Editing Bauhaus (section)

== Bauhaus and German modernism ==
After Germany's defeat in [[World War I]] and the establishment of the [[Weimar Republic]], a renewed liberal spirit allowed an upsurge of radical experimentation in all the arts, which had been suppressed by the old regime. Many Germans of left-wing views were influenced by the cultural experimentation that followed the [[Russian Revolution]], such as [[Constructivism (art)|constructivism]]. Such influences can be overstated: Gropius did not share these radical views, and said that Bauhaus was entirely apolitical.<ref>Evans, Richard J. ''The Coming of the Third Reich'', p. 416</ref> Just as important was the influence of the 19th-century English designer [[William Morris]] (1834–1896), who had argued that art should meet the needs of society and that there should be no distinction between form and function.<ref>''Funk and Wagnall's New Encyclopaedia'', Vol 5, p. 348</ref> Thus, the Bauhaus style, also known as the [[International Style (architecture)|International Style]], was marked by the absence of ornamentation and by harmony between the function of an object or a building and its design.

However, the most important influence on Bauhaus was [[modernism]], a cultural movement whose origins lay as early as the 1880s, and which had already made its presence felt in Germany before the World War, despite the prevailing conservatism. The design innovations commonly associated with Gropius and the Bauhaus—the radically simplified forms, the rationality and functionality, and the idea that [[mass production]] was reconcilable with the individual artistic spirit—were already partly developed in Germany before the Bauhaus was founded. The German national designers' organization [[Deutscher Werkbund]] was formed in 1907 by [[Hermann Muthesius]] to harness the new potentials of mass production, with a mind towards preserving Germany's economic competitiveness with England. In its first seven years, the Werkbund came to be regarded as the authoritative body on questions of design in Germany, and was copied in other countries. Many fundamental questions of craftsmanship versus mass production, the relationship of usefulness and beauty, the practical purpose of formal beauty in a commonplace object, and whether or not a single proper form could exist, were argued out among its 1,870 members (by 1914).
[[File:Joost Schmidt Bauhausausstellung 1923.jpg|thumb|200px|Poster for the Bauhausaustellung (1923)]]
German architectural modernism was known as [[New Objectivity (architecture)|Neues Bauen]]. Beginning in June 1907, [[Peter Behrens]]' pioneering [[industrial design]] work for the German electrical company [[AEG (German company)|AEG]] successfully integrated art and mass production on a large scale. He designed consumer products, standardized parts, created clean-lined designs for the company's graphics, developed a consistent corporate identity, built the modernist landmark [[AEG Turbine Factory]], and made full use of newly developed materials such as poured concrete and exposed steel. Behrens was a founding member of the Werkbund, and both Walter Gropius and [[Adolf Meyer (architect)|Adolf Meyer]] worked for him in this period.

The Bauhaus was founded at a time when the German [[zeitgeist]] had turned from emotional [[Expressionist architecture|Expressionism]] to the matter-of-fact [[New Objectivity]]. An entire group of working architects, including [[Erich Mendelsohn]], [[Bruno Taut]] and [[Hans Poelzig]], turned away from fanciful experimentation and towards rational, functional, sometimes standardized building. Beyond the Bauhaus, many other significant German-speaking architects in the 1920s responded to the same aesthetic issues and material possibilities as the school. They also responded to the promise "to promote the object of assuring to every German a healthful habitation" written into the new [[Weimar Constitution]] (Article 155). [[Ernst May]], Bruno Taut and [[Martin Wagner (architect)|Martin Wagner]], among others, built large housing blocks in [[Frankfurt]] and Berlin. The acceptance of modernist design into everyday life was the subject of publicity campaigns, well-attended public exhibitions like the [[Weissenhof Estate]], films, and sometimes fierce public debate.

=== Bauhaus and Vkhutemas ===
{{Main|Vkhutemas}}
The Vkhutemas, the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in [[Moscow]], has been compared to Bauhaus. Founded a year after the Bauhaus school, Vkhutemas has close parallels to the German Bauhaus in its intent, organization and scope. The two schools were the first to train artist-designers in a modern manner.<ref name="GSE">{{in lang|ru}} ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia; Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya'', [https://archive.today/20050503051137/http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/007/304.htm ''Вхутемас'']</ref> Both schools were state-sponsored initiatives to merge traditional craft with modern technology, with a basic course in aesthetic principles, courses in [[color theory]], industrial design, and architecture.<ref name="GSE" /> Vkhutemas was a larger school than the Bauhaus,<ref>Wood, Paul (1999) ''The Challenge of the Avant-Garde''. New Haven: [[Yale University Press]] {{ISBN|0-300-07762-9}}, p.  244</ref> but it was less publicised outside the [[Soviet Union]] and consequently, is less familiar in [[Western culture|the West]].<ref name="Fry1999">{{cite book |author=Tony Fry |title=A New Design Philosophy: An Introduction to Defuturing |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yEc7UGv2xQEC |access-date=15 May 2011 |date=October 1999 |publisher=UNSW Press |isbn=978-0-86840-753-1 |page=161}}</ref>

With the internationalism of modern architecture and design, there were many exchanges between the Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus.<ref>[[Timothy Colton|Colton, Timothy J.]] (1995) ''Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis''. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press {{ISBN|0-674-58749-9}}; p. 215</ref> The second Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer attempted to organise an exchange between the two schools, while Hinnerk Scheper of the Bauhaus collaborated with various Vkhutein members on the use of colour in architecture. In addition, [[El Lissitzky]]'s book ''Russia: an Architecture for World Revolution'' published in German in 1930 featured several illustrations of Vkhutemas/Vkhutein projects there.