Even before the publicity boost of the Bauhaus Building being declared a World Cultural Heritage site in 1996, Dessau in north-east Germany has long compelled aficionados of modern architectural ideas, urban planning and applied art to make regular pilgrimages. For those who came in late, German architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus movement in 1919. He conceived the uniting of arts, crafts and technology (or painting, sculpture, architecture and engineering) to create a “total” work of art, which combined beauty with usefulness. But that’s only half of it.
This movement towards interdisciplinary research and artistic experimentation that began in Weimar and took root in Dessau may have lasted only until 1933, but its repercussions can still be felt worldwide. When you’re looking at a classic modern building for instance, with its geometric shape and functional style, the seeds of Bauhaus are palpable.
Which is why, when I visit Dessau — the city to which proponents of the Bauhaus moved in 1925 for political reasons — the Bauhaus Building is my first halt. This concrete, steel, and glass ensemble built between 1925 and 26 as an academy for the arts, is all right angles and flat roofs, cubic form and glass facade. You don’t have to remotely be a specialist, to appreciate these features, some of which have become hallmarks of modern architecture.
To get a sense of the space, I walk around the workshop wing, administrative offices, and schools. What’s clear during the guided tour (the only way you can visit), is that although each section of the campus is asymmetrical in form, each area has its own coherence and reason for the form it takes. The workshop has glass frontage, for instance, which allows in maximum light.
Bauhaus is as much about art and philosophy as it is about architecture.
Art and technology come together in various ways. In the theatre, you can see each construction screw. Nothing is hidden. The doors to the room are reminiscent of Chinese wedding cupboards — glossy black with a circle in the middle. Gropius also morphed the expectations of people. In exactly the place where you’d expect a painting on the wall, you see in fact the latest central heating system, demonstrating the importance of utility elements. The chairs are lightweight and built in a way that sustains the Bauhaus desire for mobility and movement.
Minimal design vocabulary is what characterises these spaces, built in quintessential cubic form.
The multipurpose usage of the building, which produced a unique creative atmosphere, continues unabated. The stage remains a venue for concerts while rooms for overnight stays are available in the studio buildings and you can still eat at the canteen like the masters did some 80 years ago. The oft-quoted book of 111 Must-See Places in Saxony-Anhalt says, “ If you don’t want to go to Berlin, London is too pricey and New York is too far away, then go to the Bauhaus café for a couple of hours. There you can have a beer with a hint of world city.”
Just pixie steps away from the Bauhaus Building are the Masters’ Houses. Gropius had the houses built as studio-and-apartment buildings for himself and the artists working at the Bauhaus. Minimal design vocabulary is what characterizes these spaces, built in quintessential cubic form. These were homes to Ise and Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and other Bauhasiers who combined their radical ideas of architecture, furniture, dance, music, art and everyday objects, to shape the entire lived-in world, exemplifying a 20th century artists’ colony.
The light is failing and my time in Dessau is coming to a close. I’ve chosen to dine at The Kornhaus, another clever example of Bauhaus architecture. That it offers beguiling views over the river Elbe, adds to the appeal. I think back over my time here and realize that what makes the spirit of Bauhaus evergreen, is that it has one of life’s most compelling ingredients. It’s based upon a story with heart that continues to be relevant. After all, Bauhausiers were not just architects and builders, they were as much artists and philosophers. In the words of Gropius, “The functional includes not only tangible material things, but also the satisfaction of human emotional life.”
To this end the questioning of traditional knowledge, of rethinking and reforming life, and of using industrial design and technology to lessen social disparity, united the Bauhausiers. And who wouldn’t want to be part of such an evergreen quest?
