Alexandra Griffith Winton Independent Scholar. August originally published October last revised. Its core objective was a radical concept: to reimagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts.
Gropius explained this vision for a union of art and design in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus , which described a utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, and painting into a single creative expression. Gropius developed a craft-based curriculum that would turn out artisans and designers capable of creating useful and beautiful objects appropriate to this new system of living. The Bauhaus combined elements of both fine arts and design education. The curriculum commenced with a preliminary course that immersed the students, who came from a diverse range of social and educational backgrounds, in the study of materials, color theory, and formal relationships in preparation for more specialized studies.
This preliminary course was often taught by visual artists, including Paul Klee Following their immersion in Bauhaus theory, students entered specialized workshops, which included metalworking, cabinetmaking, weaving, pottery, typography, and wall painting. While maintaining the emphasis on craft, he repositioned the goals of the Bauhaus in , stressing the importance of designing for mass production.
In , 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 hallmarks of modernist architecture, including steel-frame construction, a glass curtain wall, and an asymmetrical, pinwheel plan, throughout which Gropius distributed studio, classroom, and administrative space for maximum efficiency and spatial logic. The cabinetmaking workshop was one of the most popular at the Bauhaus.
Under the direction of Marcel Breuer Breuer theorized that eventually chairs would become obsolete, replaced by supportive columns or air. Inspired by the extruded steel tubes of his bicycle, he experimented with metal furniture, ultimately creating lightweight, mass-producible metal chairs. Some of these chairs were deployed in the theater of the Dessau building. Students studied color theory and design as well as the technical aspects of weaving.
