100 years of Bauhaus

Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919 – and in doing so revolutionised architecture, design and the way we think about art. What influence does this art school have today? And what should everyone know about the Bauhaus? We answer the most important questions about this year’s anniversary.

The Bauhaus strives to bring together all creative effort into one whole, to reunify all the disciplines of practical art - sculpture, painting, handicrafts, and crafts - as inseparable components of a new architecture.

Walter Gropius

Woman sitting in Marcel Breuer tubular steel chair, 1926.

The Bauhaus
Designing life

The Bauhaus art school aimed to promote social and as such affordable living through the artistic avant-garde. At the core of the movement was the idea that revolutionary design could bring about a new way of life for a society in the midst of an upheaval.

New instruction based on old guidelines: At the Bauhaus University Weimar, the curriculum is still adheres to Bauhaus teaching principles.

Bauhaus at Universities
A global legacy

The ideals of the Bauhaus School shaped more than just design and architecture around the world; they also transformed teaching. And while a university in Weimar, the birthplace of the Bauhaus, still follows the founders’ guiding principles, other institutions based on the same spirit have had to close.

German Unification
The Bauhaus – A reunified German cult site

In East Germany this stronghold of modernism was long ostracized. Today the Bauhaus is one of the cultural beacons of unified Germany.

The “Bauhaus women”
Female apprentices required – but not too many!

There are many myths on the subject of women in the Bauhaus. Author Theresia Enzensberger points out that where women’s equality is concerned, the school might have been progressive – but the inclusive attitude remained incomplete.

Group photo of Bauhaus masters in Dessau (1926): f. l. t. r: Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Muche, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Gunta Stölzl und Oskar Schlemmer.

Celebrating 100 years of Bauhaus
Eight things you should know about the Bauhaus

Minimalist design, simplicity and efficiency – how the Bauhaus aimed to change the way we live.

The mind is like an umbrella. It’s most useful when open.

Walter Gropius

Bauhaus building Dessau | Walter Gropius | 1925-26

World Heritage Bauhaus
Experimental space of modernity

Scarcely any other art school achieved such comprehensive world renown in 20th-century art, architecture and design as the Bauhaus, founded by Walter Gropius in 1919.

Bauhaus related Events in Canada

09/05
- 11/28/2019
Assaf Evron, Mies Windows
Goethe Media Space | Photo Installation

10/22
- 10/26/2019
Bauhaus 100 – (re)imagined
Ottawa Art Gallery - Alma Duncan Hall, Ottawa | Exhibition

10/25/2019
Deutscher Filmklub:
Alice in the Cities
6:00 PM
Goethe-Institut Toronto, Toronto | Film Screening

11/05/2019
Bauhaus 100th Anniversary: Women of Modernism
6:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto | Lecture

DIY Kit

Modular, interdisciplinary and open: our DIY-kit conveys relevant aspects of the Bauhaus and its ideas in a practical and personal way.

to the DIY kit

Form follows function: Some of the Bauhaus’ maxims have found their way into everyday speech as well.

Celebrating 100 years of Bauhaus
In a nutshell: six sentences that encapsulate the Bauhaus

We run into the Bauhaus more often than we know – and not just while out shopping for furniture. Some of the design school’s maxims have found their way into everyday speech as well.

Visitor to the Bauhaus Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Bauhaus centenary hype
“The Bauhaus should be understood, not just indiscriminately celebrated.”

Arne Winkelmann, an architecture expert based in Frankfurt am Main, would like to see more a more critical approach to the Bauhaus school: an interview.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe | Resor House, project (Jackson Hole, Wyoming): Perspective of living room through south glass wall. 1937-1941 (unbuilt). New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) The Mies van der Rohe Archive

Modern Spatial Compositions
The architect Mies van der Rohe as a visual artist

“I never create an image when I want to build a house.“ Thus Mies van der Rohe stated during interview with the Bauwelt magazine in 1964. He did, however, produce a wealth of collages and montages. These spatial compositions are some of the most interesting and most beautiful works of Modernism.

Bauhaus in Montreal
Joining the generations

In the southwest of Montreal, on Nun’s Island, a piece of Bauhaus architecture can be found, an iconic former petrol station that now houses the community center La Station.

Less is more.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

The documentary of the DW

In 2019, the famous German art school celebrates its great anniversary: the Bauhaus is 100 years old. For the three-part documentary bauhausWORLD, a film team travelled the world, meeting architects, artists, urban planners, doers and dreamers. With its social ideas and design principles, the Bauhaus can still provide answers to the challenges of our time today.

Documentary
bauhausWORLD 1/3: Der Code - 100 Jahre Bauhaus | DW Dokumentation

The first part of bauhausWORLD, "The Code", traces the success formula of the Bauhaus. The search for the "architectural world formula" leads to faraway Japan. The forced closure of the Bauhaus in Berlin in 1933 is at the same time the starting point for the worldwide success of the German art school.

Documentary
bauhausWORLD 2/3: Der Effekt - 100 Jahre Bauhaus | DW Dokumentation

After the involuntary closure of the Bauhaus in 1933, the second part of the bauhausWORLD, "The Effect", traces its worldwide influence: from Dessau via New York and the Swedish Älmhult to Ulm. Where do we encounter the Bauhaus in everyday life? Is the Bauhaus just a brand today? And: Do we even owe our overdesigned reality to the Bauhaus in the end?

Documentary
bauhausWORLD 3/3: Die Utopie - 100 Jahre Bauhaus | DW Dokumentation

The third and final part of bauhausWORLD, "The Utopia", focuses on the influence that Bauhaus philosophy exerts on our globalized society in the 21st century. And in the end we land on Mars. Is that the solution? Or can answers to questions such as "How do we want to live in the future?", "Can design and good design improve people's lives?