Curriculum

Teaching students to build was always the ultimate aim of a Bauhaus education. However, it was only in Dessau in 1927 that an independent department of architecture was created. Up until then students had participated in projects in the private practice of Walter Gropius.  

In the early 20th century the musician Gertrud Grunow had developed her own methods for teaching music. At the Bauhaus Grunow taught the equitable and harmonious use of all the senses. 

Non-arts subjects were included in the Bauhaus programme from the start. They were often taught by visiting lecturers and professors.

“Art does not reproduce the visible but makes it visible.” This maxim was behind Paul Klee’s personal theory of colour and form, which was a fundamental component of the preliminary course.

The relationship between colours and shapes played a pivotal role in Kandinsky’s ideas and the way he taught art. The assigment of the primary colours to basic geometrical forms derived from Kandinsky's colour and form theory. 

Although the Bauhaus did not see itself as an art school in the traditional sense, great importance was attached to the fine arts. Under Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, however, their influence was increasingly marginalised. 

From 1925 Joost Schmidt instructed preliminary course students in typographic design. From 1929 he also taught nude and figure drawing for students in later semesters.

By 1928 Schlemmer had developed his course on “the human being”, which broke down into a formal, a biological and a philosophical section.