bauhaus imaginista: Moving Away

The way in which the Bauhaus’s design ethos spread internationally, its institutional role and its evolution from within diverse cultures, forms the basis of the "bauhaus imaginista" chapter "Moving Away".

Marcel Breuer’s filmstrip ein bauhaus-film. fünf jahre lang (a bauhaus film. five years long, published in Bauhaus magazine No. 1, 1926) visualizes the development of chair design from crafted object to industrial prototype towards a future where designed objects become obsolete. As focal object of Moving Away Breuer’s collage addresses the chair and is the starting point to introduce the basic principle of Bauhaus design, which was to go beyond the individual object in order to think about the building as a whole: the development of new designs for every life situation, from chair to urban planning. 

Two decades after the Bauhaus closed its doors the HfG Ulm (founded in 1953) continued but also contested Bauhaus ideas. It regularly hired Bauhauslers to teach a version of the preliminary course, based on a visual and tactile training in colour and form. When HfG Ulm developed links with the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad (founded in 1961) and the Industrial Design Centre (IDC) in Mumbai (founded in 1969), aspects of the preliminary course were incorporated into the Indian curriculum, along with workshop based teaching. From the perspective of post war Germany and post-Independence India, design was understood by these schools as a catalyst for economic reconstruction, and in India it was also seen as a development tool that could utilise artisan and vernacular skills and crafts. 

The same Bauhaus ideas entered China through architects such as Richard Paulick, who was Walter Gropius’ assistant, and Wang Dahong (a student of Gropius). Both were hired to teach at the Architecture Department of St. John's University, established in 1942, which had a curriculum that directly referenced the Bauhaus model. After 1945, these two architects played an important role in the development of a Greater Shanghai Plan, a modern urban project based on rationalist principles.

The way in which the Bauhaus’s design ethos spread internationally, its institutional role and its evolution from within diverse cultures, forms the basis of the bauhaus imaginista chapter Moving Away. The title indicates both the migration of Bauhaus ideas, as well as the distance produced by time and geography. The exhibition will be presented as part of the opening of the China Design Museum (located on the China Academy of Arts campus Hangzhou). It will feature a range of objects and prototypes for commercial production as well as plans and studies of architectural and urban projects. In addition, an international symposium (April 9–10, 2018) will address a rich history of Bauhaus’s relationship with design and architecture in Asia.