Taking a Stand? Debating the Bauhaus and Modernism, Heidelberg: Arthistoricum.Net 2021, P
Manifestations of Bauhaus on the Mainland: Historical Advent of China’s Modernities in Arts, Crafts, and Architecture Chin-Wei Chang Chang, Chin-Wei, Manifestations of Bauhaus on the Mainland: Historical Advent of China’s Modernities in Arts, Crafts, and Architecture, in: Bärnreuther, Andrea (ed.), Taking a Stand? Debating the Bauhaus and Modernism, Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net 2021, p. 295-313, https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.843.c11915 Fig. 1 The images of Bauhaus Dessau (top right), Gropius and Meyer (bottom left) published in: Manufacture and Crafts, 1931, Issue 2 297 Chin-Wei Chang bauhaus and politics Mies van der Rohe liaised with influential Nazi ideologue Alfred national socialist politics Rosenberg to win his support for reopening the Bauhaus in Ber- lin on the day after its closure on 11th April 1933. Rosenberg’s simple, yet incisive, question «Why didn’t you change the name for heaven’s sake?»1 reverberated in a 2009 exhibition monograph published by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York— a publication largely indebted to the foundational work by Hans Maria Wingler, who proposed that the Bauhaus-Archiv be estab- lished. It revealed that this leading Nazi ideologue considered the name «Bauhaus» far more dangerous than the school itself, be- cause it had become a powerful signifier for radical left-wing cul- bauhaus signifying ture. The idea that the Bauhaus could have been reopened in the left-wing culture Nazi era under a new name and clearly defined conditions was not a new insight upon the school’s 90th anniversary, but it is interest- ing to find it at such a historical moment in an institution that was from its very beginnings deeply connected with the Bauhaus and its mythologization.
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