Bauhaus Buildings Dessau: Originals retold

The centenary has inspired a new curatorial concept for the Bauhaus Buildings.

Between 1925 and 1932, the Bauhaus tried out the city of tomorrow in Dessau. The Bauhaus buildings and way of life in Dessau had model character. The living conditions of the people should be altered, and new forms of life created.  

The Bauhaus enjoyed its heyday in Dessau. However, the Bauhaus architecture existing in this city, today UNESCO World Heritage sites, is also bears witness of moves, closures, expulsion, renovation, transformation, new foundation and cultural heritage of the avantgarde school. For closely connected to the course of the 20th century, the Bauhaus buildings also went through phases between democracy and dictatorship, war, destruction and reconstruction.    

Visitors are invited to a tour through Dessau to newly explore these prototypes of modern construction. They will learn more about these model houses of Modernism, their architecture, their use and their inhabitants, and directly experience the essence of the Bauhaus buildings.

From the Kornhaus Restaurant in the north to the Dessau-Törten Settlement in the south – Dessau has many more original Bauhaus buildings than any other city. Twelve of them are publicly accessible, including the Bauhaus Building, the Masters‘ Houses, the Employment Office designed by Walter Gropius, and the Konsum Building. On the occasion of the Bauhaus centenary, they get a new, and for the first time coherent, narrative. The buildings themselves become exhibits. After all, nothing can tell the story more vividly than their own walls, façades and interior spaces.

By the re-opening of the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, the visitors gain access to the rooms that have not, or to a limited extent only, been open to the public in the past years. Also in the Bauhaus Building: Thanks to the new Bauhaus Museum, air-conditioning systems and additional walls for exhibitions could be dismantled in the first floor of the workshop wing, for example. This resulted in the reinstatement of the full transparency of the Bauhaus Building with its famous glass curtain façade – an essential component for the declaration as World Heritage.

Cinematic digital guiding concept 

More than 60 short films were produced for the new curatorial concept of the Bauhaus buildings, bringing historical images into motion in a 2.5D tech-nique. Each short film refers to a space or aspect of the architecture and can be watched on screens in the buildings or using a smartphone. The cine-matic digital narrative supports the visitors in the perception of the unique ar-chitecture and its history, without changing the historical spaces.