100 years of Bauhaus – German cities celebrate centenary with new museums
- Forced to dissolve under Nazi disapproval, the short-lived school’s design principles nevertheless spread around the world
- Berlin, Dessau and Weimar are marking the iconic institution’s legacy with dedicated museums
“Bauhaus was a school; not a movement, not a company, not a project – just a school,” says Bettina Güldner, of Art Berlin, as we arrive at Erich Hamann Haus, the first stop of a three-hour bus tour of Bauhaus architecture in the German capital.
This year marks the 100th since the foundation, in the central German city of Weimar, of the short-lived but influential school of art and design whose architectural legacy can be seen around the planet, including in the form of Hong Kong’s City Hall. The Staatliches Bauhaus was holistic in nature, bringing together all of the arts in a philosophy known as Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”).
As part of the centenary celebrations, the cities of Weimar, Dessau and Berlin – the three homes of the school – are each opening, or have opened, a Bauhaus museum. The acclaim would no doubt have been unimaginable to those Bauhäusler – students and masters – who were hounded out of Nazi Germany in 1933 for being “un-German” and belonging to “a centre of communist intellectualism”.
Erich Hamann Haus, in Wilmersdorf district, still serves its original functions, as a chocolate store and office building. It was designed in 1928 by Johannes Itten, who developed the course used to introduce Bauhaus students to materials and design principles. Along with a wooden building in Limonenstrasse – designed in 1920 by Walter Gropius, the school’s founding director – Erich Hamann Haus is one of 10 original Bauhaus buildings in the city.
“Projects are scattered in Berlin,” says Güldner. “There is no Bauhaus district.”