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From left: the Unesco-listed Bauhaus complex in Dessau, Germany; Nomos Glashütte’s limited-edition Tangente 33 Yellow is one of a series celebrating the The Haus design school, which turns 100 in 2019 always wins

How one German school shaped a century of design

By Jonathan Bell Credit Gutter Credit Gutter

70 71 Folio The Bauhaus

Below: the cover of one of the movement’s many influential design books, ‘The Stage industry. Gropius and his peers were in thrall most keenly felt in architecture. Josef and Anni at the Bauhaus’ (1925) Right: the school’s principles of clean-lined to the potential of the machine age, the apparent Albers went on to teach at the Black Mountain rationalism have informed many of the purity of ornament-free design created with a College in North Carolina, while Moholy-Nagy classic furniture designs of the past century single purpose. The Fagus Factory, which Gropius founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago in designed with Adolf Meyer and completed in 1937, now the IIT Institute of Design. Former stages from 1911, used glass and concrete to Bauhaus student Max Bill – known for his watch striking effect; this was architecture to serve designs for Junghans – co-founded the Ulm the new form of industry for the masses. School of Design in 1953; its close relationship Gropius believed his visual, technological with the likes of Braun’s design director Dieter and ideological purity could be brought to bear Rams furthered the Bauhaus ideals. Ultimately, on art education, teaching students to reject the certain forms of product design have come to old orders of decoration and hierarchy and their define the Bauhaus legacy, with any form of association with a corrupt and decadent society. geometric abstraction reflexively falling under The early years of the Bauhaus were shaped by a banner of Bauhaus style. “Bauhaus” became emerging factions and personality cults, as the shorthand for an ideological purge of mass nascent avant-garde found its way in the world. market design, with fussiness and chintz chucked Students came from all disciplines, including out in favour of clean, rational modernist rigour. painting, typography, sculpture and product Design that has a direct Bauhaus lineage design, as well as craft and architecture, while is still highly prized – Rams’ work for Braun, the impressive roster of tutors and lecturers Anni Albers’ fabrics or the furniture of Breuer included the Swiss painters Johannes Itten and and van der Rohe. In particular, Max Bill’s Paul Klee, the celebrated abstract artists Wassily watch designs, with their purity of form and Kandinsky and Lyonel Feininger, architect craftsmanship, distilled the core elements of the Marcel Breuer and a host of multi-discipline school’s philosophy into a single object. Yet there artists and designers, including László Moholy- are many mass-produced objects that make only Nagy, Gerhard Marcks, Herbert Bayer, Anni superficial reference to the school’s functionalist and Josef Albers, and Marianne Brandt. tenets but still tout the name; everything from cars to kettles can be lumped under the Bauhaus- lite umbrella. The school’s centenary celebrations will no doubt bring many more. Contemporary design is awash with influences, pioneering modern architect Walter Gropius. Some brands have drawn a more explicit as the visual swirl of digital culture provides The movement was formed out of a specific ‘For decades, some of the finest watches parallel with the Bauhaus era. Nomos Glashütte’s a constant stream of inspiration from past and set of cultural and social circumstances, at a time limited run of Tangente models takes inspiration present. Nowhere is this more in evidence than of economic deprivation and depleted national ever made have quoted Bauhaus as from a specific facet of Bauhaus-era design – in the world of the wristwatch, where great pride. Two existing German schools – the the bold primary colours deployed by the many names vie for prestige by drawing on many Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts, shorthand for a very particular approach’ abstract artists who taught and studied in the forms of visual language: historical, technical, and the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts – were to school. The Tangente is already something futuristic and, of course, pared-back geometric be resurrected following World War I, but Gropius of a design classic, taking the Bauhaus-Bill- modernism. One of the most artful names successfully argued for their merger, with the Rams approach to its case design with just a to drop is that of the Bauhaus, the influential new institution striving “to create a new guild of In 1925, the entire school moved to hint of inter-war decadence in the typography German school. For decades, some of the finest craftsmen, without the class distinctions which Dessau, taking up residence the following year of the numbers. For the new edition, Nomos’s watches ever made have quoted Bauhaus design raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and in a building designed by Gropius himself. primary source is the work of Paul Klee. – whether visually or literally – using the school artist”. (The oft-quoted modernist maxim “form Gropius resigned in 1928 and his successor, The nine-piece collection comes in three sizes as shorthand for a very particular approach. follows function”, on the other hand, actually Hannes Meyer, tried to take the school in a more – 33mm, 35mm and 38mm – with accents As the 100th anniversary of its foundation dates back to Chicago skyscraper pioneer Louis commercial direction. Yet the seeds of dissent of red, yellow and blue, each limited to 100 approaches, it’s worth exploring what ‘Bauhaus Sullivan at the end of the 19th century.) had been sown and the students were radicals in pieces. Klee’s deceptively simple sketches influenced’ actually means. The Bauhaus was in From the outset, the Bauhaus, initially an increasingly partisan and dangerous society. explored the relationship of primary colours, operation between 1919 and 1933, although some based in Weimar, incorporated both tradition The city of Dessau, which had funded the school, from subtle modulations to bold juxtapositions. of its ideals and approaches were resurrected at and a challenge to the existing order. It was fired Meyer in 1930, replacing him with the In the context of the rigorous industrial design the postwar Ulm School of Design, as well as always self-consciously German, harking back architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. His tenure of the watch, these splashes of colour enhance other offshoots in the USA. Despite this modest to the country’s tradition of craft guilds and was controversial, as the by-then Nazi-run city the palette of matt black and chrome. Nomos is historical footprint, the school’s cultural legacy apprenticeships, skills that had flowered briefly demanded the school be closed. Van der Rohe acknowledging that the Bauhaus was filled with is huge, and its surviving complex in Dessau is in Art Nouveau. Just six years after Henry Ford’s made compromises but in 1933 the inevitable colour, innovation and eccentricity. Gropius’s now a Unesco-listed monument serving as an moving assembly line in Michigan helped usher Above: Walter Gropius, founder happened and the Bauhaus was shut. original belief in egalitarian design might have of the Bauhaus, circa 1915 educational foundation. in the modern era, the Bauhaus opened with Right: Nomos Glashütte’s limited- Gropius, van der Rohe and Breuer, among been buried by a century of consumption, but

The Bauhaus’s first director was the a remit to combine the worlds of art, craft and edition Tangente Red Getty others, fled to the US, where their legacy was some principles seem to be everlasting.

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