Bringing Bauhaus Back: Digital Architecture + Contemporary Craft

SHELBY ELIZABETH DOYLE Iowa State University

“The Bauhaus believes the machine to be our modern practice by introducing direct production control, digital craft, specu- medium of design and seeks to come to terms with it.” lative projects, and methods for re-centering the architect’s role —Walter Gropius, The Theory and Organization of around the act of construction rather than coordination. the Bauhaus The questions raised by the conditions of contemporary practice and German architect Walter Gropius founded the its continuous introduction of new technologies demand an architec- Bauhaus in 1919 and after fourteen prolific years, it tural education model that explores shifting boundaries between the physical and electronic worlds. This paper concludes with an examina- closed. Despite its short tenure, the ramifications of tion of how the Bauhaus provides a framework for this transition. In the Bauhaus are still present in architectural educa- an age of digital social networks, the future of built and public spaces tion and practice. Its core objective was a radical, and will largely depend on an architectural education that navigates inter- still unrealized, concept: the unity of art and technol- action between the physical and the virtual. This digital realm is an ogy. The introduction of contemporary digital tools, extension of the imaginary space of design, rather than the replace- techniques, and materials make this unity possible ment for architecture or physical space. in new and profound ways thereby extending the Digital walls do not keep out physical rain or as Malcom McCullough Bauhaus project into the present day as a meaningful states there is “the seeming paradox of intangible craft.” Rather, model for architectural education and digital craft. digitally controlled manufacturing and fabrication extend digital architecture into physical space and lead to a realization of the INTRODUCTION architect-craftsman that John Ruskin sought to revive, but through The most significant achievement of the Bauhaus may be its nurtur- methods Ruskin could not have anticipated. The future of archi- ing of a sustained cross-media conversation about the nature of art tectural education should include reflections on the Bauhaus in the modern age. Gropius explained his vision for a union of art architect-craftsman: “The ultimate goal of all visual artistic activity and design in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus, which described a is construction!... Let us establish a new guild of craftsmen without utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, and painting the presumption of class distinctions building a wall of arrogance into a single creative expression. The reemergence and refinement between craftsmen and artists.” Or more simply put: “Build, don’t of this vision can be seen in interdisciplinary (anti-disciplinary) design talk.” (Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe) research groups such as the MIT Media Lab which exist at the conver- gence of technology, multimedia, science, art, and design. This paper ARCHITECTURE AS PROFESSION + DISCIPLINE explores architectural models for reviving specific aspects of Bauhaus “Architecture today has forfeited its status as a unifying art” pedagogies that adapt and further the project of architectural edu- —Walter Gropius cation. Rather than a resuscitation of Modernism this research Emigration from Germany during the 1930s brought the methods considers ways in which architects, operating in a digital culture, can of the Bauhaus to North America at a time while the discipline and be designers of constructive systems and provide the foundation of a profession were still searching for a uniquely American identity. In new tectonic culture. North America the institutionalized practice and study of architecture Examples of this new turn include architectural pedagogies, research began in the late nineteenth century concurrent with the broader labs, and degree programs that rely upon the arrival of digital fab- emergence of professionalism and the research university. The rication shops in architectural departments and the emergence of Bauhaus model was disruptive to these developments. It emphasized new and exploratory design/build programs. These educational innovation and was seen as an alternative to the Beaux Arts system’s approaches invert the gap between teaching and professional emulation of the works of the past. Its curriculum was built around

36 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 1862 The Morrill Land Grant Act mechanic arts

Number of Architecture Programs in US 0

1933-57 Black Mountain College

1919-33 1936 Bauhaus The Graduate School of Design Established - Walter Gropius

1937-49 Institute of Design in Chicago - Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

1938 IIT’s Department of Architecture - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 1857 Founding of the American Institute of Architects

1897 Advent of Licensure

1919 National Council of Architectural Registration Boards

1983 First NCARB Architectural Registration Exam

1926 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

1939 National Architectural Accrediting Board

1947 Journal of Architectural Education

1956 American Institute of Architecture Students

Figure 1. Concurrent threads in the development of the architectural discipline and profession. workshops and laboratories where students carried out collabora- As architectural education became increasingly institutionalized it tive hands-on building projects. Ranging from experiential education found itself inextricably bound up with professional norms through work sites, collective effort, and community service, the Bauhaus the protocols of accreditation and licensure. The profession intended workshops resonated with the educational theories of the American to serve the public interest and thereby earn the public’s trust Pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, who placed experience at the through institutional structures. This left the academic discipline in center of learning. Dewey saw the teacher not as a lecturer to an an ongoing search for an identity that was separate from that of the audience but an active partner in the learning process and conceived profession. of schools as social instruments that should harness young peoples Figure 1 brings together a series of concurrent strains influencing the ‘impulses and tendencies to make, to do, to create (and) to produce, development of the discipline and profession of architecture. Graph whether in the form of utility or of art.” A cohesive summary of the 1 identifies the first formal architecture curriculum in 1865 and the development of American architectural education can be found in subsequent increase of programs until the present day. Graph 2 Joan Ockman’s Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating places the Bauhaus in the context of the development of the North Architects in North America. American architectural system and identifies its transition to North

Architecture/Practice Cross-Americas: Probing Disglobal Networks 37 Enlightenment. He also scorned hereditary members of the elite who America: Black Mountain College, The Graduate School of Design, did no work and so in Diderot’s opinion contributed nothing to soci- Institute of Design, and IIT’s Department of Architecture. Graph 3 ety. His definition of craft is as follows: addresses the institutionalization of professional practice through the establishment of the American Institute of Architects, the “CRAFT. This name is given to any profession that development of licensing requirements and the National Council of requires the use of the hands, and is limited to a Architectural Registration Board. Graph 4 addresses the institutional- certain number of mechanical operations to pro- ization of the academic discipline of architecture: the establishment duce the same piece of work, made over and over of the National Architectural Accreditation Board, the Association again. I do not know why people have a low opin- of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the publication of the Journal ion of what this word implies; for we depend on of Architectural Education, and the introduction of the American the crafts for all the necessary things of life.” Institute of Architecture Students. —Denis Diderot, The Encyclopedia 1747-1765. A series of characteristics drawn from the Bauhaus may provide a As can be seen in Diderot’s explanation, the idea of craft and its counterpoint to the professionalization of the architectural academy: embodiment of the thinking maker produced discomfort as it upset embracing an anti-academic spirit against disciplinary stricture, focus- a social order where thinking and making were separated and making ing on everyday life, addressing anxieties about the soullessness of subordinate to thinking. This separation is not new; it extends to the manufacturing and its products, challenging fears about architec- very foundations of philosophy. As Jacques Ranciere demonstrates in ture’s loss of purpose in society, stressing intellectual and theoretical his book The Philosopher and His Poor: “So there is only one principle pursuits, and linking these to an emphasis on practical skills, crafts of exclusion (from political life). Plato’s Republic does not decree that and techniques, and finally leveling the old hierarchy of design dis- one cannot be a shoemaker and a citizen at the same time. It simply ciplinary silos and hierarchies. Today the architectural discipline’s establishes that one cannot be a shoemaker and a weaver at the same boundaries are extraordinarily fluid, which affords architecture the time…” (Ranciere, 2004) In doing so Plato sets forth that the shoe- capacity to modify its claims to knowledge, modes of production, and maker has only been given enough time to do one thing and therefore range of projects. Schools of architecture are faced with an unusual cannot encroach on the monopoly of thought and leisure that the opportunity and responsibility to explore and scrutinize these rapidly philosopher enjoys. The thinking-maker disrupts the neat hierarchical evolving interests and endeavors by drawing on their own complex social order which preferences the philosopher, as thinker, over the history of research and speculation. Of particular potency is the re- artisan, as laborer. The introduction of digital tools and technologies introduction of craft and the craftsman to architectural education. further undermines traditional hierarchies and social orders.

DEFINING CRAFT DEFINING DIGITAL CRAFT “Let us create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions “The best way to appreciate the merits and consequences of being which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist.” — digital is to reflect on the differences between bits and atoms.” Walter Gropius —Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital (Negroponte, 1995)

Gropius lauded craft and the craftsmen. A closer look at what it What happens then if architecture cedes craft to the digital realm? means to craft reveals the political and social potential of craft as a Or rather, gives up the very thing, which gave it agency in the first pedagogic framework. The term craft is derived from the Middle place? Is the digital realm an extension of the imaginary space or a English craeft, meaning strength and skill. Craft can also be associ- replacement for physical space? And does this cyberspace extend ated with the professional affiliation of a guild or trade association. architectural agency or limit it? Issues of dimension, heft, tactility, It first came into widespread use in conjunction with the advent of and materiality remain essential to architecture as built environment, guilds – self-protective medieval associations or private clubs of no matter how tantalizing the pixilated world may be. Digital fabri- artisans with formally cultivated talents rooted in innate and rare cation and its associated tools provide a tactile counterpoint to the abilities. Craft creates intimate relations between problem solv- image-based environment otherwise prevalent in digital work. For the ing and problem finding, technique and expression, play and work. purpose of this paper, the digital turn in architecture occurred in the (Sennett, 2008) It brings to mind material, matter, repetition, tal- early 1990s and is defined as the computerization of design, construc- ent, time, pride and dedication. Craft comes burdened with accusa- tion, and fabrication processes. This is marked by a transition from tions of nostalgia, Luddite tendencies and perhaps even a regressive designs based upon a Cartesian grid to those constructed from a digi- attachment to the past and the pre-industrial. In the mid 17th cen- tal field condition abstracted within computational space. Specifically, tury Denis Diderot spent the better part of twenty years identi- the introduction of continuous computational splines that are variable fying and documenting crafts. The result: The Encyclopedia, or within defined limits and can be notated as parametric functions or Dictionary of Arts and Crafts, exhaustively recorded how practical mathematical relationship between parts. (Carpo, 9) things are accomplished and proposed ways to improve them. In The Encyclopedia Diderot, places manual pursuits on equal footing with Digital craft emerges from computational thinking, digital fabrication mental labors, asserting that the craftsman’s labors were icons of the and robotic construction; processes that allow the full participation

38 Bringing Bauhaus Back r a

e Co a Y m edi put l M l f atio a r ita n a g i H

e D

Y D f | ig

a l y i lit ta H P a P l L e s E E i R r R t

S R S e

E a E r

R R

L d L e e

U I e U I

M t M

O O

n c

I I

N e N y

C C e

a r

S A A

Y e Y n

n t g i S

i u u

Y T h r

d R n R

n ls y u o ls

R R i t

o o t o

i o o a e o

t T Y A c T i Y

A c f A u n e

d N r d a

n t n

r r

t a a s a b D

C C

N h N i

s n

s t s s l

I n l u I I l it i

I a T r a y g

i O i O e a r

r r

e W e W i e

M t E M t E t

I a N O U I a N O U a Y

O O O O

L M T D L M T D

S R n S R F

o w a

E i E

S t S

R R g U r

E E

in IL i

c r

i e D c

P P e

r n IN a

M M

b g G t

n i

Y a Y o

E E p E

F d n

A T A a T

BUILDING n c

L l L

A A

a t

practical buildiing i

a c

C C

L t g L

T T i

experience l i

e e g b

a COMPUTATION

i l

c c i u

n n building experiments

i u

h h D

d s d s

l l

n n

a a

R i R i A

i N i

c c CONSTRUCTION g

r r

e e

a a G

e e

p p g

l l

t x t

r C r C

DESIGN m

a a

e e

Builidng and Engineering D

o o i

s M y s M e

n n

e e c

f f

Sciences e

G S G S

s s

n n b

o a o

t u

t t i

l r

E E

t t m L L i i

r r r n

g e

p e

a s a x s

u u

L e L i i d

t A I t A I r

c s c s

i i

o S o S

t T y e t T y

l l

n i t n i

o o

S X i S X

a a e

n n

E n L E n a

T A l T A

l i

t y i

COLOR COLOR

r, r,

o o i

T l T l t

heo , Co heo , Co a

r e o r e

y c y c l of Spa i of Spa

n a n

Compositio Compositio e

d p

i E E a

xp p m xp p

e o o e o

r E h C r E h

i l s i l s

m e k m e k

m rm r m rm r

e e o e e o

n nt F o n nt F o

ary of ary of

t Theory W t Theory W

s s

w y w y r r

i a i a th n th n M i M i aterials in the Prelim aterials in the Prelim

Figure 2. To left is the Bauhaus curriculum and to the right is a proposed craft remains the most valuable tool at the architect’s disposal, as expansion and retooling of this curriculum in response to the advent of Gropius espoused. computational and digital technologies. UNITY OF ART + TECHNOLOGY of architects in the production of buildings and thereby extend archi- “We are gathering experiments.” —Josef Albers tecture’s agency to engage in a larger social and political project. A Human Condition close reading of the demonstrates that the spheres Digital technologies have indelibly transformed the visual language of presented by Hannah Arendt: labor, work, and action are intercon- design education, supplanting traditional hand-made drawings and nected and in the present day are merged through architectural models. New equipment like computer numerically controlled machines technology to extend the participation of architects in the construc- and three-dimensional printers and the rise of digital modeling have tion process beyond the cultural and physical confines of bodily emphasized software proficiency over manual skills, causing older practice. notions of creativity and craft to be reconsidered.

Craft has long been seen as the antithesis of the evils of modernity At the same time, the possibilities for collaboration and production and industrialization. Against the rigorous perfection of the machine, opened up by computer remain threefold for architecture: a retrench- the craftsmen became an emblem of human individuality, symbol- ment and consolidation that reasserts centric disciplinarity, an expan- ized by the positive value placed on variations, flaws and irregulari- sion that dilutes architecture’ disciplinary specificity, or transdisciplinary ties in handiwork. The capacity to craft, to think through making, redefinitions and reconfigurations that both intensify and attenuate instills architecture with an explicit agency to engage outside of the architecture’s identity and limits. academy and the discipline. The introduction of digital craft into contemporary practice extends, rather than limits, this agency in Of the three transdisciplinary redefinitions offer the most prom- the social (or political) project of architecture. The process of think- ise. Computation is the foundational language of the digital and this ing through making and the accompanying non-linear methods posi- shared language creates opportunities for engagement across design tion architects to identify pathways of thought into contemporary disciplines. In connection with the rise of digital culture, the contri- issues, and then make visible that which remains unseen to other dis- bution of architecture may very well lie in the domain of augmented ciplines. Craft encourages imagination and through imagination the reality, that is, dealing with the interface between the physical and architect enters into the spheres of life, which are not immediate to the virtual, rather than focusing almost exclusively on the latter. It personal experience: the social (or political) project of architecture. is not by accident that an institution like the MIT Media Lab, works This imagination is a powerful agent as well. The ability to imagine a mainly on questions of interface, is affiliated with a school of archi- better world equipped with the capacity to act, is to craft an object tecture. As Negroponte foresaw it - correctly - that interface would with intentionality and purpose. As the discipline continues to strug- one day become an architectural problem. gle with self-identity and the direction of its fragmented authority,

Architecture/Practice Cross-Americas: Probing Disglobal Networks 39 ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS IN PRIVATE PRACTICE

INDUSTRY

c a

t O e

p e

n P e ra n C o

d e

r i

f s P

o t

i v o

O U a ie t

i n d i

s b p F F m

t e

r a a N d s c

r n

o b i I e e n e f

j r n C s w n

i d

i c f n o I

ro a n a a F t n r t

a m i n i P e u G o d

o a lds y n b i

t n P i

e t

i i , t er

i t

r o c t Co v

o i

fo e n n

t nc u n c C t e

r c

e e o m tr

a s P i

r s C o A p

s C

s n ro i e t e n r c c

of u p s d o at

ct e N u x ARCHITECTURAL & r t

C r c s i i a n o n E e t d

g i l & n e w o P

e , e TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

n t F i

g & M m

a u

y n

at b i

D b

o r i

l O n

w is e ic r t

p r n p t i a e r a n e i ti a

l b m n l o D u s o N

P s n E n

p C

e t g U i i

o s v P s s

e n e

r e p e l o i e D l o C N c d c i n ns of p r e p e e v ie s e w s p r ds a s o e r p

u M r p tes F e x da

S O o s P n i E a d e ld t e D lds ie S ls es F g d nd in f fo n a n o ig a s ai r n r t ve r g P n i s T M f a t a in o r l c e ic n a o P je Id s i s r s b a a I d r & r s n u e O n B T ff s tio d P d c O p a de e r u t lo m i z o io e or v li s v nf ro ia d ts n e I c u t D e P e c r ng p t y ha S

io xc e n E id v

o r P

c r

o i

t THE ARCHITECTURAL CENTER

i C

l a

r +

s O

u n

d l

n n

I e

, l N

a e

oci w o

S h r k

, c s y r l s a a i s m G e r d o s e u t o s n e l i h P d o a t a R i ro a c M e r nc t E e v n M t i , w d e e a e e e n in m o M A s c N i n t c O P n r o c of t l ie r o i r a i f v g n c ru s v t e C a n s e S s i n i t ng w i iza e En l e o r on a n o t H u N C u p io a o P n Q e m , t m w r ne r a o e h n u i e f o t s e H m N f i P , rc I o r n n r C a m s s a f o i l e i or i e r t p r i je t a n i s e i e o e m c e r l t e p i t s D e r a P , x e R R t v t l R io a e f E a e C n n a e o f h g M D from ni l s i i z io s o f l n & a n g s o g t b t s n l s io i g a G & u e t n d s n t s o R ti in e a E v s g e e F R r e ti P n s T s u m e e bl a e r v i I nt c n c nit I A & h c ia Pr c te e s iv pt a a P te n u ce b l S ic e a c n W to d o r S rk u s p RESEARCH p o LABORATORIES rt

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Figure 3. Redrawn from diagram by Herbert Matter originally published in “The Architectural Center: An Organization to Coordinate Building Research, Planning, Design, and Costruction,” New Pencil Points, July 1943.

40 Bringing Bauhaus Back collection of academic and non-profits in pursuit of these ideals: MIT As architectural education becomes increasingly invested in the Media Lab, Rural Studio, Design Corps, Structures for Inclusion con- teaching and methods of computation the act of construction has never before been a more important counterpoint. Contemporary ference, Public Architecture, Studio 804, to name only a few. architecture schools are tasked with introducing digital technologies THE ARCHITECTURE CENTER as they are changing, creating an opportunity to develop innova- “Eventually architecture’s status may be that it becomes a fixture of tive curricula and democratize access to these skills. As the Bauhaus the university—as a testament of the plenitude of an earlier human- proclaimed the goal must be to educate future designers to engage ism—next to the Classics Department, as just another repository of realistically with contemporary modes of production and to forge a dead languages.” —John McMorrough Design for the Apocalypse relationship between artistic culture and industrial production.

What would the structure of this revised and relevant discipline look EXPANDED PEDAGOGY like? The Architecture Center, proposed by A Lawrence Kocher and Achieving a unity of art and technology in an architectural curriculum Howard Dearstyne, in 1943, offers an idea. Kocher and Dearstyne requires an adaptation of the original Bauhaus curriculum. (Figure 2) were instructors at the Black Mountain College a uniquely American In response to the advent of computational and digital technologies strain of Bauhaus’ pedagogy. The Center was to act as a national this new curricular model expands the preliminary course to include clearing-house for building research, planning, design, and con- the introduction of common computational language, digital literacy, struction. It would provide fabrication and assembly shops and digital media, and digital fabrication. At the core of the curriculum is testing facilities, set up branch units, and create a media arm that the integration of computation and construction as the culminating would implement a program of lectures, radio broadcasts (now workshop of the curriculum. By combining computation with construc- web media), exhibitions, and publications to education the general tion making is presented as a way of learning both about materials and public about contemporary architecture. It’s central objective – to about their digital representations. Therefore, materiality is presented forge new relationships between architects and industry proved as a method for combating the dysphoria of contemporary life and the prescient and is still relevant. Figure 3, is a redrawn from Herbert visual supremacy of digital practice. Matter’s original graphic presented in New Pencil Points magazine. The original (and still valid) structure and organization remain rel- COMPUTATION + CONSTRUCTION evant, the author has added the blue circle to indicate the addition “Computation and materiality now seem inseparable at every level, of a unifying digital and social network presence, a technology that from the macro- to the micro and nanoscales.” —Antoine Picon did exist at the time but which could allow an organization such as Bauhaus modernism paid remote attention to generic and somewhat The Architectural Center to flourish in the contemporary discourse. abstract formulations of social issues. Its translation to the North An organization such as The Architectural Center, could provide American context brought with it a particularly American blend of ide- the unity of technology, education, and practice that the discipline alism with pragmatism. Gropius placed workshops at the center of a needs to maintain relevance. progressive curriculum that aimed to fuse craft and design education with avant-garde artistic practice. In doing so, the Bauhaus methods CONCLUSION of architectural learning-by-doing often linked experiential education Digital worlds should not be seen as alternatives or substitutes for with both the social agenda of modern architecture and technological the built world, but rather as an additional dimension which allows experimentation. This pedagogy cultivated a culture of making through architects a new freedom of movement in the physical world. In other workshop based teaching – one of the goals of which was to train words, the transcendence of physicality in the digital world allows designers for industrial production and construction. These collabora- architects to extend their agency in the physical world. (Carpo, 10) tive work-sites evolved into the digital tooled design/build studios of Digital craft brings together the physical and digital worlds thereby present day. Design/Build is a unique architectural education model creating the unity of arts and technology Gropius called for in his of project-based learning that empowers students to construct their Proclamation of the Bauhaus nearly one hundred years ago. The his- designs in collaboration with local communities. Digital Fabrication toric and theoretic framework presented here aims to move forward leverages computer-aided design/manufacturing technologies and the project of the Bauhaus into the present day, and in doing so offers integrates tools from the aerospace, automotive, and shipbuilding a theoretical position for a more progressive introduction to compu- industries. It has altered both the way buildings are conceived and tation and construction in contemporary architectural pedagogy. manufactured. The combination of these disciplines allows for direct, hands-on engagement with technology and challenges students to ENDNOTES explore methodologies poised to have an innovative impact on the 1. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958 future of the architectural academy and profession. 2. Carpo, Mario. The Digital Turn In Architecture 1992-2012: Ad Reader Wiley, 2012 3. Deamer, Peggy and Phillip G. Bernstein. Building (In) The Future: Recasting Labor in When computation is leveraged in the construction of space the Architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010. Bauhaus project is most fully realized in the unity of art and tech- 4. Dewey, John. How We Think. Boston: Dc Heath & Company Publishers, 1910. 5. Diderot, Denis Encyclopedia, Or Classified Dictionary Of Sciences, Arts, And nology. By this definition the Bauhaus is currently located in a Trades, France, 1747-1765.

Architecture/Practice Cross-Americas: Probing Disglobal Networks 41 6. McCullough, Malcolm. Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996. 7. McMorrough, John. Design for the Apocolypse. C-Lab. Volume 20: Storytelling, 2009. 8. Negroponte, Nicholas. Being Digital. New York. Knopf 1995 9. Pye, David. The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Cambridge: The University Press, 1968. 10. Piano, Renzo. “Renzo Piano Building Workshop: In Search of Balance,” Process Architecture. Tokyo, Japan, N.100, 1992 11. Picon, Antoine. Digital Culture in Architecture: An Introduction for the Design Professions. Birkhauser GmbH, 2010. 12. Ranceiere, Jacques. The Philosopher and His Poor. Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press, 2004. 13. Ruskin, John. “The Crown of Wild Olive, Lecture Iv”. The Future of England, Section 151, 1866. 14. Scarry, Elaine. The Body In Pain: The Making And Unmaking Of The World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. 15. Sennet, Richard. The Craftsman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. 16. Smith, Adam. The Theory Of Moral Sentiments New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books 2009

42 Bringing Bauhaus Back