Bauhaus Season: Celebrating 100 Years
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Reflections on Bauhaus: Thoughts from Architects
In the final article in our series of content celebrating 100 years of Bauhaus, we unearth the thoughts of key architects about what the Bauhaus era meant for architecture, and how its impact has continued
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“The Bauhaus era was not about form. It was about the performance of form. Not about shape, but about the logic of shape. Not about aesthetics, but how to adapt aesthetics to a daily use.”
Chris Precht, Penda, tells VicE
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“ I think Bauhaus has a strong ethical and political dimension – it strives for equality. It was only later on that it became minimalist and reductivist in its ideas. The true, original Bauhaus was about the eternal human spirit. I think the Bauhaus has a global impact – in Russia, the United States, Japan – because of what it sought to do – to illuminate the world of design with powerful concepts and the notion of beauty. ”
Daniel Libeskind, Studio Libeskind, tells The Guardian
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“It wasn’t just a school. In a way, they did a pretty early version of branding. It helped to coalesce a whole lot of disparate murmurings of modernism across different disciplines and give them a much bigger voice.”
Barbara Bestor, Bestor Architecture, tells Curbed
“ The lasting influence of Bauhaus is not stylistic, but the attitude of mind it cultivated. In fact, perhaps the worst thing about Bauhaus are the bad copies of design classics from that period – fashion over substance. Bauhaus at its best was a revolution in the relationship between arts and crafts, aesthetics and functions, conceiving and making. ”
Norman Foster, Foster + Partners, tells The Guardian
“The Bauhaus is the beginning of all of us having a conversation about the value of design and making it an accessible conversation for the everyday person. Before this moment, design was a kind of relegated to a few people or to a series of salons or to artists in their own community. The birth of the diagram, as the Bauhaus used it, was a tool to investigate something and also was a way to engage a larger audience about design.”
Elizabeth Timme, LA Más, tells Curbed
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“ The Bauhaus did in the early 20s what many schools and institutions are unable to do today: consider every single act of life as a space of design and creative action. ”
Eva Franch i Gilabert, director, Architectural Association, tells The Guardian
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“I believe that both the modernists and the members of the Bauhaus were motivated by the will to return to authenticity in the production and treatment of materials. It is an attitude opposing the machine production of the industry, whose desire to satisfy the emerging mass culture caused everything to be produced only for deception and quick seduction, which was something completely different from what the product really was.”
Carme Pinós, Estudio Carme Pinos, tells Bauhaus 100
“ The legacy of the school’s short but remarkable 14 years of existence is its liberal and plural teaching of determination to follow through and develop ideas. It’s a legacy that should be taught at all schools, to all students and to practising architects. ”