The original bauhaus: the history behind the object

POR MARIA TERESA SANTORO DÖRRENBERG
2019

Unique example, series, prototype, remake, original, copy, production, reproduction: Bauhaus.

In 2019, the German Bauhaus School of art and design completed 100 years. To commemorate the jubilee, Germany partied with the innovative central idea of an exposition entitled the “original bauhaus”, inaugurated on 06.09.2019 in the Berlinischen Galerie, in Berlin that continued on through to 27.01.2020, presenting 1,000 plays and acts in many of the museums, galleries as well as national and international private properties totalling 1,200 square meters of galleries.

Today everything has a little Bauhaus. A simple geometric shape and the use of new materials that are present in current objects and furniture, in typography, in art, in ceramics, in tapestry, in dance coreography, in architcture, inspired in the rationale and functionality of objects and constructions, in their durability, in the design and the beauty of its shape. It can be affirmed that, nowadays, there is not one aesthetic field in which Bauhaus has not left its mark. Supported through art and technique, light and color, rhythm and movement, the innovators and innovations are, even today, considered icons. In accordance with their teachers, among them; Wassily Kandinsky, Mies van der Rohe, Johannes Itten, design is everything and everything is design.

Fourteen years after its begining, in 1933, Nazism closed the school and the students and teachers spread throughout the world. If the war killed the school, it neither could kill its soul nor its concept of learning the exercise of experimentation mixed with fantasy free play. Solving questions and working simultaneously, teachers, draftsmen and students created and developed everyday objects, toys and games thus creating the Bauhaus style. They had innovated furniture and architecture all within an open, international and multiple democratic society  

The school’s conceptual objective, at the beginning of the XX century was to project plays, objects and other artefacts and goods made of simple materials which were both cheap and easily found, making the item accessible to a social class that previously might not have been able to purchase it, in other words, mass production. For example, a closet that previously would have been made by an artisan and, thus, needed to be made to order at a very high cost, through this Project of the Bauhaus school, this same closet could be mass produced, making it accessible to the salaried worker. Today, in the post-modern capitalist world, we have verified changes in the quality of the materials used, with a cheapening of the product and greater acessability. The furniture and decoration chain of stores Tok Stok is an example of this. Offices and homes are furnished with sofas and club chairs designed by Marcel Breuer, now made with synthetic leather and fit in perfectly with the original project. And the original design by Breuer is in authentic leather and quite expensive, and ends up in a few sophisticated furniture and decoration stores.        

Under the curatorship of Nina Wiedemeyer, of the Bauhau Museums-Archiv, the exposition followed philosophy of the centenary school. Instead of the traditional of its art and production, the visitor was met with proposals of creative exercises, in other words, he was encouraged to experience how the school functioned, participating in the experiences with the students of Bauhaus. It must have been very interesting to sit in Marcel Breuer’s chair, wearing the three dimensional mask created by Oscar Schlemmer for his dance spectacles and feel like a true participant of the school. The visitor could play with the geometric paper foldings which had inspired so many objects, sculptures, drawings and tapestries, thus creating their own artefacts, or evaluating the quality of the materials used to work on their designs or even creating their own personal objects.  

At the school, the students had theory classes where the teachers would discuss their composition principles. The teachers’ projects were analyzed and in this way the students were motivated to design from memory and inspired to trace their own ideas. To execute these, they would go the school’s workshops, experimenting with the existing techniques and media: woodwork, weaving, typography, studios of sculpture and painting, photographic slides, stenography, theater, etc.

Making up a part of this exposition, a book that would contain 50 historical exercises executed in the preparatory course at Bauhaus, was published, and mandatory for the student to enter the School of Art and Design. Through these projects, the student would initiate his learning in experimenting and in the practice of Bauhaus. The preparatory Bauhaus course was conducted by Johannes Itten, then later by László Moholy-Nagy and finally by Josef Albers. The book of tasks could be received when visiting or acquired at the gallery store. Having different and very didactic perspectives, it is accompanied by commentaries, drawings, photos and clarifying drafts of how the students were taught by using the philosophy of Bauhaus, its sense and practice, It offers the means and the methods used at the time, introducing, as well, the visitor to the school experience. The visitor also has access to the exercises of the preliminary courses practiced at the Bauhaus as soon as he enters the exposition. In a media station equipped with projection screens the visitor can virtually work with some of the composition and design taught at the school.        

Summarizing, an exposition sui generis, as unique as the school itself in thinking that art and its technique are inseparable in the development of the building of objects and things we use daily, answering to the desire for a new society in evolution.

INTERVIEW WITH THE CURATOR NINA WIEDEMEYER

 Is the “original Bauhaus” exhibit only shown in Germany?
The exposition “original Bauhaus” is still at the Galeria Berlinense until January 27th of 2020. An intinerancy in another country is not in the forecast, but maybe some aspect or a part of this exhibit will be. We are in conversation and mediating with Institute Goethe in Athens and Bucharest because of the receptivity of the exhibit and the Bauhaus itself has been evaluated as especially innovative and had enchanted the visitors in Berlin.

Does the exhibit invite the visitor to participate in the experience of the Bauhuas students of the 20s? Which is the greatest difficulty the visitors have in doing the simulation in the exhibit? 
The mediatic station of the Berlin artists, Syntop, digitally transferred some exercises of the preparatory course of Bauhaus. In this station, the visitors can virtually test that which was taught and practiced in the preparatory courses. Clearly, the reality is not the same as simulation.  Teaching and learning is a living process. In this manner, inspired in the Bauhaus preparatory course the current art schools the world over practice these fundamentals taught at Bauhaus. What we have achieved in this exhibit was to make these fundamental experiments accessible and current via digital.     

Despite the short existence of the Bauhaus school, it has survived and it can be said today that currently everything is a bit Bauhaus. What is the idea or fundamental concept of its survival? 
With the passing of 100 years, I believe that we still speak about Bauhaus because its method of teaching (theory, innovation plus practice) continues to fascinate us. The “original Bauhaus” is interested in the imaterial heritage of Bauhaus, for example, in the exercises of the preparatory courses that I personally find very important from a social aspect. All of the students need to pass the preparatory courses as a condition to begin their studies at the school. And whoever experiences anything having the spirit of the group, is cohesive while simultanously individually diffused.   

What was most surprising for you in the research for the exhibit? 
The thing that surprised me most during my research was the breadth of the data that the school worked, in other words, the heterogeneity of Bauhaus. It is false to state that there was only one Bauhaus. There was esoterism and functionality at the school, heterodoxy and purists. And Bauhaus can not be summarized as a line of mass-production, or one style of direction, but rather as a school with many different people with different mentalities and nationalities, at a very especial historic time between two world wars. This is what surprised me most and what continues to keep Bauhaus interesting, and this is what we tried to transmit in the exhibit “original Bauhaus”.