100 Years of Bauhaus

Bauhaus 100 Chicago © Irmi Maunu-Kocian

In 2019, Germany will be celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus, together with partners worldwide. Founded in Weimar in 1919, relocated to Dessau in 1925 and closed in Berlin under pressure from the Nazis in 1933, the school of design only existed for a total of 14 years. All the same, the legendary Bauhaus – School of Design has continued to have a lasting effect up until the present day.

Luftwerk on Mies van der Rohe: Reinterpreting Space Through Light and Color

On June 28, Iker Gil (MAS Context) spoke with German-American artist duo Luftwerk about their works. In the Q+A session that followed the artist talk, Ivan Blasi (Fundació Mies van der Rohe), John McKinnon (Elmhurst Art Museum/McCormick House) and Scott Mehaffey (Farnsworth House) were available to answer questions about the Mies van der Rohe structures in their care.

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Bauhaus Student Newspapers

In the spirit of celebrating Bauhaus centennial, the IIT Institute of Design’s student group mediaID and students of the School of the Art Institut of Chicago produced two Bauhaus newsletters. These are collections written, photographed, designed, and curated by students. Here, they reflect on the influence of the Bauhaus, examining its relevance and impact today while also looking toward the future.

The Bauhaus & the U.S. © Goethe-Institut

Bauhaus & the US

Here, you'll find a timeline of events surrounding Bauhaus in the U.S., background articles on Bauhaus members who emigrated to the U.S., a list of events in 2019 and general information on Bauhaus.
 

Past Events

Bauhaus VR © Markus Sporkmann

VR Exhibition | Goethe-Institut
Virtual Bauhaus: An Interactive Exhibition

After putting on VR glasses, the visitor tours the iconic Dessau Bauhaus School as a former student, interacting with and exploring its architecture, design and educational philosophies. Spoken eyewitness accounts and background information round out the experience.
If you would like to rent this interactive exhibition please contact Irmi Maunu-Kocian Irmi.Maunu-Kocian@goethe.de

Brandt_Hakimi_Satgedo_Kubastova_Moholy © Jan Tichy

Exhibition | 10/15 - 12/21 | Goethe-Institut
Crossing Lines/Future Past

Crossing Lines/Future Past presents palm prints created in spring 1926 in Dessau by a group of Bauhäusler and placed in contemporary context by a group of artists -  students and faculty - that worked with Tichy in Spring 2019 in Chicago, Modena and Hradec Kralove. Jan Tichy is a contemporary artist and educator. Working at the intersection of video, sculpture, architecture, and photography, his conceptual work is socially and politically engaged.

Claudia Weber © Claudia Weber

Exhibition | 02/16-04/14 | Elmhurst Art Museum
Assaf Evron and Claudia Weber at the McCormick House

Saturday, March 2 at 1:30PM
Artist talk with Claudia Weber and Assaf Evron

Claudia Weber will turn one wing of Mies van der Rohe’s McCormick House into her temporary home and studio, within which she will respond to both the building’s transformation from modernist residence to contemporary exhibition space, and the impact of this shift on the relationship between art, design and life. Assaf Evron looks at Mies van der Rohe collages and re-activates these collage strategies and logic onto actual Mies van der Rohe buildings. Evron uses the window modules in the McCormick house as platform, applying landscape and geological imagery onto the glass.

Firma Rasch, Booklet with twelve Bauhaus wallpaper patterns, designed by Bauhaus  students,1932  © A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie, IfA

Exhibition | 02/23 - 04/20 | Elmhust Art Museum
The Whole World a Bauhaus

Please note that due to unforeseen delays, "The Whole World a Bauhaus" exhibit will open on 02/23
This exhibition is divided into eight different chapters, each focusing on an aspect of work and life at the Bauhaus during its operation: Art, Crafts, and Technology; Floating; Community; Encounters; The Total Work of Art; New Man; Radical Pedagogy; and Experiment. These sections highlight the work students did in their revolutionary workshops with industrial materials and processes, the school’s major impact on the international avant-garde, and how the students and instructors sought to rethink their world.

Bauhaus VR © Markus Sporkmann

VR Exhibition | 03/01 - 03/22 | Elmhust Art Museum
Virtual Bauhaus: An Interactive Exhibition

After putting on VR glasses, the visitor tours the iconic Dessau Bauhaus School as a former student, interacting with and exploring its architecture, design and educational philosophies. Spoken eyewitness accounts and background information round out the experience.

Discover Design Chair © Nico Pudimat

Workshop | 03/09 & 16 | Goethe House Wisconsin, Elmhurst Art Museum and Big Car, Indianapolis
Discover Design

The exciting journey of discovery through the world of design is linked to the celebration of 100 Years of Bauhaus! Why are the ideas of the Bauhaus as a legendary school of architecture, design and art still relevant today? How can we use its ideas for our future? Led by design students, the participants engage in creative work themselves and design their own model chair — as a design exercise.

VR Bauhaus HUB Week Dessau © Goethe-Institut Boston

VR Exhibition | 03/25 - 04/19 | IIT - S.R. Crown Hall
Virtual Bauhaus: An Interactive Exhibition

After putting on VR glasses, the visitor tours the iconic Dessau Bauhaus School as a former student, interacting with and exploring its architecture, design and educational philosophies. Spoken eyewitness accounts and background information round out the experience.

Grit Kallin-Fischer. KPM-Berlin, industial porcelain, c. 1930, section © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin

Exhibition | 03/31 - 05/12 | Farnsworth House and IIT
bauhaus.photo

The bauhaus.photo exhibition features 100 key works from the collection of more than 70,000 Bauhaus photos held by the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin – the largest such collection in the world. The exhibition provides an impressive insight into the many facets of Bauhaus photography and into life at the Bauhaus.

Kurt Schwerdtfeger  Reflektorische Farblichtspiele, 1922 Microscope Gallery and Kurt Schwerdtfeger Estate Foto: © 2016 Microscope Gallery

Exhibition | 04/05 - 06/22 | Tube Factory Artspace Indianapolis
bauhaus imaginista

bauhaus imaginista is a major international project to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus. The exhibition focuses on the history of the international impact and reception of the Bauhaus and comprises four chapters in which the pedagogy of the Bauhaus and its multi-faceted history are explored in and outside of Europe.
 

Bauhaus Windows © Irmi Maunu-Kocian

Symposium | 04/05-07 | Chicago Architecture Center, Northwestern University, und Elmhurst Art Museum
Bauhaus Beyond Borders

This 3-day interdisciplinary symposium with keynotes by Dr. Regina Bittner, Deputy Director of the Bauhaus Dessau, and Michael Dreyer, Research Center for Political Science and the Weimar Republic, FSU Jena, celebrates the centenary of the Bauhaus, one of the world’s most innovative art and design schools and movements, and to highlight its tremendous global influence.

Die Frankfurter Küche © architektur-aktuell/I. Maunu-Kocian

Film and Discussion | 05/09, 5:30PM | Eggersmann Kitchen Home Living
Die Frankfurter Küche

Margarete "Grete" Schütte-Lihotzky was the first female Austrian architect and a communist activist in the German resistance to Nazism. As part of the New Frankfurt-project Schütte-Lihotzky created the Frankfurt Kitchen in 1926, which was the prototype of the built-in kitchen now prevalent in the western world. The film will be introduced by Kristin Jones and  post-screening discussion will be led by Aidan O'Connor.

Mies Project © Arina Dähnick

Exhibition | 08/04 - 11/19 | Farnsworth House, Goethe-Institut, IIT
The Mies Project

The MIES-Project will also be shown at Farnsworth House in Plano from 08/04 through 09/08/19.
Concurrent with the exhibition at the Goethe-Institut a larger show can be seen at IIT's S.R. Crown Hall from 09/16 through 11/19/19.

Arina Dähnick captures the soul of architecture with her camera, the legendary Leica M rangefinder, designing interlocking image levels, initiating a multifaceted game with reality and perception, between the reality and imagination.

Geometry of Light Barcelona © Kate Joyce

Artist Talk | 09/09, 6pm | Goethe-Institut
Making of "Geometry of Light": Meet the Artists

Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero of Luftwerk, together with Iker Gil of MAS Studio, will share the story of their latest intervention with Mies van der Rohe’s architecture. Geometry of Light, a light and sound art installation, uncovers the forgotten history while revealing the underlying geometries that relate to the world-renowned architecture of both the German Pavilion in Barcelona and the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois.

Die Frankfurter Küche © architektur-aktuell/I. Maunu-Kocian

Film | 09/26, 6PM | Goethe-Institut
Die Frankfurter Küche

As part of the New Frankfurt-project Schütte-Lihotzky created the Frankfurt Kitchen in 1926, which was the prototype of the built-in kitchen now prevalent in the western world. Based on the scientific research by U.S. management expert Frederick Winslow Taylor and her own research, Lihotzky used a railroad dining car kitchen as her model to design a "housewife's laboratory" using a minimum of space but offering a maximum of comfort and equipment to the working mother. The Frankfurt City Council eventually installed 10,000 of her mass-produced, prefabricated kitchens in newly built working-class apartments.

Schlemmer Triadisches Ballett Goethe-Institut Chicago

Film | 09/26, 7PM | Goethe-Institut
Triadic Ballet

Triadisches Ballett (Triadic Ballet) is a ballet developed by Oskar Schlemmer. It premiered in Stuttgart, on 30-31 September 1922, with music composed by Paul Hindemith. The ballet became the most widely performed avant-garde artistic dance and while Schlemmer was at the Bauhaus from 1921 to 1929, the ballet toured, helping to spread the ethos of the Bauhaus.

Geometry of Light © Chris Bellezza

Exhibition | 10/11 - 10/13 | Farnsworth House
Geometry of Light

Geometry of Light is a light-based art intervention by Luftwerk in collaboration with Iker Gil, which projects light and patterns both inside and on the grounds surrounding the Farnsworth House. Presented in concert with a sound-piece developed in direct response to the site by Oriol Tarragó, this intervention will reveal underlying geometries that relate the house to its river floodplain site, topography, and natural landscape

Made possible by

Wunderbar Together - Germany and the U.S. This event series is part of Wunderbar Together: the Year of German-American Friendship, funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, implemented by the Goethe-Institut, and supported by the Federation of German Industries (BDI).