Walter Gropius changed art and architecture forever the first day in April of the year 1919. (01) This was the time in which he felt an obligation to converge both the arts and crafts with the new industrial methods. He accomplished this when he took over the Art Academy in Weimer Germany established by the Grand Duke of Sachsen-Weimar. (02) During the next fourteen years, the school saw two more directors that may have had different ideals, but still maintained the original goals of the Bauhaus. (04) Its foundation was the first to achieve man’s effort to come to terms with technology and art. Though it may have been short lived, the Bauhaus did more than any other organization in the 19th and 20th centuries to reconcile man and his man-made environment.

In Germany during post World War I there were many disputes as to what was to be done in art and architecture. The theories were on the extreme sides of the spectrum, where on the one side were people who could not understand that the pre-war world was dead; o

Gropius continued his reign in Dessau for three more years, and managed to design and construct the school buildings there in 1926 and 1927. (06) In 1928 he finally resigned when he felt that the school was firmly established, and left the Bauhaus art school to the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer (03). Meyer promoted the scientific development of the design training with vigor. He was a self-proclaimed functionalist of the ‘neue sachlichkeit’ tradition. With this particular view on architectural design, it changed the school in many ways. This alteration affected the curriculum and faculty members, changing their execution of educating the students. Unfortunately, he was unable to advance the school as well as Gropius. This in turn caused many political disputes within the school resulting in many of the existing faculty to resign. Eventually, Meyer was dismissed as the director of the Bauhaus in 1930, and it was then turned over to the famous German architect Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, (05) who ironically had turned down the offer form Gropius two years prior.

At the beginning of October 1907 a hundred architects, designers, factory owners, and friends of art met in Munich. Together they founded the 'Deutscher Werkbund'. Its aim was to improve the form and quality of utility wares. Werkbund had partly got its influences from the English movement of Arts and Crafts. It was, however, more open to machine production; but at the same time it had almost a missionary character. The openness to the industrialized society still was one of the mainstays of Werkbund's success. Nevertheless, there was no real breakthrough before World War I. Deutsches Werkbund arranged a large fair in Cologne in 1914. Instead of new ideas there were many variants of old solutions.

There were key points that stayed with the Bauhaus throughout its history. Initiated by Gropius but not contradicted by his predecessors. First, the students must understand that they should be intimately involved with mass production and industrialization, and not with individual craftsmanship. Then, the professor in the school of design must be masters of their profession, rather than just academically sound. Next, the design school should bring together all of the various arts as one. For instance, painting, architecture, theatre, photography, weaving, typography, etc., should be learned as one whole, disregarding the distinction between the fine and applied arts. The student must also understand that it is harder to design a first rate chair than it is to paint a second rate painting, besides the chair is much more useful. As I said before the master craftsman and the artist should work side by side to grasp the full potential of the student. Another Bauhaus principle that was essential to its success is the belief that the student should get as much hands on experience as possible; First, in the classroom and then in the shop. Finally, the Bauhaus implemented an abolishment of history education. They believed that since this is modern art, it is a completely different aspect than previous times so it was useless to study past works. (Barr 5) These are the certain ideologies that Gropius wished to implement on his school of design and contributed greatly to its renowned success.

r hand, smooth, tensely stretched or softly flowing forms could be combined with brilliant, pure colors. After the mid 1920s a certain hygienic freshness also filled the furnished rooms, and all kinds of abundance had to step aside. No wonder that the shining tubular steel was implemented as a furniture material. The education of art proper and applied arts had to be reformed. One must have the courage to tackle the problems of technicality and machination. By the mid 1920s Gropius had defined more exactly the starting points of modern design and its doctr

Some topics in this essay:
World War, Johannes Itten, Initiated Gropius, Dessau” Honey, Der Rohe’s, Selman Selmanagic, Hannes Meyer, Academy Bauhaus, Essentially Romanticism, Finally Bauhaus, world war, nazi party, mies van der, mies van, art academy, art technology, preliminary course, johannes itten, political disputes, art school, van der, van der rohe,