Bauhaus (updated)

The Bauhaus school meaning "House of Building" was founded in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropious in Weimar Germany. The Bauhaus school sought to embrace the 20th century machine culture  in a way that it allowed basic necessities such as buildings, furniture, and design to be completed in a utilitarian but effective way. The Bauhaus school encouraged the embrace of modern technologies, in order to succeed in modern environment. The basic tenet of the Bauhaus was "Form follows Function".

Even though the Bauhaus has been closed since 1933, by studying the lessons of some top masters one can learn their wisdom . Some important figures from the Bauhaus were Paul Klee, Joseph Alberts, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszio Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer.


Based on the research that I have done the Bauhaus operated till 1933 and other than the fact that it was founded by the Architect Walter Gropus the school did not have an architectural department for the first five years of its existence. 

The teaching of the Bauhaus was mainly influenced by the machine age and the school's aim was to combine all the arts under the concept of design. Just by looking at the Bauhaus designs one can notice that that Machine Age was not the Bauhaus only influence, the Bauhaus Movement was also highly influenced by the De Stijl Movement, Constructivism and Cubism, these influences are clearly shown on poster for the Bauhaus Exhibition by Joost Schmidt. During the first few years of the Bauhaus the typography workshop was not given a lot of importance as it was one of the core subjects but that was until Moholy Nagy and Herbert Bayer took over the than typography became increasingly important as both an expressional mean of communication and as an artistic expression with visual clarity. Later on it became increasingly connected with the corporate identity and advertising. 

The above image is the Bauhaus exhibition poster of 1923 by Joost Schmidt. the poster echos cubism, constructivism, and De Stijl provide evidence that the Bauhaus became a vessel in which diverse movements where fused into new design approaches. the poster combines geometric and machine forms reflecting the reorientation occurring at the Bauhaus. The poster also shows influences of Oscar Schlemmer. Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc pg 328

(The poster has a combination of geometrical forms and one can clearly notice that its a reflection of Gropius's Slogan "Art and Technology, a New Unity")

The above image is a page from Utopia, a page from the early Bauhaus publications by Johannes Ittens and Fredel Dicker. 

The heart of the Bauhaus education was the preliminary course established by Johannes Ittens. The preliminary course was the beginning of what we call foundation in many art programs today. Itten's aim was to to release each student's creative abilities to develop an understanding of the physical nature of materials and to teach the fundamental principles of design underlying all visual art.

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc pg 327

References

Philip B. meggs. and Alston W. Purvis.eds., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth Edition. Hoboken Canada: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.