In a fleeting 14-year period between two world wars, Germany’s
Bauhausschool of art and design changed the face of modernity. With utopian ideas for the future, the school developed a
pioneering fusion of fine art, craftsmanship, and technology, which they applied across media and practices from film to theater, and sculpture to ceramics.
This book is
made in collaboration with the Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin, the world’s largest collection on the history of the Bauhaus.
Documents, studies, more than 250 new photographs, sketches, plans, and modelsrecord not only the realized works but also the leading principles and personalities of this
idealistic creative communitythrough its three successive locations in
Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin. From informal shots of group gymnastics to drawings guided by Paul Klee, from extensive architectural plans to an infinitely sleek ashtray by Marianne Brandt, the collection brims with the
colors, materials, and geometries that made up the Bauhaus vision of a “total” work of art.As we approach the
Bauhaus centennial, this is a
defining account of its energy and rigor, not only as a trailblazing movement in modernism but also as a
paradigm of art education, where creative expression and cutting-edge ideas led to simultaneously functional and beautiful creations. Featured artists include Josef Albers, Marianne Brandt, Walter Gropius, Gertrud Grunow, Paul Klee, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Lilly Reich.
