It has been argued that the experiences of military service had the affect of radicalising those that returned from the front. In the case of Germany, her veterans were drawn towards either the rabidly nationalist ring wing groups such as the Nazi party, or they were drawn towards the revolutionary left. Amidst the debris of a war shattered country the old monarchy was replaced by the Weimar Republic. As a matter of coincidence the centre of excellence for the modernists in Weimar era Germany, the Bauhaus school was also founded in Weimar during 1919 (Hobsbawm, 1994 p. 179).
In many respects
the founders of the Bauhaus school had similar political, social, and ethical ideologies to those that had drafted the constitution of the Weimar Republic. Like the architects of the Weimar Republic, the founders of the Bauhaus favoured modernity, cultural diversity, and they were internationalist in outlook (James, 2003 p. 85).
All students at the Bauhaus had to complete a foundation year in which they were given a taster of all the subjects that were available at the school. After that foundation year students, or apprentices as they were termed went on to study their specialist subjects. This approach was hoped to give all students an overall style and to
link altogether rather than graduates just viewing themselves as designers, architects, or
painters (Weimar Source Book, p. 430).
Some of these cultural and artistic trends had existed before the First World War; others such as the Bauhaus School most closely linked with Walter Gropius flourished in this period (Fulbrook, 1991, p.39). Much of the cultural diversity witnessed during the Weimar era fits into the concepts of modernity. Walter Gropius, Thomas Mann, and Arnold Schonberg were notable members of the German modernist avant-garde who got their best opportunities to fully express themselves after the First World War (Hobsbawm,
1994, p.179).
German avant-garde modernism was influenced by two American imports
after the First World War, cinematic films, and jazz music. The Weimar Republic had a
flourishing filmmaking sector, although it could not match the production levels or
profits generated by Hollywood. Hollywood studios, especially Universal Studios liked
to use ideas from relatively unknown German films, such as Frankenstein. Even before
the Nazi’s took power and repressed the degenerate elements of modernity; German
technicians and filmmakers could always find work in Hollywood. Gropius and the
Bauhaus linked itself with jazz music, which they regarded as the height of modernity in
musical terms. The right wing politicians and extreme nationalists disliked jazz due to its
Black American origin, as much as for its musical merits (Hobsbawm, 1994, pp.184-85).
The Bauhaus School membership was almost entirely made up of left wing sympathisers
who preferred the new republic to the old monarchy. The Bauhaus was established to
fulfil objectives that related to graphic design, art, and architecture that arguably had
political undertones. Bruno Taut argued that there were no unifying features in art at that
time, yet architecture could provide the basis for artists, painters, sculptors, and graphic
designers to work constructively together (Weimar Source Book, p. 430). Gropius was
adamant that the Bauhaus should be force for driving forward artistic, design, and
architectural achievements. The overall aim of the Bauhaus ‘ was to bring together all
creative effort into one whole to reunify all disciplines of practical art’ (Weimar Source
Book, p. 435). Gropius wanted the Bauhaus to
architectural projects and graphic designs should not be exclusively created for the
wealthy or businesses but for ordinary people. Art and design should not be confined to
those that could afford to pay for it. Gropius reasoned that if modern technology allowed
for the mass production of consumer products it could also be adopted for the mass
production of graphic design as well as buildings. Gropius also supported the concept of
public housing projects (Gropius, p. 115).
The period between 1923 and 1929 was the period in which modernity had a greater
impact upon political, social and ethical ideologies of graphic design than mythology did.
However, although modernity had a strong hold on the artistic and cultural aspects of
German socialists and radicals, it was mythology that still had a strong political and
ethical hold on the beliefs of many Germans, particularly those with right wing,
Christian, or nationalist opinions. These people in desperation would turn to the Nazi
party in the wake of the Great Depression (Brendon, 2000, p.30).
The Bauhaus school moved from its original base in Weimar to a brand new campus at
Dessau during 1925. The actual buildings of the Dessau campus designed by Walter
Gropius himself were prime examples of functional modernity being constructed in steel
and glass. Surprisingly enough given the skills and experience of its academic staff, the
Bauhaus school did not have a separate architectural department until 1928. The designs
that came from the Bauhaus school were primary examples of modernity influenced by
movements such as De stijl and Russian constructivism (Bayer, 1999, p.23). Walter
Gropius’ own designs were heavily influenced by Cubism. The cubist style adopted was
pragmatic, unpretentious, and yet modernist. For Gropius such a style was a continuation
of his designs before the First World War, for instance, the Fagus factory completed in
1911(Pevsner, 1995, p.176).
Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and their contemporaries at the Bauhaus raised the profile of modernist architecture and graphic design beyond Germany, even though the number of modernist buildings in Germany was cut short by the demise of the Weimar Republic (Ghirardo, 1996, p.9). Indeed,Walter Gropius was so committed to modernism in architecture that he dropped the studying of historical buildings from the Curriculum at the Bauhaus. That was an approach that was adopted in other countries, especially the United States (Ghirardo,1996, p.17).
Bibliography
Bayer, (1999) Art Deco Architecture, Thames and Hudson, London
Brendon P, the Dark Valley – A Panorama of the 1930s (2000) Jonathan Cape, London
Fulbrook, M (1991) the Fontana History of Germany 1918-1990 the Divided Nation
Fontana Press, London
Ghirardo D, (1996) Architecture After Modernism, Thames and Hudson, London
Gropius W, The Imperative of Craft
Hobsbawm, E (1994) Age of Extremes, the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, Michael
Joseph, London
James, H (2003) Europe Reborn – A History, 1914 – 2000, Pearson Longman, Harlow
Kenez P, (1992) Cinema & Soviet Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Weimar Source Book
