The Bauhaus: Origins and Architectural Concepts” by Rose-Carol Washton Long, 1967
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “The Bauhaus: Origins and Architectural Concepts” by Rose-Carol Washton Long, 1967 ROSE-CAROL WASHTON LONG -- play. Glasses and textiles, and there, they received elementary instruction in the theory of form. Now, the main purpose that Gropius insisted that all his students, whether they were painters, sculptors, or even architects, that they worked in all these workshops, is so that they could find out which materials were the most natural to them. At the same time, he insisted, also, that even the craftsmen, the people that were going into industrial production, must also work with design. In other words, they must work with color. And this is an [Albert’s?], which was produced at the Bauhaus. It’s really a study that was done working with the different relations of color. Also, Gropius had them work with simple lines, and how you work with creating space illusionistically. [01:00] In addition, he wanted them to work with simple materials like this cardboard box at the left, so that they could see the different structures that could be made out of the most simple materials. Gropius, of course, valued painting highly. But at the time of the Bauhaus, the founding of the Bauhaus, in 1919, he felt that painting alone was merely a salon art. It was an art for the exclusive, for the rich, and it brought benefit to no one. At the same time, he felt the industrial productions were in [bad?] shape. They lacked any kind of style, and they were not especially easy or economically to produce. And thus, he hoped, if he blended the ideas of the artists, the modern, contemporary ideas, especially their ideas concerning abstract painting and sculpture, he hoped if he could work these in to industrial production, [02:00] a style which would be formed which would be suitable for the machine age. Now, in addition to the workshops that Gropius had, he also insisted on experimentation in music and in the theater, and the slide on the right is a design by Schlemmer, whose painting you had seen previously of the Bauhaus staircase, in which these are costume designs for one of the plays that were put on at the Bauhaus. Gropius considered the theater an integral part of the program of the Bauhaus, and here in the slide on the left is the performance of the ballet with costumes by Schlemmer, which was performed on one of the Bauhaus buildings. There was a great deal of experimentation in all the arts at the Bauhaus, and a great deal of fun and camaraderie. Living out there in the early years in the country, Weimar was a small town, and Dessau, where they moved, as I said before, [03:00] in ’25, was not much larger. And so, most of their entertainment involved in producing their own plays, their own dances themselves. I think by looking at this slide on the left, you can see the element of lightheartedness that went along with all this seriousness and determination to build a new style for the future, that went on in the Bauhaus. There are people standing on the roof, there’s somebody else on the balcony. Again, here’s the huge papier Mache head, and here’s someone with a balloon, and then someone who looks like they’re conducting down at the bottom. Now, what exactly is this style that was developed at the Bauhaus? I think if we compare two rooms, we might see what was developed during these 14 years. On the left is an interior of a professor’s house, and actual, the house was designed by Gropius, but all of the students contributed to the design of the interior. [04:00] Here, you see on the wall is a painting by Moholy-Nagy, who’s a Hungarian who came to the Bauhaus in 1923. The chairs, here in the lower part of the picture, were designed by Marcel Breuer, who many of you might be familiar Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 1 of 7 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “The Bauhaus: Origins and Architectural Concepts” by Rose-Carol Washton Long, 1967 with now as the architect of the New Whitney Museum. The lamps in the ceiling was designed by Mary Ann Brandt. The essential feeling about this room, when one compares it with this room on the right, is the sense of simpleness and clarity, almost geometrical, hard precision among all the forms in this room. The room on the right has a feeling of clutter. There is no sense of order, or even overwhelmed feeling of design. The emphasis among the Bauhaus [05:00] was to use material, actually taken from industry, for example -- I mean, the chairs are obviously -- steel is used in the legs, so that the back can then be [canter?] levered off. That means there’s no support here for the back of the chair, because the steel is curved in such a way that all the support can just be worked out, going down these front legs. Now, also, there was an emphasis on using synthetic materials, for example, the [flactic?] table. When natural materials were used, as the straw, the woven material in the chair, they’re used just to emphasize the natural quality of the material themselves, the simple woven quality. The forms are all extremely simple. There is no attention to small details, no element of the handicraft at all. Because these forms were all designed, the chairs, the lamps, the chest, were all designed for mass production, [06:00] so that they could be easily and cheaply reproduced. These are ashtrays designed by Mary Ann Brandt, who also did the lamp on the ceiling in that room, and again, they reveal some of this feeling of the machine aesthetic that the Bauhaus wished to symbolize. It wished to work everything out in the material of what they felt was the material of their age. Now, there’s another interesting aspect to the Bauhaus, it’s their belief in the mathematical quality of forms, and the importance they attached to forms that they felt were geometric, and in essence, [Felibian?] -- Felibian meaning cubic. They felt these were the forms of the machine age, and these were the forms that were to be used. If we compare, for example, these ashtrays [07:00] with glasses done around the turn of the century in the style called the art nouveau, again, you can see quite obviously and simply the difference. There, again, in the glasses there’s great attention to intricate, linear, curving lines, to hand-painted details on the glasses themselves, all of this was determinately and obviously eliminated by the Bauhaus. Or, if you compare two materials that were designed, both in [Woolinsville?], the one on the right is by Anni Albers, who was... And again, she stresses the simple texture of the material. This design here on the left was done in about 1880, and again, there’s attention to figures or a leaf design, and there’s not so much attention to the natural quality of the silk and the wool. Now, it’s interesting [08:00] that as much as the Bauhaus differs in style from these curvilinear designs of the Art Nouveau, or of the curvilinear designs of those delicate glasses you saw just before, it’s very interesting that the Bauhaus style or aesthetic actually comes out of this Art Nouveau movement. Gropius’s ideas can actually be traced back to about 1850, to the beginning of the arts and crafts movement in England, which was started by a man called William Morris. In 1851, when these textiles were exhibited at the exhibition in London at the Crystal Palace, Morris was just Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 2 of 7 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “The Bauhaus: Origins and Architectural Concepts” by Rose-Carol Washton Long, 1967 overwhelmed by their ugliness. He found that they had no attention to the design -- the feeling of the material themselves. They tried to be three-dimensional on what was essentially a flat surface, and in addition, [09:00] he felt that the exhibition at the Crystal Palace was dominated by products that were essentially ugly. Those that were designed for the masses were, he found, just impossible to use. And the great emphasis, of course, was on designs that could be used only in the homes of the wealthy. So, Morris set out to revive what he called “the handicraft arts” -- the arts and crafts -- and he set up workshops where these could be improved. However, Morris felt that the machine, in contrast to what Gropius and others would feel later, he felt that the machine was the evil. Machine was causing all of this ugliness. So, he took it upon himself to go back to the medieval period, and here in design of his own, he took over their quality of flat patterns and intricate, woven design. At the same time, Morris emphasized that the architect must have responsibility to the society in which he lives. [10:00] And he helped to elevate these arts and crafts, the designing of textiles, the designing of pottery, the designing of lettering, to a new height. Now, during the 1880s and the 1890s, this arts and crafts movement spread all over Europe, and in France and England, there was the flowering of a new style which was called the Art Nouveau.