own by increasing the income from these product exports. This objective by Bauhaus was reached as still today's German design is renominated for it perfection and for the excellence of German products.

Bauhaus student's were introduced to different materials and were assigned in different workshops which included metal working, cabinet making, weaving, typography, pottery and wall painting. Walter Gropius had the idea of combining arts through crafts but later in progress it was realized that it was impracticable and later  the importance of mass production was emphasized  and the slogan of "Art into industry" was adopted inside the Bauhaus.

Bauhaus building in Dessau

In 1925 Bauhaus was transfered to Dessau in a new building designed by Gropius himself with the interior of this building which was designed by some of the staff and students of Bauhaus. In this period Bauhaus, one of the most popular workshop was that of cabinet making which was under the diction of Marcel Breuer which himself took an innovative approach in design. Inspired from his bicycle , Breuer introduce the used of metal tubing in furniture, a development which is still being used in the most of today's products and furniture. he introduced the used of metal tubing which led to lightweight chair that can bee mass produced . Some of his Chairs were later produced and installed in the theater of Dessau's Building.

The metal tubing chair designed by Marcel Breuer

This technique of bending metal tubing today is very popular and used by  famous designer which produce high end products. one example if the "wire dining chair" which is designed by Tom Dixon. This chair was inspired by a paper clip and with Tom's creative design was transformed into a contemporary dining chair. same techniques were used in pipe bending, which are the same that Breuer developed in the Bauhaus era. c

The wire dining chair by Tom Dixon, Designed in 21st Century

During the world war II, most of the key figures of Bauhaus emigrated to the united States which were a great influence to yound architects and designers. Marcel Breuer and Joseph Albert taught at Yale, Gropius moved on in Harvard and Moholy-Nagy established the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937.


Reference:

Griffith Winton, Alexandra. "The Bauhaus, 1919–1933". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm (August 2007)