The legacy of the Bauhaus

·        Did Bauhaus spiked so much controversy because of its capacity and the cohesive image it exposed to the world, an image of disciplined monochrome modernistic simplicity manifested in the excessive use of steel and glass?

·        If Bauhaus intended to reform societies after the world war 2, did it succeed to stay relevant by implementing a new way of living in both continents?

The Bauhaus was a catalyst in the evolution of contemporary art, especially in the fields of architecture and Industrial design. It holds a great interest however as, despite how isolated it was, it managed to be exposed to the rest of the world at the same time. If someone visits the Bauhaus today, inevitably he would wonder how a single building entity in a provincial area had the capacity to impose such influence upon the world. For many years, the Bauhaus building was conceived as nothing more than an illustration of black and white photographs, highlighting the details that could easily be copied, but running the risk of drifting away from its very own purpose. The building acted just as a framework, giving a stage to the creative minds of the time, while promoting the characteristics of a community.

The great depression and the World Was II “led to the adoption of forms that in most cases bore little resemblance to their supposed European antecedents.”[1] America gave the stage upon which the principles of the Bauhaus were implemented in as a more well thought process. The modernistic architects of the Bauhaus when contested with this new site, they did not perceive it a series of restrictions and constrains, but rather a sincere landscape. A unspoilt territory which could act as a blank canvas in contesting and contrasting their ideas in this new continent called America.

For me however, the true power of the Bauhaus could more easily be seen in the arts that emerged through that movement rather than the architecture. To a majority of people, the iconic building look of the Bauhaus movement could be interpreted in the clean straight lines of Walter Gropius or the instinctive simplicity that Rohe’s picturesque building still convey. Personally, that influence can more easily be seen in a painting called red balloon by Klee.

In this painting, Klee painted a space loosely defined in terms of color. However, the outlines of the paintings are strictly defining this art piece. The red balloon in the middle acts as the point of reference around which the whole painting is “operating”. The colors of most geometric forms have bold gradients on the outside, gradually softening once you move closer to their core, while, moderately are reshaped and blend in the neutral background. The orthogonal trapezoid shape at the base of the painting along with beige – light blue paint around the circle, give the impression of a third dimension, turning the nature of the space from something abstract as something extremely complicated. Hence, according to many critics, this complexity could resemble or implying an urban landscape, making this painting a conceptual architectural manifestation of the movement.

Bauhaus was undoubtedly among the movements that changed not only the way we live, but more importantly the way we think about buildings. It managed to sustain and reemerge after the world war and its transatlantic journey. That been said, the framework that emerged around the idea of the building is what makes people still interested in such a minimalistic spatial organization.

[1] K. James-Chakraborty, "From Isolationism to Internationalism: American Acceptance of the Bauhaus,"

in James-Chakraborty, ed., Bauhaus Culture: From Weimar to the Cold War. Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 2006: 153.