did not cease to be a plaything, and she set Bauhaus Connection her sights high with genuine constructions). Josenia Hervás They were, however, not the only ones who had realised that they could cross over to the other side of the barrier: they could be evenness, plurality, left, feminine, movement, curve, darkness, bas and oblong, but also oddness, unity, right, masculine, rest, straight, light, good and square. They could be both peras and apeiron, it was just a question of making up your mind and being allowed to. When in 1949 Simone de Beauvoir wrote the For that reason Marie Curie felt so proud first volume of her book The Second Sex, she when her daughter Irene, who was only 7 knew perfectly well what she was facing, she years old, answered her in a letter dated had to go back hundreds of years. For this in 1908: “My sweet Mé: I’ve solved one of reason she started off her book by quoting your problems at the first go; the one of the Pythagoras: “There is a good principle that age of the boy who in 3 years’ time will be has created order, light and man, and a bad the square of the age he was 3 years ago principle that has created chaos, darkness [she develops the problem to her and her and woman”1. verification] I send you a kiss”5. For her part, Obviously, in the early beginnings of the Curie congratulates Irene on her sixteenth Bauhaus they were also familiar with the birthday from London, with a letter full Pythagoreans. When mention was made of of tenderness, but with an additional little the circular and the cosmic, the suctioning, something at the end saying “I send you a kiss the feminine, the soft shapes versus the with my whole heart, my daughter, and also a square and the active and masculine2, they procedure for construction of an ellipse that were going back to the Pythagorean Table perhaps you know. Your mother”6. Obviously, of Opposites where Limited (peras) was Irene was quite certain right from her birth oddness, unity, right, masculine, rest, straight, that she could cope with ellipses, curves as light, good and square. On the contrary, well as with squares and straight lines. It is Unlimited (apeiron) meant evenness, not surprising to know that Irene and her plurality, left, feminine, movement, curve, sister Éve spent one or two summers with darkness, bad and oblong. her mother, Albert Einstein and his son in the Swiss valley of Engadine. It is no surprise Many women began to study assuming either that Einstein belonged to the Circle of that peras and apeiron were two scientific- Friends of the Bauhaus as a member. philosophical principles and therefore unalterable. They also assumed that The education received too by Wera Meyer- mathematics, spatial conception, the art of Waldeck, one of the women architects creating and abstraction were not, to put it that graduated at the Bauhaus, spent her mildly, their strong points. It is, therefore, not childhood in Alexandria. The First World surprising that the student of the Bauhaus War made it unfeasible to extend their stay Helene Nonné-Schmidt should state that “the in Egypt, so the family moved to the Swiss woman who is engaged in jobs of an artistic valley of Engadine, where both she and her nature generally acts more successfully in sisters received their education at home, in the sphere of two-dimensional surfaces” and accordance with the German curricula. In that “this is undoubtedly due to the fact that 1928, when interviewed in the student journal she lacks the force of spatial representation, Bauhaus, she showed her versatility in the which is innate in man”3. Even the student following manner: Alma Buscher, who had started her studies in the textiles workshop and managed to “My manner of viewing life, in the broadest change to the carpentry shop of the Bauhaus sense, is to remain steadfast to my present in Weimar, already felt too unconventional way of living. Take an interest in everything, on account of this and in view of the great understand everything I study, without success she obtained with her toys, she ceasing to be critical. I had that way of being contented herself with her tiny constructions, even before coming to the Bauhaus. It has claiming that “I don’t want to do anything only been corroborated, because here is else, not cubism, not expressionism, just an where I have found it. amusing play of colours, done with shiny angular forms based on the principles of the This is why I also want to broaden the blocks of old constructions”4. Yet, curiously, founding principles of the Bauhaus even the first symptom of scientific and artistic more. Its general interests are still confined knowledge, was already present in them and to too narrow an objective. For me literature, these women could not repress their desire to dance or music are just as interesting as learn. In fact, their notes and drawings betray shapes, colour, mathematics or any problem the fact that neither resigned themselves of statics. In a place like Dessau, where very nor ended up believing what they initially few stimuli arrive from the outside, it is here proclaimed. We still preserve some of Helen’s inside where a larger number of things have splendid exercises of descriptive geometry in to happen to prevent us from focusing on an Klee’s class (the student Jan van der Linden excessively partial view.”7 admitted he was unable to copy due to their complexity) and of Alma, some Construction For her, there were no longer polarities or notes with examples of foundations and floor dividing lines; as literature, music or colour frames amongst others (it seems that the were just as interesting as mathematics or any diminutive, even though bright and glossy, problem of statics. JOSENIA HERVÁS 165 Wera had the privilege of studying at the aspire to being a member of society invested received a call from the University of Harvard Bauhaus with the three directors that the with equal rights to the man, her equal in in the USA and Professor Mies van der Rohe, School had. A diligent student, persevering all concepts.” Bebel’s party companion, the with whom I did my final-year degree project, in her work, she worked together with feminist Clara Zetkin, had her photograph went on to give classes at the University of Gropius on the interior design of the Dessau taken by Lucía Moholy-Nagy in 1930. She was Chicago. Both of them still continue teaching). Employment Office built between 1928- 1929, already an old lady, but the depth of her look as appears in her Bauhaus diploma. After and her worn hands made her a venerable In 1934 I took up a job as a draughtsman at being hired by Hannes Meyer at his Berlin person worthy of passing down to posterity, Junkers because they did not allow me to studio to undertake all furnishing and service in the eyes of the great photographer. practise as an architect. In 1937, when the aspects of the Trade Union School in Bernau, period of the great unemployment had come Mies van der Rohe was finally the master who Wera’s employment situation at the time to an end, I was allowed to hold a post in signed her professional qualification degree of the German political crossroads in the the Reich autobahn network, in the Works in architecture in 1932. nineteen thirties was more complex. In a Division. In this section my work concerned clearly discriminatory scenario on a racial the architectural form of the bridges and I Wera’s professional career was tarnished by level, the question of gender became a participated in the great “Elbehochbrücke” the abrupt events that overshadowed her problem of lesser importance. Since Wera did bridge over the Elba project. This project country. The arrival of the Nazis prevented not marry and had no children, her situation was followed by the planning of a tertiary numerous groups of professionals from as a young Arian professional kept her out of office and independent post offices. In 1939 continuing to work either because of their work in her early days, but she quickly rose in I transferred from the Works Division to the Jewish blood, or else due to their political category and went on to occupy positions of Reich railway network Building Division, ideas. Yet being a woman also made a the highest responsibility while the men were at my own request. In 1942 a distinguished difference too. At a time of extremely high away at the front. colleague procured me a post as an architect unemployment, the law encouraged married in the Construction Division of the company women to give up their jobs and then the It was when the war finished that she was Berg-Und Hüttenwerks-Gesellschaft, at its couple were rewarded for the vacancy confronted with a compromising situation subsidiary Karwin-Trzynietz. I took up the created. Providing the nation with new again. First she had to show that she had not post on 1 May 1942, assuming responsibility births also had a monetary incentive. The collaborated with Hitler’s regime in any way, for the design line as well as the development fact of taking a step back to leave the few and then try and maintain the same status of of the company’s mining and metalworking employment opportunities to the male gender professional responsibility that she obtained plants and offices. I worked at Karwin until was not only part of the ideology fomented by when she did not have to compete with men.