The Bauhaus was a design school created in 1919.
Bauhaus is an art movement that emerged in 1919 in Weimar , a city that is today part of the German state of Thuringia . Its founder was Walter Gropius , architect, designer and urban planner born in 1883 and died in 1969 .
Gropius created the Staatliche Bauhaus in 1919 . This institution was a design school that encouraged its students to use innovative materials for the development of constructions, furniture and various objects. Gropius ' goal was for the creations to combine functionality and aesthetics.
Bauhaus , on the other hand, is also the name of a German company that markets household products and of an English gothic and post-punk rock group.
History of the Bauhaus
Throughout its history , the Bauhaus school was established in Weimar (1919-1925), Dessau (1925-1932) and Berlin (1932-1934). The pressure of Nazism on the entity, which it considered socialist and whose directors were Jews, caused its closure.
The Bauhaus , especially in its first stage, proposed recovering artisanal methods in construction and sought to promote the marketing of products that were accessible to the majority of society .
Over time, the influence of the Bauhaus reached various areas. In addition to architecture and different branches of design , several artistic disciplines followed the postulates of the movement.
The painters Paul Klee , Josef Albers and Vasili Vasílievich Kandinsky ; the photographer Walter Peterhans ; the designer Lászlo Moholy-Nagy ; the sculptor Joost Schmidt ; and the architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer are some of the exponents of this trend that left important works in the German cities of Weimar and Dessau and in the Israeli town of Tel Aviv , among other places.
The influence of the Bauhaus on architecture is very important.
Virtual Collection
In 2016 , the Harvard University Art Museums launched the world's largest collection of documents, works and objects from the Bauhaus school online, to the delight of those who love effective and simple design.
It is a catalog in digital format of about 32,000 pieces , undoubtedly a more than high number and enough to introduce anyone interested in the most relevant design school of the 20th century . It is important to note that the reach of the Bauhaus was considerable and that the school would not have closed if it had not been for the pressure exerted by Nazism. Once again, power and wars passed over art without any sensitivity or consideration and clipped the wings of a group of people who sought innovation.
Regarding the relationship between the Bauhaus school and Harvard University , it is necessary to note that Gropius moved to Boston , where he served as dean of the School of Architecture until he retired. In all those years of work, an invaluable treasure emerged that we can currently appreciate from our homes with a simple search.
In the impressive repository we can make very specific queries, filtering the results by date, type, author and technique. Each object is accompanied by a complete description, with contextual and historical data that complement the experience. The only disappointing aspect is the quality of the photographs, something that probably responds to the need to continue making money through sales of official material: if they offered the best images for free, almost no one would bother to buy them.
Despite this limitation, as 256 square pixel photographs of such important works as the Club B3 chair, designed by Marcel Breuer and known among connoisseurs as the Wasilly chair , this virtual museum is worth visiting to appreciate the legacy of some of the geniuses of the Bauhaus school.