bauhaus : by Taschen // part 2

ART AND TECHNOLOGY - A NEW UNITY

"...the Bauhaus was never at any stage in its history a rigid system, but was always ready to respond flexibly to changing circumstance and the lessons of experience." (pg. 61)

"Many of the exercises known today start from such elementary forms. Their function was to encourage a feeling for the organization of planes and an appreciation of the infinite potential of design; using proportion, rotation, reflection, etc., in conjunction with exercises in colour theory, they offered an inexhaustible field of activity." (pg. 64-65) 

"The metal workshops' new orientation was reflected in its preoccupation starting for 1923, ith the lamp. The lamp was decideldy not a traditional subject for gold and silversmithery... This period saw the creation of the famous Bauhaus table lamp." (pg. 77) 

Bauhaus table lamp create by Karl J. Jucker and Wilhelm Wagenfeld.
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"To start from elementary forms in the search for design solutions today strikes us as somewhat arbitrary. At that time, however, the processes of machine manufacturing were still insufficiently understood and it was believed that such elementary forms were particularly easily mass produced." (pg. 78) 

"Functional form can be seen particularly clearly in the many different tea and coffee services produced in the metal workshop. A teapot might look completely different to a coffee pot, while cream jog and sugar pot seemed not to match at all. 'Since each of them satisfies our requirements without disturbing the other, their combination creates our style. Their overall unity lies in their relatively best fulfilment of their specific functions', explained Marcel Breuer." (pg. 79) 

"Kandinsky was particularly interested in the relationship between colour and form, a relationship which he wanted to explore systematically. As a first step he distributed a questionnaire in which he asked everyone to mark which elementary form matched which primary colour. The majority chose the associations triangle-yellow, circle-blue and square-red. Despite repeated opposition these arbitrary assignments have remained 'valid' until today. They had been current at the Bauhaus even before the questionnaire was circulated." (pg. 88)

Wassily Kandinsky questionnaire.
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"A chess set newly developed by Master of Craft Josef Hartwig was another successful Bauhaus product. Each piece was designed to relfect the directions in which it could move." (pg. 94) 

Josef Hartwig's chess set from 1924.
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"The first project which Gropius was awarded in his capacity as director of the Thuringian Bauhaus was the renovation of the municipal theatre in Jena in 1921. It was also the first building in which Gropius and Meyer abandoned the Expressionist log-cabin style of the Berlin Sommerfeld house and oriented themselves instead towards the architecture of De Stijl and Le Corbusier." (pg. 110)

"The modern design which developed in Germany in the wake of the 1918 Revolution was viewed by the Conservative Parties as 'Bolshevist' and 'left-wing.' These parties were opposed to the Bauhaus right from the start and fought the school at every political opportunity. Although Gropius denied that modern design had a political character, he was unable to protect the Bauhaus- by now a symbol of the modern age- against attack." (pg. 114)