Customer Reviews

Bauhaus 1919-1933

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The Bauhaus has always been familiar and, in some ways, "known" by architects and architectural educators. We inherit its legacy, with only cursory knowledge of the social and political context that allowed its rise, and ultimately denied its continuation. And yet, this book, which accompanies the show currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art, makes it clear that architects too frequently take only the gleanings of this school and movement--which comes to be known as a "style." Curators Leah Dickerman and Barry Bergdoll craft a brilliant historical narrative of the school and its influence. The essays are probing and extremely well-written. For those of us who pledge allegiance to the stunning textiles, typography, color studies, paintings, glass, architecture, and furniture (all of which are beautifully represented in the book), this is a welcome "rounding out" of our education.

Louise Harpman
Associate Professor of Architecture
University of Texas at Austin

Beautiful book. Excellent quality prints of culture-shifting and inspiring works of art.
The large-scale size is great for an artist who wants a good view of the works, for a student studying the Bauhaus art history, or for a art-lover who wants a beautiful coffee table book.
I personally used several of the images in a book cover design class I took while at Parsons for a project about the Bauhaus. The scans I made of the art printed in this book were perfect and totally made the project.
Would make a great personal purchase, as well as a gift. I would highly recommend this to any lover of art.

As a child of an architect who ADORED Frank Lloyd Wright and the art deco/bauhaus/midcentury modern styles, and has visited the Bauhaus Museum in Berlin and was lucky enough to live in NYC and saw the exhibit, I knew the moment I saw this I wanted to have it for my home. The pieces from the exhibit are presented in a coherent manner, it shows a varying range of in the style along with its evolution and historical context, and dispays all about the era of this design style that I love... this one is out on display as art in its own right and to show my love of all that is in the book.

My basic complaint is this large expensive 344 page catalogue doesn't begin to do justice to a beautifully laid out short-lived exhibition - where MOMA's curatorial staff employed Miesian panels to divide their available space into an attractive mini-maze - which told the entire Bauhaus story in an easily negotiated sequence of self-contained tableaux. Every aspect of the Bauhaus staff's attemps to reinvigorate the visual arts was fully covered - and neatly seperated. One never felt overwhelmed by too much information. Only a very hard-hearted visitor could have left the MOMA building without being won over to the tenets of the Bauhaus as demonstrated by a dazzling display of original thinking.

Why then after spending so much time and money to import and arrange these priceless artifacts could a "virtual tour" DVD (narating the experience of walking through the exhibition) not have been filmed and included in the catalogue? For instance no one will ever now know just how dramatic Kandinsky's "On White II" appeared when mounted on a panel painted with exactly the same colour Kandinsky chose for his Dessau apartment.

One tremendous coup for MOMA was to display the "Africa Chair" - never seen in public until 2004. A unique tour-de-force by a 19-year-old Marcel Breuer and 24-year-old Gunta Gtolzl. Three pages are devoted to beating around the bush as to what it represents. Finally in the notes, what is generally accepted is hinted at. This chair was a labour of love by 2 young students inspired by Johannes Itten's urging of the first Weimar Bauhaus intake to " get back to basics". But why only show a front view? No picture of the seat taken from above or a close-up of the ingenious way Stolzl's hand-woven gobelin was laced into Breuer's hand-painted carved wood frame.

Instead one gets one standard photo reproduction of everything on show. Accompanied by 33 scholarly essays in very small print - which gets even smaller due to the necessity to include notes cross-referencing every word that's ever been written or spoken about the Bauhaus.

Which brings up why William Morris's influence on Walter Gropius was completely ignored by MOMA's Senior Curator Leah Dickerman in her opening essay? Which starts "Given its disporic influence on our lives today the Bauhaus is so familiar etc..." Loosely translated dispora is "the spreading of the tribes". Is she referring to Tom Wolfe's hysterical opposition to the insidious influence of 5 emigree Bauhaus Masters on the innocent American corporate and architectural fraternity? Firstly, however talented 5 men do not constitute a tribe. Nor was it Gropius's wish to spread the word across America. He was forced to leave Germany and invited with open arms for the qualities and experience he alone possessed. As was Wernher von Braun, without whom Americans could never have walked on the moon as quickly as President Kennedy promised.

Secondly, in my opinion virtually no Bauhaus influence has spread to or been imposed on the present-day lives of 95% of the American population. Not in their low-tech houses or their possessions. Whatever's cheapest rules. The present outsourcing of almost every (craft) manufacturing job to sweatshops in China etc., would have William Morris and Walter Gropius spinning in their graves.

One could go further and say the only reason the American economy is in a mess is because we've turned our backs on everything the Gropius Bauhaus stood for - elegant simple solutions to meet practical needs - with an emphasis on quality not quantity. As in Germany, where the Bauhaus Style is not "a historical phenonomen". Admittedly it is rather a shock (in this modern age) to find their clothes are all made in Germany by Germans for Germans - who wouldn't be seen dead wearing Chinese imports.

Essential reading explaining why the word Bauhaus still represents so much more than the output of their workshops is to be found in an official Bauhaus Archiv publication written by Magdalene Droste - available on Amazon for $10!