Sooner or later in discussion of the Weimar era one cannot avoid the Bauhaus school and movement.
The Bauhaus school went in parallel with the era itself. It opened in 1919 and closed its doors in 1933 under extreme pressure from the Nazis.
The new building of the future will be everything in one form; architecture, sculpture and painting.
Bauhaus Manifesto
The goal of the Bauhaus school was an arts programs that trained its students in various crafts all of which eventually culminated in architecture and building.
However, its approach to art, crafts and architecture is based firmly on form and function married in as direct way as possible. No frills, no victorian elaborations, no poofy artsy stuff. It emphasizes simplicity. It embraces the urban and the technological. It adores mass production and the machine aesthetic.
It despises any split between art and production, art and function.
Mass production was new and full of potential to fulfill every human need. All needs can be produced by the new machine age, by mass production, and that very production and function has its own form which is an artistic aesthetic in itself. It “demanded reduction to essentials, an excision of the sentimental choices and visual distractions that cluttered human lives.”
As architecture it strives to use space instead of wasting time on filling space with adornments.
As a movement it is the very definition of modernism.
Now personally, i hate Bauhaus. I hate the aesthetic. I hate the buildings. I hate the philosophy. I just simply hate Bauhaus on the most basic level of which i aesthetically am able to love or deplore anything.
(I like the bands Bauhaus and Laibach because they nail a particular music that is really interesting and which i like to utilize on occasion.)
However, it doesn’t change the fact that the movement and style is one of the most radical, creative, brilliant and important movements of the entire 20th century. Its impact cannot be overstated. It has grown and continued blossoming even today. There are many current examples of the architecture which i do love and am amazed by. But the fact is, you simply cannot discuss architecture without referring to Bauhaus, whether to embrace or reject it.
I do like some more recent Bauhaus homes.
