GERMANY Bauhaus Dessau Gropiusallee 38 D-06846 Dessau Germany Tel: +49 (0)340 6508 225 www.bauhaus-dessau.de BAUHAUS DESSAU – WORKSHOP OF MODERNISM Exhibition opening 11 May 2007 The permanent exhibition on the history of the distinguished 'School of Design' is to be installed in the recently renovated Bauhaus Dessau Building. Within the architectural mantle of the Bauhaus Building approximately 200 specially chosen objects and documents derived from the Collection of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation will illustrate the distinct development directions of the School. The presentation focuses on the Dessau period of the Bauhaus from 1925 - 1932. During this phase, the school calendar as well as the workshops and the architectural department were able to reach their highest acclaim. In addition to an introduction to the history of the Bauhaus, its precursors and its historical framework, the exhibition concentrates on the reciprocation of instruction and practical workshops. The education at the Bauhaus is presented from two viewpoints. On the one hand, it is illuminated through the biographical perspective of the four Bauhaus students Marianne Brandt, Grete Reichhardt, Franz Ehrlich and Konrad Pueschel. The exhibition delivers an insight to how these students observed the complex instructions through their notes, ultimately converting them into results and products such as the ash tray by Marianne Brandt. On the other hand, the exhibition indicates how the teaching within the institution has evolved from an initially distinct artistic orientation during the Weimar phase to a more product and architectural based approach. The early Weimar orientation is being represented by the 'Meistermappe' (Master's portfolio) of the Bauhaus in 1923 with works of Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and László Moholy-Nagy among others. The Dessau era is in part illustrated through previously unreleased works of students and teachers, for example unpublished sketches of the technical director of the metal workshop Alfred Schaefter, and architectural drafts from the classes of Ludwig Hilberseimer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The conceptual design of the permanent exhibition relates to the self-image of the Bauhaus as a holistic and interdisciplinary workshop. Subsequent to the extreme differentiation of the respective design disciplines during the nineteenth century, it became an avowed intention to again reunite all arts under the roof. In the style of the medieval 'Bauhütten' (building huts; which also inspired the naming of the 'Bauhuas'), the various disciplines were tasked to concentrate the forces, and complement each other in their capacities. Thus, the 'Bau' (the Building) embodies a symbolic task, comparable to the significance of a cathedral: its design was required to express the new social ideals at the outset of a new era. The Bauhaus adopted this formula with its founding in 1919 by Walter Gropius. It aimed to train a new, young and responsible generation of designers for the modernist industrial age. In order to engage in these visionary ideas and goals the exhibition depicts the relationships between teachings, the arts, architecture and product design, while also portraying the relationships between the people and their lives in and at the Bauhaus. Within the exhibition the institutional phases of the teaching developments are contrasted by tangible workshop products and architectures. Several of the objects displayed in this context have long ago assumed the status as a classic of modernism. This includes the famous steel tube furniture by Marcel Breuer or the light fixtures by Wilhelm Wagenfeld. Furthermore these pieces provide evidence for the varying concepts and aspirations of the three Bauhaus directors Walter Gropius (1919-28), Hannes Meyer (1928-30) and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1930-33). Concluding the exhibition, a selection of biographies presents an insight into the paths of teachers and students whose lives continued in distinctly different ways after the closing of the School in 1933. Many teachers, students and friends of the Bauhaus contributed to spreading the ideas of the Bauhaus all around the world despite the defamations and prosecutions of the National Socialists. This has enabled the Bauhaus ideas to stay alive up to the present day.