Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

Margret Kentgens

With the Bauhaus in Dessau, Water Gropius created a building in 1925/26 that represented a "demonstration of architectural Modernism": (Wolfgang Pehnt). During the few years of its original use as a school with studios, until it was closed down by the Nazis in 1932, it had also become a center of crystallization for the creative forces of its times. Today, the Dessau Bauhaus Foundation again makes the famous building, which has been undergoing extensive restoration since 1997, a center for cultural activities: numerous projects and events at the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of the Bauhaus' foundation in Weimar (1999) and the EXPO 2000 will provide the building with even more public attention. The book documents all phases of the Bauhaus Building's history, use and constructs changes. The authors look at its meaning for contemporary architecture, culture and politics, and describe its history during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the GDR and up to the present. The themes range from the first architectural design to the future of the Bauhaus as a monument. With contributions by members of the Dessau Bauhaus as well as by independent specialists, and with a picture documentation that also goes back to unpublished materials from the Bauhaus Foundation archives, this multifaceted book represents the new standard volume on the Bauhaus Building.

The Dessau Bauhaus Building, 1926-1999

Between 1919 and 1933 the Bauhaus revolutionized the notions of architecture and design and construction methods that had hitherto prevailed. The buildings conceived by Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer had a lasting influence on the architecture of the twentieth century. Accordingly, the Bauhaus buildings in Weimar and Dessau were added to the list of World Heritage Sites in 1996. This soft-cover book is published to mark UNESCO's inclusion of a number of other buildings, among them the houses with balcony access in Dessau, the ADGB Trades Union School in Bernau, the Haus am Horn, and the old Art School and the old School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar.

Bauhaus World Heritage Site

Torsten Blume

Christian Hiller (Curator)

Edition Bauhaus 38 In 1921, Walter Gropius founded a theater workshop at the Bauhaus. It conducted new research and experiments on the relationship between humans and technology. The central protagonists Lothar Schreyer, Oskar Schlemmer, and L�szl� Moholoy-Nagy investigated the issues of mechanization, machine industrialization, and rationalization. They sought a new, meaningful relationship with the dynamized, increasingly technically animated environment. In their stage laboratory, they developed abstract motion studies, designed atmosphere machines, and built theater apparatus. They also organized the famous Bauhaus celebrations, where they staged themselves as a collective of new humans. For the first time, an exhibition and a catalog with sketches, drawings, photographs as well as films, figurines, costumes, models, and apparatus are now devoted to the experiments and concepts of the legendary Bauhaus stage.

Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

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