Bauhaus

Introducing BAUHAUS

El Lissitzky

El Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarized with his edict, "zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation). A Jew, he began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia, a country that was undergoing massive change at the time and that had just repealed its anti-semitic laws. Over the years, he taught in a variety of positions, schools, and artistic media, spreading and exchanging ideas. He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS, when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own, Proun, and further still in 1921, when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. 

JanTschichold 

Jan Tschichold's background is in calligraphy, which sets him apart from almost all other noted typographers of the time (since many of them were architects). Tschichold became a leading advocate of Modernist design: first with an influential 1925 magazine supplement; then a 1927 personal exhibition; then with his most noted workDie neue Typographie. The book became a manifesto of modern design, in which he condemned all fonts but sans-serif (called 'Grotesk' in Germany). Some of the tenets: 

1- Non-centered design (e.g., on title pages), and codified many other Modernist design rules. 
2- Standardised paper sizes for all printed matter, and 
3- Effective use of different sizes and weights of type in order to quickly and easily convey information.

Bauhaus graphics

In 1925 the Bauhaus was moved from hostile Weimar to hospitable Dessau. By this time, a new generation of teachers had been trained each of whom was at once a creative artist, a craftsman and an industrial designer, and the dual system of instruction could be abandoned. New ideas began to flow forth in abundance, and from the Bauhaus of this period derive many familiar adjuncts of contemporary life -- steel furniture, modern textiles, dishes, lamps, modern typography and layout. The spirit of functional design was carried even into the "fine arts" and applied to architecture, city and regional planning. But to speak of a cut and dried "Bauhaus style" would be to revert to the cultural paralysis of the 19th century with its "free styles." Its integral part, namely the functional foundation of design, was just as full of changing possibilities as our own "technical age." We believe that we have only glimpsed the great potentialities of this technical age, and that the Bauhaus idea has only begun to make its way.

Bauhaus, works

Walter Gropius, Dessau Bauhaus Building, (1926)

Josef Albers, Homage to the Square (1965)

Laszlo Moholy Nagy, Photogram (1926)

Hannes Meyer, Konstruktion ca. 1927

Meyer's teaching manifesto applied to Bau: 1. sex life, 2. sleeping habits, 3. pets, 4. gardening, 5. personal hygiene, 6. weather protection, 7. hygiene in the home, 8. car maintenance, 9. cooking, 10. heating, 11. exposure to the sun, 12. services - these are the only motives when building a house. We examine the daily routine of everyone who lives in the house and this gives us the functional diagram - the functional diagram and the economic programme are the determining principles of the building project.

Lugwig Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona chair (1929)

Paul Klee, Red Balloon (ca. 1919)

Wassily Kansdinsky, Composition VIII (1923)

Walter Gropius, Sugar Bowl (1969)

Marcel Breuer, Wassily Chair (1927)

El Lissitzky, from the series Proun (early 1920's)

I. K. Bonset, typefaces, early 1920's

Karl-Peter Rohl,Construction (1925)

Erich Dieckmann, Model Furnishings (1928)

Herbert Bayer, Lonely Metropolitan (1932)

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 

Love Your Neighbor, (1925). 

Jealousy, (1927).

What's unique to Moholy-Nagy is his inventiveness. Drawing on collage, photo, and a minimalist use of geometry,  Moholy-Hagy creates a personal vocabulary which is modern, almost Futuristic, pointing to a way of feeling of modernity.

References:                    El Lissitzky : Design Is History. 

 [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/el-lissitzky/.

 [Accessed 25 January 2014].

 

Inkling. 2014. Inkling. 

[ONLINE] Available at: https://www.inkling.com/read/history-of-graphic-design-philip-meggs-5th/chapter-16/jan-tschichold-and-the-new. 

[Accessed 25 January 2014].

The easy guide to design movements: Bauhaus | Graphic design | Creative Bloq.

 [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.creativebloq.com/design/easy-guide-design-movements-bauhaus-8134146. 

[Accessed 25 January 2014].

Six Lessons from the Bauhaus: Masters of the Persuasive Graphic | Visual.ly Blog. 

[ONLINE] Available at: http://blog.visual.ly/six-lessons-from-the-bauhaus-masters-of-the-persuasive-graphic/. [Accessed 25 January 2014].

8 Beautiful Products of Bauhaus: The Single Most Influential School of Design. 

[ONLINE] Available at: http://gizmodo.com/5918142/8-beautiful-things-from-bauhaus-the-single-most-influential-school-of-design. 

[Accessed 25 January 2014].

László Moholy-Nagy - Monoskop. 

[ONLINE] Available at: http://monoskop.org/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Moholy-Nagy.

 [Accessed 25 January 2014].

BAUHAUS video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQa0BajKB4Q