Walter Gropius And The Bauhaus Movement

The Bauhaus Movement was one of the most influential design movements of the 20th century. The movement started with one desire, to bridge the gap between different crafts and to create a unity between artist, engineers, architects, and etc. (Bauhaus movement) The founder Walter Gropius and his fellow students works and ideas still resonate through out the design world. The Bauhaus history was clouded with challenges and scandals. Even with the up’s and down’s history of the movement, Bauhaus continues to be recognized as the international style. In this essay I will be introducing who Walter Gropius was, the philosophy Bauhaus, and conflicts with the Nazi party.

Walter Gropius is known as the founder of The Bauhaus School of design. He
After he came back from the military he joined the November group which encouraged Gropius to expand his idea on design. In 1919 he became the head of The Work Council for Art, which was known as a radical groups of craftsmen’s ; architects, painters, and sculptors. In the same year he was presented the opportunity to create his own school by reorganizing Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar which later became The Bauhaus School of Design. The Bauhaus was originally funded by the state government of Thuringia, however after several years, Thuringia politics started to become more nationalistic. This new political direction created upheaval in ideas and shunned the Bauhaus. In 1925 The Bauhaus School lost it funding and moved to
The Bauhaus idealism of equality was against the Nazism ideology of hierarchy and order leading the Bauhaus with little hope of survival WWII. With the direction of the new appointed director Hannes Meyer radical take on functionalist design the school became a target for the Nazi party. The Nazis’ believed The Bauhaus was un-german and labeled it entartete kunst, the degenerate art. With the pressures of Meyer’s radical changes on Bauhaus ideology and Nazi’s party pressures, the Bauhaus community started to unravel leaving the The Bauhaus on unstable ground. In 1930, Meyers was dismissed and Mies can der Rohe took over. However, the new appointment in director did little to safe the Bauhaus from the fate of being closed by the Nazi Party. Mies relocated the school to Berlin, however it was short lived and was forced to closed down by the Nazi party in 1933.