THE BAUHAUS

The Bauhaus is another school of design thinking that we need to be aware of.  Walter Gropius took control of the school in 1919 and gave it the name Staatliches Bauhaus, or what we simply call Bauhaus.   Like the Beaux Arts, the Bauhaus is important to our study given the holistic design emphasis as well as the emphasis on painting, drawing and sculpting.

A central teaching of the Bauhaus was craft.  Every student was required to learn a craft from the following categories;  sculptors, woodcarvers, cabinetmakers, glass painters, weavers, etc.  They were also trained in free hand sketching from memory and imagination, composition, lettering, etc.  History of art, science and other practical concerns were also studied.  The overarching goal was to give the tools to facilitate the creation of a unified work.

Gropius wrote a manifesto for the Bauhaus.  It is always great to read these sort of iconoclastic documents;  they are written with such ringing tones.  Many of these statements speak towards the goals that we are after.

“Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts.”

“There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman.  In rare moments of inspiration, transcending the consciousness of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art.”

“Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith.”

Or to put it another way, Gropius certainly would agree with us that architects are not artists.  And based on these proclamatory passages, he would also agree that anyone who designs needs to think holistically by imagining that they are a craftsman.  Draw and imagine that you are a sculptor.  Draw and think as if you are a painter as you solve your enclosure problem.

The drawing at the top of the page is of the Dessau building designed by Gropius, shown on the left.  It uses transparency to overlay the various forms of the building into a holistic image.  The drawing below is a thumbnail axonometric, transparent of course, of the same building.  Many times when you are drawing, one image projection will not do.  You need to employ another to fully internalize the way the building works.