Bauhaus

Villa Savoye

Fagus Factory

German pavilion

CROWN HALL, ILLINOIS  INSTITUTE

     The bauhaus occupies a place of its own in the history of 20^th century culture,architecture and art.

•        Founded by Walter Gropius and is developed in Germany in the 1920s and later in the U.S., in the 1930s.

•       Bauhaus buildings are usually cubic, favor right angles, (although some feature rounded corners and balconies); they have smooth facades and an open floor plan.

•       Bauhaus architects rejected "bourgeois" details such as cornices, eaves, and decorative details. They wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form: without ornamentation of any kind. Bauhaus buildings have flat roofs, smooth facades, and cubic shapes. Colors are white, gray, beige, or black. Floor plans are open and furniture is functional.

•       There are a number of characteristics to the Bauhaus/International Style of architecture:
1) It shuns ornamentation and favors functionality
2) Uses asymmetry and regularity versus symmetry
3) It grasps architecture in terms of space versus mass

•       Bauhaus architecture, whose founding father was Walter Gropius, developed in Germany in the 1920s and later in the U.S., in the 1930s. The American form of this architectural style was dubbed the International Style after Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and other leaders of Bauhaus migrated to the U.S., with the Nazi’s growing influence. The Bauhaus school in Dessau was closed on April 11th, 1933, by the police, at the insistence of the National Socialist government.

•       Purists assert that Bauhaus architecture can only refer to buildings in Germany and anything else should be termed International Style – while others use the terms interchangeably (as is the case in this issue of Gems in Israel). The term International Style was really adopted after the publication of a book that coincided with a 1932 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The book, by historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock and architect Philip Johnson, was called, The International Style.

  WALTER GROPIUS

•       Gropius' career advanced in the post war period.In 1923, Gropius aided by Gareth Steele, designed his famous door handles, now considered an icon of 20th century design and often listed as one of the most influential designs to emerge from out of Bauhaus. He also designed large scale housing projects in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Dessau from 1926-32 that were major contributions to the New Objectivity movement, including a contribution to the Siemensstadt project in Berlin.

•       MIES VAN DER ROHE

•       Mies van der Rohe, like many of his post World War I contemporaries, sought to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times just as Classical and Gothic did for their own eras. He created an influential 20th century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity and simplicity. His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces. He strived towards an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of free-flowing open space. He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. He sought a rational approach that would guide the creative process of architectural design, and is known for his use of the aphorisms "less is more" and "God is in the details".

•       The term formed for this function was used to describe the importance of the use of an itemover the aesthetic beauty.the use had to be the most important element,then the beauty of the object would  follow.

•       These can be sited as the examples of this style:-

•       Walter gropius

•       Fagus factory (1911-1913)

•       Alfeld-an-der-leine

•       Bauhaus (1925-1926)

•       Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe

•       German pavilion (1929) Barcelona

•       Seagram building (1954-1958)  New York

•       Farnsworth House (1950) Illinois

Some  local  Bauhaus  Adaptations

Smaller Windows

•       Glass was used sparingly and long, narrow, horizontal windows are visible on many of the Bauhaus buildings . On some buildings, you can also see long narrow balconies, which in many cases have now been enclosed. This was an adaptation of the long narrow windows.

•       The horizontal ‘strip window’ was a signature characteristic of Le Corbusier. A number of local architects worked in Le Corbusier’s office in Paris and were greatly influenced by his style.

•       Stilt Columns (Pilotis)

•       Another element used by Le Corbusier was stilt-type columns (pilotis), which raised the buildings off street level thereby creating room for a green garden area while providing greater airflow.

•       Flat Roofs

•       Another of the local features of the Bauhaus buildings, are the flat roofs, as opposed to the typical shingled and slanted roofs, prevalent in the European buidlings. The roofs served all of a buidling’s residents.

 

•       Perhaps no trend within Modern architecture so neatly captures the imagination as the almost mythic status of the Bauhaus. Emerging in Dessau, Germany, during the shocking aftermath of World War I, the famed institution was conceived as a reformation of applied arts education. The principle was simple: to reject the salon arts of the haute-bourgeoisie in favor of a craft tradition in order to erase the class distinctions between artist and craftsman. Yet this was not a rejection of the modernizing impulses of the rapidly industrializing, urbanizing German state (one that was facing an increasingly dire socio-economic predicament). Instead, as developed by Bauhaus director Walter Gropius, the applied arts were to be taught in a workshop-based design education, with a reconciliation of craft design and industrial production.

 

DONE BY,

ALEENA MIRIAM CHERIAN &

B.VEDHAJANANI.