- The Bauhaus represents not just a university,
but a movement.
It was the most important event for design,
and gave birth to the modern age.
Its influences are seen today in products from Target,
the iPhone, the simplicity of a stop sign,
even the desktop of your computer.
The way we value good design as simple, functional,
and elegant is a direct outcome
of the teachings at the Bauhaus.
Its legacy and influence on modern design is undeniable.
To this day, all design in any form
is either aligned with, or response to,
the Bauhaus ideology.
It serves as a benchmark for those who belong
to the avant-garde, in art, design,
architecture, and urban planning.
Since its founding, except for the period of Nazi influence
from the mid-1920s to 1945,
it formed the basis for modern-day Germany's
reputation and self-image as a place of creative progress.
Throughout the rest of the world, the Bauhaus community's
largest contribution to today's design field
was to recognize and expose sociopolitical
and moral power of architecture and design.
At the Bauhaus, it was the artist's supreme duty
to abandon old habits.
Lisbeth Oestreicher, a Bauhaus graduate wrote,
"The first act of the Bauhaus
"was to tear down all established opinions."
Suddenly, people discovered that life could be viewed
entirely from a different perspective.
They wanted design to create effective influence
on general conditions, and make it a vital concern
of the entire people.
Rather than copying existing work, students were encouraged
to collaborate and create their own solutions
in a studio environment.
A student began with a foundation class.
The Vorkurs, initiated by Johannes Itten,
which concentrated on practical formal analysis,
and the properties of shapes, colors, and materials.
They then moved on to the Formlehre,
focused on problems and issues related to form,
and the Werklehre, a practical workshop instruction
that emphasized technical craft skills.
This educational model is used today
in most art and design institutions.
During the dangerous years of World War II,
the Bauhaus masters and students who were artists,
intellectuals, and/or Jews, were under a constant
threat of arrest, or worse.
Many of the key Bauhaus designers
emigrated to the United States.
Here, their work and teaching philosophies
influenced generations of young architects and designers.
Marcel Breuer and Josef Albers taught at Yale.
Walter Gropius went to Harvard, and Moholy-Nagy
established the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937.
After World War II, the Bauhaus survived as a legend,
kept alive by the work of the teachers and students
who fled Germany after 1933.
The Modernist Bauhaus movement thrived in Israel.
A New Bauhaus was opened in Chicago in the 1930s,
and New York would become a city of the steel and glass
aesthetic imported from Germany.