The Bauhaus Essay Example for Free

The Bauhaus Essay The Bauhaus is an institute for education of German architecture, industrial art and handicraft. The architect Walter Gropius founded it in Weimar in 1919. In 1925 the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, into a radically modern building, for the time, designed by Gropius. The New Bauhaus Art Institute was opened on 4th December 1926. The building complex was made of steel and glass. It was considered an architectural masterpiece. The Bauhaus was influenced by the term Truth To Materials because one its main principal is functionality. The rejection of principles is also an important influence. The designers tried to look at design completely differently than the status quo. They tried to look at things purely and simply. The Bauhaus designers did not use extravagant materials this made their designs affordable and available to the general public. The term form follows function means that if you design something, purely thinking about the function, a form will follow that meets the original function. The Idea comes from the American architect Louis Sullivan. Most of the designs from the Bauhaus follow this idea. The teaching methods of the Bauhaus are still used today. One year is spent in the university doing a variety of subjects before the pupils spend three more years studying one of the topics that they studied the first year. Marianne Brandt is an important figure in the history of modern design. Her metal designs such as the Kandem flexible bedside light (1928) and the 1924 ashtray revolutionised the design of metal ware she is also important because she was one of the first successful women designers. Here products are still made today by the Italian giants Alessi. Marcel Breuer was a master of creating simple, light and functional furniture. He was an innovator and he introduced new technological advances to design. Designs such as the 1925 Wassily Chair and the Table Laccio demonstrate his talent. Normally a prototype was as far as a design went in the Bauhaus, this is because students didnt have much money and so they couldnt afford to fund the mass production of their designs. Another reason is that this happened is because many of the designs werent desired enough by the public, to be mass-produced. I think that the Bauhaus is a very important part in the history of art. It deserves the prestige it receives as the centre of a revolution in art and design education It has produced some of the most memorable pieces of design in history and you can see how much it has inspired the designers of today just by looking at the functionality and simplicity of their work. I am sure that the Bauhaus will continue to inspire the designers of the future. The term less is more is applied to pieces of work from the Bauhaus because of the simplicity and lack of extravagance of most of the pieces creates a bigger impact that a fancy and complicated design. This is because most of the design during the time of the Bauhaus was lavish and complicated. Modern design centres on functionality and simplicity. Minimalism has a very important role to play in modern design. For me this movement plus a lot of other ideas, such as ease of mass production, started at the Bauhaus.