Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus Question
How the conceptual idea of school was born
The Bauhaus was a school of architecture and design founded in Germany and active between 1919 and 1933.
It was born in the socio-cultural context of the Weimar Republic, the unofficial name given to the German Reich.
The school was located in Weimar itself from 1919 to 1925, while it was first transferred to Dessau from 1925 to 1932, and finally to Berlin between 1932 and 1933, being then closed as it was hostile to the Nazi ideal.
The conceptual idea of the school was the work of Walter Gropius, who created its identity and promoted its openness.
The building represented the point of reference for all the innovative movements in the field of design and architecture linked to rationalism and functionalism, incorporated into the large container of the Modern Movement.
But the school also exalted the industrial nature of ideas and products, so much so that even today the German company Tecta produces reproductions of furniture elements designed by the Bauhaus, making use of documents and drawings from the period.
Walter Gropius had been waiting since 1915 to be able to independently direct the Weimar School of Applied Arts, which was closed when the mental (as well as social) chaos of the time justified the removal of its founder Henry van de Velde because he was a foreigner.
However, Van de Velde had the lucidity to indicate Gropius himself for the Ministry, proposing him as a possible successor together with Hermann Obrist or August Endell.
In October of the same year, Gropius was called to direct the school's architecture section.
The Bauhaus was initially subsidized by the city of Weimar itself, which was administered at that time by the Social Democrats. Following the change of government, however, several disagreements with the authorities together with a growing hostility of the city's public opinion, led to the definitive closure of the institute in Weimar.
In 1925, the school was forced to reopen in Dessau, where the famous building that would house it, designed by Walter Gropius himself, was built.
The building represents the manifesto of the new rationalist climate of which the Bauhaus became the main exponent.
In Dessau, enthusiasm for craftsmanship waned, while Gropius was finally able to broaden the horizons of teaching to include architecture.
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