Bauhaus moving to Dessau

Dessau not much further from Berlin in 1926, walter Gropius build his higher academy for arts, the Bauhaus. For the inhabitants of dessae the building that rose up before their eyes was a peculiar thing, with it’s glass walls, right angles and flat roofs. Is one of the most famous buildings in the history of the 20^th century architecture.

On December 4^th 1926 hundreds of people came for the inauguration of it’s opening. The Bauhaus seemed to be a symbol of renewed hope recovered by vitality, 8 years after the tragedy of the Great War. Exhibition, concerts and theatrical performances followed one another for over two days. Politician, artists and chairmen, crowed around Walter Gropius. At 43 the architecture of the Bauhaus was also it’s director.

It’s all began in 1919 in viemar, in a pre existent public building without any particular architecture or merit. Founded by Gropius the Bauhaus movement which latterly means the art of building aimed to reconcile arts and craft to create a new industrial aesthetic, what we now call design. Every discipline was mobilized, metalworking, joinery and painting, but also stagecraft and dance. Color was taught in workshops run by paul clay and Kandinsky. Electrical appliances and furniture that continued to mark our daily lives were designed there and experimental films were made too.

In 1925 It was forced to shut down due to some political election that been won. In the other hand in Dessau the city council with it’s social democratic majorities released founds for the construction of the new home for the school that would give it a fresh lease on life. The city with its 70,000 inhabitants was an important industrial centre. Dessau was the perfect location for the encounter between the esthetic avant-garde and heavy industry.

The Bauhaus cannot be comprehended from a single angle, the building recuires movement to be understood, when the pedestrians start walking around it and looking for the school entrance will only find a discreet door that seems to denial that it’s best centre of architecture is there. On one side you find the higher academy for the arts, and on the other side you find the technical school that was required by the city council, although here the architecture is less complete and prestigious than the other parts of the school. In the middle you find the collective area were everyone including students and lectures were to meet for leisure’s and performances.  And in the last part we find the housing for the students, a 24 studio flats on four floors, the highest section of the building. In the centre of the building there’s the school administration as well as the directors office.