Below are some images from the Exhibition “Bauhaus: A Conceptual Model,” created to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Staatliche Bauhaus. Berlin! Gestaltungswille! Will to design!
About the Bauhaus exhibition 2009.
Below are some images from the Exhibition “Bauhaus: A Conceptual Model,” created to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Staatliche Bauhaus.
The exhibition was presented as an apotheosis by three collaborating institutions: the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Together, they showed a joint large exhibition on the history and impact of the Bauhaus.
With over 1,000 exhibited pieces, it was the largest Bauhaus exhibition to date and it gave a sophisticated overview of the school from 1919 to 1933.
This exhibition was held in the fall of 2009 in the Martin Gropius building, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, Berlin, named after the architect. It is one of the few instances where a building has received the name of the architect (see Beurs/Exchange by Berlage, Amsterdam). The Gropius building was erected in 1883 and since used as exhibition building. Martin Gropius was the great-uncle of Walter Gropius the Founding Father of Bauhaus. Thus the link is more than poetic.
Photo to the right by the author shows the lineup outside the Martin Gropius building, Berlin of visitors on the last Saturday afternoon just before closing down.
See NY Times article.
A guided visit to the the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin is possible. Bookings through the office of Drs Kaldenbach.
To the right: Portrait of Walter Gropius (1883-1969), director of the Bauhaus Art School.
Founding Father in the town of Weimar - later on in Dessau - of the Staatliche Bauhaus, the most important German art school ever, and internationally probably the most influential art school in the whole world.
How can one describe the Bauhaus school and do it justice?
It was born from German Romanticism and philosophy in the sense of the importance of manual labour, starting from Schopenhauer's philosophy and also the Werkbund movement, promoting the Neue Bauen, 1907 (New Industrial Construction Movement). Born also from the idealist movement of Reform around 1900 - 1910 with high idealism and quality goods and healthy housing for the masses.
A school for design, architecture, art, photography.
With a group of incredibly gifted artists / teachers, a heterogenous group brought together by Walter Gropius.
An aesthetic and social movement. Highly pedagogical. Strong design will (Gestaltungswille) with idealism in connecting ethics (what is good) with aesthetics (what is beautiful).
Seedbed of the avant-garde.
Seedbed of the classical moderns - also in architecture.
Clear, clean, rational, harmonic, simple forms, often based on combining geometric shapes.
Interest in the design language needed for industrial serial production.
Interest in clear clean primary colours, with harmony in intensity and values also for industrial reasons - with Itten as the main teacher.
Walter Gropius is even more than that. He is also seen as a founding Father of modern architecture. Co-inventor of standardized steel and glass component building processes, initially intended to bring affordable quality housing to the poorer masses. Proudly posing here in front of an architectural plan for the Tribune Tower, 1922.
He started working in post-war West-Berlin as an architect on the condition that his great-uncles' building would be saved from destruction. Successfully so!
On a personal note: Seen as a handsome and desirable man. Husband to the famous Alma, a socialite in circles of musicians and artists, also known as the serial man-eating, highly erotically inclined woman who teamed up with the likes of Klimt-Mahler-Gropius-Werfel-Kokoschka. The WWII years did him little good as the nazis saw him as a commie enemy and stopped his career. He turned inward, distant, aloof.
Below:
Indications of various functions of parts of the Dessau school building is shown below. Students quarters to the left, teaching halls to the right. Mess in the middle.
Albers, Glitterbild, 1921 glass sculpture, shown in a light box.
Outline of the photographer just visible. Guards raced up to me some 10 times to check whether I had a Photo Permission. Yes, yes.
Eugen Batz, 1929-1930, study of colors and lines: 'Die räumliche Wirkung von Farben und Formen'. 30 x 33 cm.
Theo van Doesburg, study in lines. He was one of the teachers from Holland, the Dutch group including Mart Stam and Mondrian. Van Doesburg was editor if the magazine "De Stijl", promoting modern abstract art, design and architecture.
Lyonel Feininger, Architectural studies in colour. Feininger often painted churches in his particular style, indicating loftiness and an etherical quality.
Hartwig, chess pieces. One of the machine age producs, actually mass produced from 1923 onwards.
Colour studies initiated by Itten and others. Based on earlier studies by Goethe. These trial works are about colour value, harmony and progressions from light to dark hues.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, object in nickel, 1921.
Chair by the Dutch artist and architect Gerrit Rietveld, plus a historic repro made in those days of a Mondrian painting.
Sculptures, oddly executed in bronze with a nickel finish. Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943) made the original in plaster. After his death, Schlemmer's widow ordered a casting in metal of some of his most important pieces. These days there are enormous family rows about ownership and rights of reproductions, even in exhibition catalogues. Catalogues have actually appeared with pages left blank as a result! This seriously hampers the study of his works and dissemination of the images.
To the left: Nickled bronze, limited-edition of 7, 104.1 x 65.4 x 20.0 cm. Futurist style.
After the exhibition closes down, one may still visit the wonderful Berlin Bauhaus archive.
Bookings of World War II tours by an excellent officer-guide, also through the office of Drs Kaldenbach.
Berlin Introductory programme: Learn about Berlin history in a 1 hour powerpoint presentation. On request I will help you prepare for your trip to Berlin with my wonderful powerpoint presentation. Learn about the richess of the city of Berlin, its culture, museums, design and culinary specialities. I will show you around, giving you a good idea of Berlin's layout by means of birds-eye views, aerial photographs, maps, drawings, photographs.
I will travel from Amsterdam to Berlin to give guided tours in Berlin museums. Including the Bauhaus. See highlights of other Berlin Museums with art historian Drs. Kees Kaldenbach. I am fluent in Dutch and English, and have a good command of German / Deutsch and a limited command of French and Italian, (Français & Italiano).
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