- [Instructor] Although it's influence on design
was seismic, and is still felt today,
the Bauhaus as a school, had a short existence.
The radical nature of the work, non-conformist appearance,
and behavior of the master's and students,
and constantly changing political scene in Germany,
led to it's brief lifespan.
In 1919, Walter Gropius merged the Weimar Institute
of Fine Arts and the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts
to establish the Bauhaus.
The school opened with workshops in metalwork,
bookbinding, weaving, printmaking, and painting.
In 1920 Gropius added the wood and stone sculpture,
pottery, cabinet making, glass painting,
and wall painting workshops.
Immediately Gropius recruited Johannes Itten,
a Swiss master of form and color,
Lyonel Feininger, who was a renowned painter and sculptor,
and German artist Gerhard Marcks.
This formed the nucleus of the full-time
faculty of the school.
Unfortunately, between 1920, and 1923, Johannes Itten
and Gropius' relationship grew increasingly difficult.
Itten was a follower of Mazdaznan, a religion that held
that the earth should be restored to a garden where
humanity can cooperate and converse with God.
He was a strict vegetarian, and practiced meditation.
This was for Itten, the principle source of artistic
inspiration and practice.
Itten kept his head shaved, wore monk-like clothing,
and required his students to shed all conventions.
Itten's mysticism and charisma led to a group of students
converting to his mystic beliefs.
This and his focus on individual artist expression,
created conflict with Walter Gropius who wanted to move
the school in a direction that embraced mass production
and rational design.
In 1923, Itten resigned and was replaced
by László Moholy-Nagy, and Josef Albers.
Weimar was a small conservative town,
within the first years, the local population grew to dislike
the bohemian nature of the students.
To the dismay of the citizens of Weimar,
Bauhaus people of both sexes sunbathed outside in the nude,
and their licentious intercourse had even produced children.
In 1924, the school's financing was threatened when the
newly elected nationalist government cut the school's
funding in half.
To combat the threat to the school, Gropius created the
Circle of Friends of the Bauhaus, to offer support
for the design school.
It's members included leading figures in Germany,
such as Marc Chagall, Albert Einstein,
and Gerhart Hauptmann.
1925, the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau,
where Gropius designed a new building to house the school.
This building contained many features that later became
the iconography of modernist architecture,
including steel frame construction, a glass curtain wall,
and an asymmetrical plan.
The space was organized by logic rather than aesthetics
to distribute studio classroom and administrative space
for maximum efficiency.
In 1928 Gropius stepped down as director to focus on his
private architectural practice.
The architect Hannes Meyer became the new director.
Meyer maintained the emphasis on mass producible design,
and eliminated parts of the design he felt were too
closely related to Itten's concept of individual
expression over logic.
He also stressed the social function of architecture
and design favoring concern for the pubic good rather
than private luxury, but Meyers appointment was the
beginning of the end.