Essay On Bauhaus

The Bauhaus was one of the most influential art and design schools of the past. Although closed down due to the Nazi’s power over Germany in 1933, its influence has and will continue to manifest in design industries and spread its principles to young and old designers alike. Walter Gropius revolutionized design theories by emphasizing products function and form, influencing the development of modern design theory. We see this in students such as Marianne Brandt, Joseph Hartwig, Marcel Breur and Stephen Dell whom have taught and influenced the design world with their products, Tee-Extraktkännchen MT 49, Bauhaus Chess Set, Club Chair and The Table Lamp respectively. These products are examples of simple modernist style with no extra fancy decoration it has excellent function expression and simple shapes. This influenced can be traced all the way forward through America’s architecture to today’s contemporary product design. Products such as the Alain Silberstein Bauhaus 2 Titan watch, displays this influence.

German architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919 (Whiteford, 1993). While serving as an officer in the Great War, he dreamed of creating an art and design school that would help change the world. After the war, Gropius began to work on his dream and was asked to find an art school and to write his ideas in a manifesto published in 1919, the Proclamation of the Bauhaus (Whiteford, 1993). The revolutionary tone of the Proclamation of the Bauhaus inspired the soviet revolution and the German mutinies, which helped end the war.

The Bauhaus, which translates to the “Building House” in English, was a revolutionary institute of architecture and design that fashioned the face of the 20th century. Its key objective was to re...

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...d down what they saw as communist ideas (Forgacs, 1995). This forced van Der Rohe to relocate the Bauhaus to Berlin in 1930, where the Nazi’s eventually closed its doors in 1933 (Forgacs, 1995).

Although the Bauhaus died in Germany, due to the dangerous years of World War II many of its key figures spread out into the free world predominantly the United States, and birthed the ideas of the Bauhaus (Kentgens-Craig, 1999). Here the Bauhaus idea had more potential than ever, as the American city became the architectural proving ground for the industrialized world (Kentgens-Craig, 1999), which inspired all facets of design and contemporary design. For example Alain Silberstein Bauhaus 2 Titan watch (image 5) displays the use of the primary colour and simple shapes, a clear influence from the Bauhaus preliminary theory course, and of Piet Mondrian’s De Stijl movement.