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MUSIC: Zuruck In Unserer Stadt by Feine Sahne Fischfilet
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The Bauhaus was the first true revolutionary design movement.
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It's a movement that only existed for 14 years,
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and yet, it had a kind of worldwide impact.
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The Bauhaus was never one thing.
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It was a school.
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But unlike most schools, it has this remarkable legacy.
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It was just this incredible historical moment,
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where you have some of the leading avant-garde artists
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coming to this one place,
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for the purpose of defining what art would be for the coming age.
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I think most people are really pessimistic
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at the moment, and they don't see design as a means of
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saving the world, or moving on to a more beautiful future.
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I think we can learn a lot from that attitude of positivity
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and the belief that you can change the way that people think
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and the way that people do things, through design.
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The amazing thing about the Bauhaus is its continued influence.
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And the fact that so many of the things they produced,
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if we look at them now, look so modern.
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We would not recognise those things now as being revolutionary.
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But at the time, they were beyond imagination.
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Despite its brief life, the impact of the Bauhaus School
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of Art and Design continues to be felt today.
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Now, as it approaches its centenary,
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it's attracting headlines, once again.
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Shocking, funny and raucous,
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Left-wing punk band, Feine Sahne Fischfilet,
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has had its fair share of controversy.
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The band was due to play the iconic Bauhaus building in Dessau.
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Once home to the world-famous School of Art and Design.
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But far-right extremists threatened to protest at the concert
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and the director of the Bauhaus cancelled the gig.
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The director's actions have provoked a backlash from critics,
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who say the Bauhaus
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has played into the hands of these neo-Nazi groups.
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2019 marks the centenary
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of the opening of the Bauhaus school in Weimar.
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But is there a danger that, in seeking to protect itself,
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the institution has actually forgotten its past?
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Well, we're here in Weimar,
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on one of the campuses of the Bauhaus University.
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This is actually where the original Bauhaus school was founded.
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That school eventually wound up being one of
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the defining early Modernist movements.
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Now, in this building here, the theme was not the human figure,
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it was the geometric figure. So, shapes.
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And we can really see here, as we go up this staircase,
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we've got three different murals that are showing
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the three fundamental shapes as the Bauhaus saw it.
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So we got the circle, we've got the triangle
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and we've got the square.
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Looking at this one here in particular,
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is a big arrow pointing towards the Sekretariat.
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Where you find the secretary is also where you find the director.
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So that's what we're going to do now, is we're going to take
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a look at Walter Gropius' office.
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The Bauhaus was the brainchild of Walter Gropius,
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who created the school
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and became its first director.
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And is now considered
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one of the greatest architects
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and educators of the 20th century.
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Walter Gropius came from a family which was very well-known,
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in Berlin, especially.
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He had some famous ancestors who were architects.
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And when he was born, it was already absolutely clear
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that he also would have to be an architect.
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The good architect always had a wider view of society,
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how your in-built environment changes, as of course it does.
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Beyond being an architect, he was a thinker.
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He certainly had this concept in mind.
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Let's go and redesign society.
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His most important building was the factory in Alfeld,
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which can be seen as a predecessor of the Bauhaus building
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that he later created.
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So, really, at the edge of the avant-garde back then.
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War broke out in 1914
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and Gropius was drafted into the cavalry.
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He was soon to receive a message that would lead to the formation
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of the Bauhaus school.
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At the beginning of the war,
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the director of the School of Applied Arts in Weimar
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contacts Gropius because he is looking for his replacement.
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He feels strongly that Gropius, because he has gained
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this reputation, would be a good successor.
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But war interrupts the proposal.
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Gropius was a lieutenant.
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At the beginning he was actually, like so many men,
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eager to go on the battlefield.
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The reality of war proved very different to his expectations.
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Gropius experienced fierce combat on the front lines
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and was injured on numerous occasions.
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Gropius was obviously affected by the war.
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He described how he had the screaming jeebies in the night,
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because his experiences had been so terrible.
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He survived some really desperate incidents.
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There's story told that he led his men in Normandy to shelter
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in a building that was hit by a bomb.
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And the building collapsed.
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And everyone died except for Gropius.
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So I imagine him, in the rubble,
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thinking about what he's going to do when he gets out.
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This is an architect, almost crushed by architecture.
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A little bit broken and very idealistic.
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And at this point, Gropius was a man on a mission.
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What could we do new, how could we use technology
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in a progressive way, rather than a destructive way?
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Gropius was really a visionary.
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I think it took a particular personality to dream this big.
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People came out of the First World War and really wanted to see change
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on so many levels.
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The old world wasn't trusted any longer.
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And I think the Bauhaus is a direct result of that.
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They wanted a different art, different architecture
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and a different education.
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I still remember when I came out of the First World War,
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I thought everything would snap back as it has been before.
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But all of a sudden, I became aware that
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I would have to take part in something completely new,
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which would change the conditions I had been living in before.
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Driven by this new radical thinking, Gropius decided to accept
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the invitation he'd had from Weimar before the war.
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But instead of just taking over the Applied Arts school,
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he would merge it with the School of Fine Arts,
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bringing together all the disciplines under one roof.
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This was just the idea of the Bauhaus, to mix up these things.
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To see that there is no barrier, of any real meaning,
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between a painting or the other things of our environment.
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When you make a chair, it's a very practical thing.
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But beyond that, also, it should be beautiful.
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I consider beauty a basic requirement of life.
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Defeated at the end of the war, the Kaiser abdicated,
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paving the way for something new and hopeful,
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but also leading to a period of unrest and chaos.
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Coming out of the First World War, Germany founds its first democracy,
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the Weimar Republic.
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There were radical groups on the far-left and on the far-right,
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who were just trying to get to power
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and who were shooting at each other.
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Everything had been destroyed.
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There was a real need to rebuild.
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So, to me, the Bauhaus is really a series of experiments
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in trying to rethink the place of art and design in society
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after the First World War.
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The first Bauhaus in Weimar
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was a hostile takeover of a traditional art school.
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Full of much more traditionally minded artists, who were absolutely
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horrified by what's going on in the world of academic politics.
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Of course, intrigue and infighting and factionalism
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are part of the deal, and the early Bauhaus was no exception.
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Weimar is the classical spot for Goethe and Schiller,
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the big poets of German literature.
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So this wasn't the place to start off something new.
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On the face of it, Weimar was an unlikely location
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for a radical project like the Bauhaus.
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So, to attract teachers and students to his new school,
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Gropius now produced a manifesto -
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a kind of mission statement, in which he outlined his vision.
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At the Bauhaus, all the disciplines would come together,
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to create what he considered to be
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the pinnacle of artistic achievement - a building.
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The manifesto proclaimed...
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It wasn't that new, of course.
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A lot of the ideas that Gropius put into the first manifesto
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came from William Morris.
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He was talking about the unity of the arts,
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it was about making painting and architecture and design
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all part of the same thing.
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This manifesto was distributed throughout Germany.
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And we know, from many, many students, that they got hold of
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this manifesto, and that was like a strike of lightning
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and they said, "Wow, that's something where I have to go."
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But, maybe even larger than founding the school,
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you find, if you look at the staff of the Bauhaus,
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if you look at the famous teachers, Gropius brought together
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all the most important people and stars at their time.
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I was aware, after what I had done already, as an architect,
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that in order to really penetrate,
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that couldn't be done by one person alone.
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You have to build-up a whole school, which follows certain principles,
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out of which it may develop.
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And that gave me the idea for organising the Bauhaus.
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The other thing that's interesting about Gropius as an architect,
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especially an architect of his era, is that he couldn't draw.
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So he, either by necessity or temperament,
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was a born collaborator.
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As his teachers, Gropius assembled
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a Who's Who of the greatest artists and thinkers of the period,
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including Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Marcel Breuer,
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Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Oskar Schlemmer.
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Wassily Kandinsky, he is, at this point,
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one of the most famous painters in Europe.
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He's Russian, he brings this idea of a new kind of painting,
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which is not representational,
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and is much more kind of a tool for expressing the spirit.
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Paul Klee is an incredibly influential teacher.
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He was, one can see in his paintings, quite a spiritual person.
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You know, he's painting ghosts, he's painting angels,
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a lot of Bauhaus students recall his lectures as transformative,
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in terms of thinking about how art and spirituality can go together.
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If we look at Oskar Schlemmer,
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it's always the human figure in his field of interest.
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He was first a painter and then a sculptor,
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but he was also quite active in theatre or dance.
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Exploring sculpture in motion.
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They talk about the total work of art.
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The stage, of course, is an excellent field
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where you could explore the togetherness of many
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disciplines, like in architecture.
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At the Bauhaus, architects and designers dance themselves.
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To play with temporary architecture,
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to make a space in a second and to change it.
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And this is quite unique.
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I think you couldn't found any other school where such a thing
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like dancing for architects, and dancing for designers
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is part of the curriculum.
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They didn't hire teachers
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because they followed a certain style or ideology. On the contrary.
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They hired people because they were different.
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And you name me one school today that does that.
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Why, just look at the breadth. Look at the Kandinsky painting
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and then the chair without hindlegs.
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Bent wood turned into metal.
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And then you look at a Klee painting,
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which was like a child's dream.
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And that's what it was such a fantastic revolution.
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They redefined everything.
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It was an amazing time.
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Now that Gropius' team was assembled, the students
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began to arrive in droves, seeking out the teaching
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that had been promised in the manifesto.
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Students came to the Bauhaus from all over.
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Students who wanted to break with tradition,
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with the old, wanted to look to a hopeful new future.
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There were students who had gone through a traditional art training,
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there were young students, 18-year-olds who just came
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straight from high school education,
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and then there were so many returning soldiers.
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Some who, famously, literally walked to the Bauhaus
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because they were so poor.
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And so, it was a really vibrant, diverse mix of students all coming
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for different reasons but who then became involved in this project,
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this project of modernism that was the Bauhaus.
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Gropius and his team set about putting his manifesto into practice
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and planning the school's curriculum.
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The prevailing artistic movement of the time was Expressionism,
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and the Bauhaus was to be a reaction against this.
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There was a lot of undercurrents going on
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in the culture of post-World War I Europe.
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There were the Expressionists
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who were, I suppose you'd call them sort of, moody Goths.
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It's like those Gothic films of the period
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that were going on in the Berlin film studios.
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The early Expressionist movement within the Bauhaus was suppressed
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by the teachers. Mainly by Itten, who gave the introductory course.
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Johannes Itten, this crazy vegetarian, sun worshipper,
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who had his head shaved, putting a star on the back of it
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and persuading his students to join the cult.
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The man who was most responsible for the Vorkurs -
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what became the foundation, you know,
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which every art school in Britain still follows.
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The students were supposed to forget everything
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they had learned at school and to start off without any
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kind of preconception.
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The six months preliminary course was really quite revolutionary.
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Up until then, everyone had been a specialist.
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You were a chair designer or you made pottery or lamps or weaving.
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But never before had these things been brought together.
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So the six months, what we now call a foundation course,
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equipped people with transferable skills
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to understand how to work in all of these different media.
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Many of them had already started their education in art academies.
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Famously, Marianne Brandt burned all her previous work when she
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got to the Bauhaus and realised how traditional it had been.
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Itten really was responsible for coming up with this idea
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of colour as having a kind of power of its own, an emotive resonance.
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That it wasn't just about something that you used to create
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a representation of the natural world, but this was your grounding.
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The Bauhaus was really interested in going back into the fundamentals
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of art and design, and really asking basic questions
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about how things worked, trying to find rules,
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trying to figure things out.
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And so, in this particular case,
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their theory they were trying to represent here was
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that shapes have other attributes associated with them.
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So this isn't randomly a red square, this is supposed to represent
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their idea that all squares are red.
289
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Now, that would mean if you took a white sheet of paper and drew
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yourself a square, where there was no colour visible,
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they would argue it was still somehow intrinsically red.
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It's really a turning point when there's no longer
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just copying the masters, but instead thinking about how to become
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an artist through movement.
295
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So Johannes Itten said that before you draw a tiger
296
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you have to roar like a tiger.
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He was assisted in this endeavour
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by a teacher who was much less-known called Gertrud Grunow.
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She was actually a musician, a composer and a concert pianist,
300
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:23,720
who had developed a new synaesthetic theory that there was
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a harmony between colour, sound and movement.
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Students were instructed to feel these resonances
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and connections between these different senses
304
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within their bodies.
305
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So she would teach students to, one of them famously recalled,
306
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"Dance the colour blue."
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What they were trying to do was a kind of artistic esperanto.
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Something international, something which would enable
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these students to go out into the world.
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Itten had a really quite excellent method of getting us relaxed
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by breathing exercises to loosen us up.
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He was really the first who saw the importance of the subconscious
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in creative art.
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But, during that time,
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he got more and more involved with
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this quasi-religious cult of Persian origin called Mazdaznan.
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And, in consequence, he became more and more remote,
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less involved, and gradually more and more aloof.
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Yeah, there was quite a big sort of, spiritual movement in Germany.
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I'm not talking about Christian - a more spiritual, you know,
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dancing and being naked and stuff, going back to nature.
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Also, it existed before the First World War but again,
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the first war, this amazing catastrophe,
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the biggest up to then, had made people more aware of things.
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And he was sort of into that.
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And even his teaching, his colour schemes and his drawings
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and paintings were all little sort of, hippie-ish,
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one would say. He was a very early hippie.
329
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And then he also... like some of those gurus, he had followers,
330
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who would, like, you know, pray with him and dance on the roof.
331
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He certainly wasn't what you would expect -
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the rigorous, mechanical, Gropius kind of engineer.
333
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On the contrary.
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Johannes Itten, the students really needed to leave their prejudices
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at the door when they entered his classroom.
336
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He also restricted what the students would eat.
337
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:29,240
There is a very famous quote of the early Bauhauses,
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that everybody smelled very strongly of garlic.
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00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,120
When you take somebody in as a teacher,
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as a member of the faculty, you cannot interfere.
341
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But when it doesn't work,
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you have to say no and get rid of him.
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Johannes Itten was an extraordinary teacher
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but he mixed it up so very much with Mazdaznan,
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there was a clash between us, and he withdrew.
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Which I was sorry about,
347
00:20:56,160 --> 00:20:59,720
because he was a strong personality and gave very much to it.
348
00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:03,280
But this idea of the Vorkurs, as he taught,
349
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was taken up by Moholy-Nagy.
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Moholy-Nagy, who was completely different,
351
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if you compare him to Itten.
352
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:14,120
But he was more interested in technology.
353
00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:15,880
So here the Bauhaus takes,
354
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:19,280
with its different masters and different teachers,
355
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:22,440
it takes different shifts and different directions.
356
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:26,960
And with Moholy coming, Gropius also has this new motto
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which is art and technology - a new unity.
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You need a lot of strength to change the direction of a school,
359
00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:39,920
to convince all the others around you who are teaching,
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00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:43,280
and also to take all the students along with you.
361
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:45,720
And, this was something that he was doing
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00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:47,600
every three or four years.
363
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:52,560
The first generation of young people educated in the Bauhaus were now
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00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:56,560
ready to be head of the workshops, and that's what I did.
365
00:21:56,560 --> 00:21:59,360
When Itten left, Gropius asked me suddenly,
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00:21:59,360 --> 00:22:02,840
to my surprise, to teach the introductory course.
367
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:04,280
I said, "What?"
368
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:08,920
But he persuaded me and so, I decided that the material,
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as such, is the beginning.
370
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:16,600
I presented wire and said, "Let's try what we can do
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00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,920
"new with wire. Give it a new shape."
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And then later I introduced study of paper.
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What was, at that time, considered wrapping material.
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So, their approach to practice
375
00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:32,680
was really to understand the material itself.
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The object that takes its own nature, effectively.
377
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,520
"Form follows function" is right there at the heart of it.
378
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:41,280
The Bauhaus is probably one of the most crystallised versions
379
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:44,760
of form following function, as an overriding ethos
380
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:46,960
to the entire institution.
381
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I think, in many ways, form does follow function.
382
00:22:50,360 --> 00:22:53,160
That thinking would have come out, Bauhaus or not.
383
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:55,240
But they managed to encapsulate it
384
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,160
and make it into slogan and make it into a movement.
385
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:05,000
The Bauhaus school was truly revolutionary in its approach
386
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,600
to art education.
387
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,040
However, by today's standards it was anything but radical
388
00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:12,920
in its treatment of the female students.
389
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,200
According to the law of the land at the time,
390
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,760
women were entitled to absolutely equal rights.
391
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:22,320
In practice, this was not how things worked.
392
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:27,320
The very first semester of the Bauhaus, there were 51% women
393
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:32,040
studying there and Gropius became concerned about this.
394
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,160
This was a man who was a realist
395
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,160
about what society was ready for, and wasn't.
396
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,520
He thought that if the school was entirely filled by women
397
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it would not be taken seriously.
398
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,200
Not only Gropius, also all the other male,
399
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:50,680
and they were almost only male, teachers at the Bauhaus,
400
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,200
were brought up in the 19th century.
401
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:58,440
So, they had this very male view of society.
402
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:02,080
The big failure in my mind is the workshop experience.
403
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,080
In the preliminary course, all the students, men and women,
404
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,520
had very similar experiences.
405
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:10,480
When they advanced to the workshops, the men had the choice -
406
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,160
they could go to the carpentry workshop, they could go
407
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:15,480
to the printing press, they had options.
408
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,520
Women, of course, had to go into the weaving workshop.
409
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:20,760
They had no choice.
410
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,200
Anni Albers came to study with the great painters.
411
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:26,520
To study with Klee, Kandinsky or Feininger.
412
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,200
And she was extremely upset
413
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,080
when she learned she wouldn't be able to continue.
414
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:32,360
And she talks about
415
00:24:32,360 --> 00:24:36,000
how dismissive she was of the weaving workshop at the time.
416
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:39,240
But, there were a few women who opposed,
417
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,520
who said, "No, I do not believe that textile is the right thing
418
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,920
"for me, I want to go to the metal class."
419
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,200
And it was extremely difficult for them.
420
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:54,200
Marianne Brandt told an interesting story about the metal workshop,
421
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:57,280
of which she was the only female graduate.
422
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:58,640
When she first got there,
423
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:03,080
she was given the most boring task to do over and over again.
424
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:06,640
And she thought that everyone just had to do that when they were new.
425
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,240
And only later when her male colleagues decided she would
426
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:10,640
probably be acceptable,
427
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:14,000
they told her they were just trying to get her to leave.
428
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,960
She in fact, became the head of the workshop's assistant.
429
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,040
The head was Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
430
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,520
And, when he left, she took over as the acting director.
431
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:27,720
She's one of the examples of a real Bauhaus success story.
432
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:29,200
I think it's typical of its time.
433
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,240
And I'm sure there would be people who would say,
434
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,560
"Oh, that's trying to force a feminist perspective on it."
435
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:34,800
I don't see it like that at all.
436
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:39,120
I just think it's re-establishing the facts, really.
437
00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:42,400
Outside the school, both men and women alike were proving
438
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:46,280
far too radical for the quiet town of Weimar.
439
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:48,960
Weimar then and now has a reputation.
440
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:53,040
It's a very sleepy, historical city, it's more associated with Goethe
441
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:56,640
and Schiller, or its lovely parks, its lovely historical homes,
442
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,280
and there was something very enervating
443
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,360
for some of these young artists to be in Weimar.
444
00:26:02,360 --> 00:26:09,000
Wherever you have an art academy with a young group of students
445
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,200
who feel that they themselves are something completely different
446
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,800
than the rest of society, you have these conflicts.
447
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,400
When I see some of those strong images of the students at that time,
448
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,240
the most famous one would be Marcel Breuer and his wife,
449
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,720
and two other female students, which they called Breuer's harem.
450
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,160
And they make me think about Siouxsie and the Banshees.
451
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,840
They look like art students in London in the 1980s.
452
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:40,960
The students who were here, we could call them certainly
453
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:42,880
the equivalent of young radicals now.
454
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:44,720
Perhaps they would have been in punk bands,
455
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:46,240
they would have been protesting.
456
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:47,800
They wanted to be different.
457
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:49,840
They wanted to provoke.
458
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,920
To some extent, they could be seen as being out to shock
459
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,400
but they could also just be expressing the new,
460
00:26:55,400 --> 00:27:00,000
a celebration of modernism, of modern life, of just being young -
461
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,240
after the horrors of war.
462
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:04,600
There was so much optimism.
463
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,320
Young people with a new look.
464
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:11,360
They were so enthusiastic. No other school was so free.
465
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,640
In a way, they are much more modern than we're now.
466
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,240
You know, in terms of how they challenged the norms
467
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,680
and really believed that what they were going to do
468
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,760
was going to influence the world for the better.
469
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,760
Cutting their hair short, men taking a more androgynous look,
470
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:31,160
breaking down gender codes and gender norms.
471
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:35,840
Opening up homosexuality and being more out in culture.
472
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,920
They were women and they were men and they danced together
473
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,720
and they socialised together, and the women drank and smoked,
474
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,600
and it was everything that the good citizens of Weimar
475
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:48,280
associated with the major cities and thought they were free from.
476
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,600
And they were probably seen by the natives
477
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:52,280
as weirdos from outer space.
478
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:54,440
It was radical, they must've had a lot of fun.
479
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:56,200
They would parade through the town
480
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:57,880
in whatever they happened to have on.
481
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,040
And, of course, the citizens thought the Bauhaus
482
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,240
was a terrifically immoral place.
483
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:06,040
They wore these outlandish costumes, a lot of them.
484
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:10,200
The students thought that the Weimarians were living in the past
485
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:15,560
and that they hadn't noticed that times had changed since Goethe died.
486
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:19,000
So one day they took a bucket of paint and just poured it over
487
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,560
these sculptures of Goethe and Schiller,
488
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,040
and everybody, of course, knew that it had to be
489
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:25,880
the Bauhaus students who had done this.
490
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:27,640
So, obviously, I mean, they were students.
491
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,440
It's like they're doing it today, you know.
492
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,480
They were, like, provoking the society
493
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,440
and it created a big opposition.
494
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,040
Which eventually led to the Bauhaus leaving Weimar.
495
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,400
And at this point, the local government is getting
496
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:46,040
a little tired of the Bauhaus.
497
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:47,360
They just are not ready
498
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,680
for something quite as progressive as this.
499
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:53,160
The money was coming from the government and, of course,
500
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:57,120
the politicians wanted to know what they were doing at the Bauhaus.
501
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:59,680
And they wanted to see results.
502
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:04,160
Germany was incredibly unstable, the economy was in freefall.
503
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,160
Gropius, he's periodically having to go to the government
504
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,400
and say, "I need several million more marks just to cover the basics
505
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:13,240
"that we were already covering."
506
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:17,880
At a certain point, the government had to look at manifesto and said,
507
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,680
"Well, you're not really doing what you're promising here."
508
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,360
With tensions on the rise, the Weimar government pressured
509
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:29,240
the Bauhaus into holding an exhibition to justify its funding.
510
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,040
Despite Gropius' reservations, it was given a year.
511
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,520
August, 1923 marked the opening of
512
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,320
the first great Bauhaus exhibition.
513
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:43,040
Gropius was furious. In his opinion, it was way too early to hold
514
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:44,120
an exhibition like that.
515
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:47,000
Because he was still creating the infrastructure here
516
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,000
in order to provide this teaching.
517
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,120
But I'm imagining that the students were actually pretty happy about it.
518
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,080
Because now they had a goal, they had a clear direction.
519
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:56,240
And if you look at
520
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,960
the amount of stuff that was being produced for this exhibition,
521
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,360
you can really see there was a lot of energy, there was a lot of drive.
522
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:04,800
They did something really incredible.
523
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:07,160
They built an entire house.
524
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:12,160
I mean, imagine a school building a house nowadays,
525
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:13,880
just for an exhibition.
526
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,480
And a house which was not supposed to be torn down again
527
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,120
after the exhibition, but to be lived in.
528
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:23,960
A huge production that the entire school is involved in.
529
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,800
Everything goes into that.
530
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,680
They also cancelled the preliminary course for a semester,
531
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,040
just so that everyone could work towards this.
532
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,640
And it was completely furnished
533
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,600
by the works of the Bauhaus students
534
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,000
to demonstrate their ideas of what they thought was
535
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,320
the modern kind of living in this new kind of house.
536
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:48,720
Through the sheer ingenuity and variety on display,
537
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,120
Gropius and his students sought to convince the Weimar public
538
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,480
and government of the importance of their work.
539
00:30:55,480 --> 00:31:01,000
This was nothing less then a battle for the survival of the school.
540
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,800
Gropius, being such a brilliant networker, also invited a lot of
541
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,680
industrialists, professors, journalists from all over the world
542
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:08,640
to bring them here to Weimar
543
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,560
and to really show what his Bauhaus is doing.
544
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,320
Among the foreigners, people were leaving Weimar
545
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:17,320
and seeing, "OK, you know, these Germans, they are obviously
546
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,800
"producing something valid for the new society
547
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:22,680
"for the post-war period."
548
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:24,480
But the local people and the government
549
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,120
who was actually in charge, they were not really impressed.
550
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,320
So, there was a lot of criticism about it.
551
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,160
This great exhibition was to show the town that, "Look,
552
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:33,960
"this is what we have achieved.
553
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:35,400
"This is what we have done."
554
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:37,840
And that actually backfired because the people of Weimar
555
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,040
didn't like what they were presented with.
556
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:41,360
Yes, they had made things,
557
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,680
but they had made, in the Weimar residents' minds, the wrong things.
558
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,880
If you look at all the cut-outs that Gropius collected,
559
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:52,160
something like 80 or 90% were negative.
560
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,960
There was no understanding for what they were doing.
561
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:58,320
And just a year later, the money that they received
562
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,160
from the government was cut down by 50%.
563
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:06,800
Gropius, very wisely resisted every attempt of the pupils
564
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:08,960
to be active in politics.
565
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,480
But the government changed, became a nationalist government,
566
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:16,480
according to the whole trend of development in Germany,
567
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:20,880
and that was the end of the Weimar Bauhaus.
568
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:24,600
Gropius and other people at the Bauhaus ensure that the story
569
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:28,360
of the defunding of the Bauhaus becomes, in modern terms,
570
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,320
a social media success.
571
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,400
There are news stories about it across the country,
572
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,120
it's shocking, it's controversial.
573
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:38,360
Gropius encourages that like a shrewd businessman,
574
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,160
because he knows that it's attracting attention
575
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:46,760
to his cause, and he starts, unbidden, to receive offers.
576
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:48,800
Probably any other director would say,
577
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:50,600
"OK, folks, that's it.
578
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,400
"Beautiful time, but now we're all going somewhere else
579
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,080
"and living our own life."
580
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:57,920
No, the entire school moves on.
581
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,160
Most of the students and all of the teachers
582
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,880
just go to another place and restart.
583
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:07,760
It was at this point that Gropius' a talent for self publicity
584
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:09,080
came into its own.
585
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,200
He embarked on a tour to raise awareness for his school.
586
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:16,720
And it was during one of these talks that he met his future wife, Ise.
587
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:21,160
She told him that the Bauhaus ideals had captured her totally.
588
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:23,120
He married Ise.
589
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:27,120
She was really an important influence on the Bauhaus.
590
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:29,200
The loving companion of his life.
591
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:34,120
You think to yourself, "How would he have managed the Bauhaus
592
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:36,320
"without Ise by his side?"
593
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,680
And she became known as Frau Bauhaus.
594
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,600
By the time the traditionalists had won in Weimar,
595
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,920
Gropius was already a serious celebrity
596
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,440
and the Bauhaus had become a pretty famous brand.
597
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:53,560
Most ambitious German mayors looking to put their city on the map
598
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:58,040
were offering bids to persuade Gropius to relocate.
599
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,080
Gropius' charm and connections become important,
600
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,280
as do those of his new wife, Ise Gropius.
601
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:05,880
And she travels to various cities.
602
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,840
They go to the city of Dessau and the mayor there
603
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,840
particularly makes notes about how charming Frau Gropius is.
604
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,240
Dessau was a very small city,
605
00:34:15,240 --> 00:34:19,280
but a dynamic place for industry and technology.
606
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,880
It was left-leaning, there was a Communist government
607
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:23,800
that was as progressive as they were.
608
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:29,360
It was also where the Junkers aircraft and metalworks factory is.
609
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:31,480
This allowed the Bauhaus to have a ready home
610
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:33,800
where it could then send its students out
611
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,440
to look at actual manufacturing practices.
612
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:40,960
They are given a significant parcel of land just on the outskirts
613
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,760
of town, and they can build their first and only large-scale
614
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:48,280
purpose-built building and a campus around it.
615
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,040
And so, it was a wonderful offer
616
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,920
that the Bauhaus got from the city of Dessau,
617
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:54,680
and one that allowed them
618
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:58,360
to bring a lot of what they had talked about to fruition.
619
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,400
Gropius very quickly sets to work and is able to build,
620
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:06,280
really in record time, a very modern, very large school building,
621
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:10,000
full of light with a glass curtain wall with a steel structure
622
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:11,360
that allowed for this.
623
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:13,280
And that you could also live and work together
624
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,480
through the wonderful dormitory wing.
625
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:19,320
A large cafeteria which then opened up also to the stage,
626
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:21,520
a full auditorium.
627
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,800
I would say that the Bauhaus building is the best building
628
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,280
that Gropius ever built.
629
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,920
It's a symbol of the Bauhaus itself.
630
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:36,120
You have to walk around it. It's not a building in an old-fashioned sense
631
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:39,200
that you stand in front of a facade.
632
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,600
It must have been like a spaceship landing in Germany.
633
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:42,760
I mean, it's so radical.
634
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:44,080
And it's a complex building,
635
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:46,600
which is why it's a little bit difficult to photograph it.
636
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:48,960
You always see this one side with the Bauhaus lettering
637
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,640
but that's not what you see when you come out of the train station.
638
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:53,600
The first thing in front of you is the student wing
639
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:54,880
with the famous balconies.
640
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,680
And then just a short stroll away, of course, you have
641
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,560
the masters' houses set amongst the pine trees nearby.
642
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:01,960
And you have the bridge.
643
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,400
And Gropius, as a director, would be sitting in the bridge
644
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,840
and looking down at everything passing by.
645
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:12,720
Of course, it's a very good opportunity, if you move from
646
00:36:12,720 --> 00:36:15,920
one place to the other, to reinvent yourself.
647
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,240
When we came to Dessau there was a little bit more money
648
00:36:19,240 --> 00:36:22,520
available and I thought, "Now is the moment where we have
649
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,160
"to build-up an architectural department."
650
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:29,440
And I got in Hannes Meyer from Switzerland, who had done some
651
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,920
very good design work for the United Nations and others,
652
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:34,480
which I liked.
653
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:39,480
And so he started to build-up this architectural department.
654
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,240
The Dessau period under Walter Gropius,
655
00:36:42,240 --> 00:36:46,640
these were the most stable years in German society.
656
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:49,880
And they're also most stable years at the Bauhaus.
657
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:53,760
With his new building, Gropius had finally realised his dream.
658
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:56,600
The Bauhaus Dessau was now home to painting,
659
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,560
sculpture, weaving, furniture design,
660
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:01,560
pottery and architecture.
661
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,120
But for Gropius, the work inside the school
662
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:05,960
was only part of the picture.
663
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:09,400
We have this, perhaps, image of the Bauhaus
664
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:12,720
being this very serious place where everything's rectilinear
665
00:37:12,720 --> 00:37:14,080
and we all follow the rules,
666
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:16,640
but, in fact, they threw these wonderful parties.
667
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:18,360
The metal party or the paper party
668
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:20,320
or any number of other themed parties.
669
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:23,120
But, they were clearly out having a good time.
670
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:27,560
The Bauhaus fests were also these ideas of a total piece of art
671
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:31,200
which includes costumes, music, movements.
672
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:35,120
Oskar Schlemmer famously said, "Show me how you party,
673
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:36,680
"and I'll show you who I am."
674
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:39,320
They took over the whole school.
675
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:44,920
They had these great festivities every few weeks.
676
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:46,960
They're legendary.
677
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,000
And the biggest party of the year is one still celebrated,
678
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:54,480
which is Gropius' birthday, May 18th, called Gropius Day.
679
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:57,920
And then there were these big performative parties that were open
680
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,560
to the outside, that also could potentially bring in some money.
681
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:06,760
There were a lot of relationships, couples, a lot of children,
682
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,800
a very free kind of sex life.
683
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:15,800
Nowadays, we would say, "OK, during the 1960s everything changed."
684
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,680
No, everything had already changed in the '20s
685
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:20,720
and especially at the Bauhaus.
686
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:25,560
A lot of people in Dessau were very traditional,
687
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,160
from sceptical to real enemies of the Bauhaus.
688
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:33,400
The fight of right-wing people started from the beginning,
689
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:37,320
giving out leaflets against an un-German Bauhaus,
690
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:41,040
against these not serious teaching methods,
691
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,960
against the modernist architecture and so on.
692
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,680
People were writing brochures, they were publishing articles,
693
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,840
they were criticising projects,
694
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,720
in order to undermine Gropius' credibility,
695
00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:55,480
not only as an architect but also as a director.
696
00:38:55,480 --> 00:39:00,120
There were affairs being invented between him and students
697
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,960
in order to discredit him as a person.
698
00:39:04,240 --> 00:39:09,640
Gropius' ongoing difficulties running the Bauhaus were well-known,
699
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,200
but it was still a shock to everyone at the school
700
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:14,480
when he suddenly announced his departure.
701
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:18,600
Despite the efforts of staff and students to persuade him to stay,
702
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:21,000
Gropius had made up his mind to leave.
703
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,080
When I stepped out because I thought that,
704
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:29,920
with the coming up Nazi movement, that I was a factor which did harm
705
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,600
to the Bauhaus because they attacked always me.
706
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:36,920
I stepped back and wanted to go again into private activities
707
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,440
and made Hannes Meyer my successor.
708
00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:45,400
I think that, after nine years, he also might have had enough.
709
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,600
It was a very good time to leave, to leave when something
710
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:53,520
is at its best, and knowing that it would start to get
711
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:57,040
more and more difficult, it was even easier to go.
712
00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:01,040
Then you have the world economic crisis in 1929
713
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:07,160
and everything starts falling apart rapidly, and also at the Bauhaus.
714
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,440
Imagine how you feel if you're Walter Gropius
715
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:16,040
after six years of exhausting work building the school, and realising
716
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:19,320
that actually your real motivation is not to be a great teacher,
717
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,120
but to be a great architect, and schools are a distraction.
718
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,280
Bringing in Hannes Meyer was a reflection and a commitment
719
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:28,640
to making architecture more important.
720
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,000
Hannes Meyer was perhaps the true functionalist.
721
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:35,680
He was a Swiss-born Marxist architect and, for him, aesthetics
722
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:39,320
and art were bourgeois distractions.
723
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,360
It was not really a clever idea, like, the closer we get to
724
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:46,200
the 1930s, to bring a foreigner and a Communist as the Bauhaus director,
725
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,040
but he was approaching the whole issue of the Bauhaus
726
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:50,800
from a totally different direction.
727
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,880
So, whereas Gropius was the one who was encouraging the invention of
728
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:59,920
new forms that would relate with the spirit of a new society,
729
00:40:59,920 --> 00:41:03,160
Hannes Meyer said, "In the end, the lower classes don't really
730
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,560
"care for style, they care for cost and they care for function."
731
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,080
Even though the students were very sad with Gropius leaving
732
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,800
because he had this, like, almost aristocratic way of leading
733
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:15,760
the Bauhaus, of keeping the group together and defending the school,
734
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:19,240
shortly after Meyer was taking over, there was this new spirit
735
00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:23,320
of the early years being revived, like a new departure.
736
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,560
What Gropius had actually always wanted to do
737
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:31,040
but never really achieved was to bring prototypes into industry.
738
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,280
Under Hannes Meyer, if you look, for example,
739
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:37,440
at the so-called Bauhaus wallpaper, it was a giant success.
740
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,760
They sold millions and millions of these wallpaper rolls
741
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:45,040
so that was something which also brought money in.
742
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:47,640
One of the problems that Gropius had was always finance,
743
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,800
partly because of the German hyperinflation, but also
744
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:55,160
the cost of running the whole place, so they were relying partly on
745
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:59,120
income from students' designs, and it is a little bit ironic
746
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:02,280
that most of the women were put into the weaving textile workshop -
747
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:05,160
that was the only workshop that actually ever generated
748
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,920
any real money, together with their wallpaper programme.
749
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:12,040
So what the men were doing didn't actually generate that much money.
750
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:15,760
It was also ironic that, despite his Marxist sympathies,
751
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,520
Meyer embraced capitalism during his tenure at the Bauhaus,
752
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:21,160
and, for a brief moment,
753
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,440
the institution seemed more financially secure.
754
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:28,400
But Meyer's political views would soon land him in trouble.
755
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,800
Hannes Meyer, it turned out, he was very uncompromising
756
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:37,080
in his politics, which were very left-leaning and very Marxist,
757
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,600
and in this period that becomes difficult.
758
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:44,680
Hannes Meyer had not told me about his strong leanings
759
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:48,400
towards the very left-ish political side.
760
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:52,120
I think he did very much harm by bringing too much politics
761
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,080
into the Bauhaus.
762
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,240
There was a significant body of the students that were Communists,
763
00:42:57,240 --> 00:43:01,400
and they became increasingly more dedicated to their cause over time.
764
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:03,440
It is also important to remember that
765
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:06,280
there were extreme right-wingers in the Bauhaus.
766
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,920
The canteen would be divided between the lefties on one side
767
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:11,800
and the right-wingers on the right.
768
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,240
As the political situation in Germany
769
00:43:14,240 --> 00:43:18,240
became more and more conservative and pitched more to the Nazis,
770
00:43:18,240 --> 00:43:20,440
the National Socialist Party,
771
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,280
the Bauhaus became an object of scrutiny.
772
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:26,200
This made a difficult and controversial problem
773
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:28,160
for the Mayor of Dessau,
774
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:32,080
and ultimately Hannes Meyer was asked to leave.
775
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:36,280
He had some very good ideas but under the very bad conditions
776
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:40,400
of the Nazis coming up at that time, Hannes Meyer came into hot water
777
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,400
very soon, and that was the end of him.
778
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:48,040
He made the institution open to attacks, but I think it also
779
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,040
was inevitable because the Nazis were there,
780
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:51,960
whether Meyer liked them or not.
781
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,440
At least he had attitude and guts.
782
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:58,480
In 1930, Meyer's strong political convictions made his role
783
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:02,120
as director untenable, and he was removed from his post
784
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:04,560
by the Mayor of Dessau.
785
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:06,360
The mayor asked Gropius
786
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,240
who he would recommend to take over as director.
787
00:44:09,240 --> 00:44:13,520
Gropius suggested Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who had become well-known
788
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,520
after the success of his pavilion at the Barcelona fair
789
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:17,680
the year before.
790
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,160
I don't want to express myself.
791
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:22,880
I am looking for grammar
792
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:26,720
that can be understood and used by everybody.
793
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:30,480
Where as Gropius was more of the manager in an architecture firm,
794
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:32,840
bringing skilled people together,
795
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,360
Mies was really the master architect.
796
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,560
He's the one who can draw like a god, so he is really like
797
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:40,440
the genius architect.
798
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:43,840
Mies van der Rohe, in 1930, was a superstar,
799
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,520
so the Bauhaus becomes a school of architecture,
800
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,880
finally, at the very end.
801
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:53,320
Again, the Bauhaus completely changed in a different direction.
802
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:56,480
Meyer was playful, experimental.
803
00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:00,280
On the other hand, Mies van der Rohe was a very serious
804
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:02,880
and much more authoritarian character.
805
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:08,760
The first thing that Mies did was to talk to every single student.
806
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:13,680
He was trying to find out if they were politically active or not.
807
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,280
About 20 students who were near to Hannes Meyer
808
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:19,720
were thrown out of the school.
809
00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:22,360
Many said he was a great teacher, he was also a caring teacher,
810
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:24,200
but he took this role very seriously.
811
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:28,280
He kicked out any students he could identify as Communist,
812
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:31,720
and declared that there would be no politics to the Bauhaus.
813
00:45:31,720 --> 00:45:37,000
The Bauhaus had been attacked from the beginning
814
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:41,600
from the right-winged parties, especially the National Socialists.
815
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:45,440
They did not agree with this kind of art and architecture
816
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,800
because they thought it was internationalist, and not German.
817
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:54,000
It was named a Bolshevik and Jewish institution
818
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:57,920
and it was neither Bolshevik nor was it Jewish.
819
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:02,440
This was just the invention of the National Socialists.
820
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:04,000
So Mies van der Rohe,
821
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:07,560
despite his efforts to depoliticise the Bauhaus,
822
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:09,960
was not successful in saving it.
823
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:14,520
And in 1932, when a Nazi government comes to power in Dessau,
824
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:18,360
their funding is cut, they are kicked out of their own building.
825
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,680
Nazi do come in, they close down the school,
826
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:25,160
they take control of the school, they arrest certain students.
827
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,880
Nazis go into the building and throw furniture out the window.
828
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:31,960
There's talk of burning the building down which, I think,
829
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:34,640
given how much glass and steel and concrete it has,
830
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:38,560
would have been a challenge, but they are stopped from doing this.
831
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:41,400
What they did is that they took it over,
832
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,240
and it became a party headquarters.
833
00:46:44,240 --> 00:46:47,280
Mies responded by moving the school once again
834
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,160
into a disused telephone factory in Berlin.
835
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:54,360
That was really a swansong, Berlin.
836
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:56,440
In Weimar, it was a State Institute.
837
00:46:56,440 --> 00:47:02,840
In Dessau, it was municipal. And in Berlin, we were a private institute.
838
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:05,840
During the time of the Bauhaus in Berlin, there's a hope that
839
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,480
if they just can bridge some of the finances and can keep things
840
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,760
going, then it can start to build back to what it was.
841
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:17,240
We have the Reichstag burning, and that is the moment when Hitler
842
00:47:17,240 --> 00:47:19,760
takes his stance in the new politics.
843
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:25,600
He accuses the Communists and with it, all leftist groups,
844
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:29,720
all avant-garde groups, and among them is also the Bauhaus.
845
00:47:29,720 --> 00:47:33,160
From this point on, the writing was on the wall for the Bauhaus,
846
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,680
and it was only a matter of time before the Nazis closed it down.
847
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:41,360
So, one morning, Mies van der Rohe turns up at the ex-factory,
848
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:46,360
the new Bauhaus, and found it full of Gestapo who had locked the doors
849
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,560
and were interrogating students.
850
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,040
Eventually, Mies was allowed to reopen the school
851
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:56,160
if he agreed to expel Jewish and Communist faculty members.
852
00:47:56,160 --> 00:48:00,600
But it was too late for that, because the Bauhaus,
853
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:05,000
in the eyes of the Nazis, was this centre of not only Bolshevists
854
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:09,480
but, of course, a lot of the teachers and students were Jewish.
855
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:14,400
So it's a very sad story and a sad end for the Bauhaus, really.
856
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:21,080
The teachers, in July of 1933, gathered for a meeting.
857
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:25,160
Mies brought a bottle of champagne and they decided that
858
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:27,680
they would rather close the school
859
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:31,920
than to hand the school over to the National Socialists.
860
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:35,360
They opened the bottle of champagne, drank it,
861
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:39,400
and then everybody went their own way. That was the end.
862
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:44,880
When the school ended, it enabled the ideas
863
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:49,360
to really get a foothold in society as a whole, in the world.
864
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:53,640
As awful as it sounds, I think we actually have the Nazis to thank
865
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:58,000
for dissolving the school, because it sent this talent worldwide.
866
00:48:58,000 --> 00:48:59,480
That also had a lot to do with it.
867
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:01,560
The destruction of the Bauhaus
868
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:03,840
actually helped propagate it in a way that
869
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,440
really hasn't happened to any other art school,
870
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:09,480
so you see them suddenly turning up in Israel,
871
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:13,960
in the UK, in the States, and having inordinate amounts
872
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:16,560
of influence over other design courses.
873
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:19,600
Many had to leave, many wanted to leave.
874
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,320
Albers and his wife were the first.
875
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:25,880
They went to the United States, to Black Mountain College,
876
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:28,160
and became teachers there.
877
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,920
Hannes Meyer, he goes to the Soviet Union
878
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:34,720
to work on big projects there.
879
00:49:34,720 --> 00:49:39,280
Gropius left in 1934, relatively early.
880
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:40,960
He first went to London
881
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:44,480
and from there he continued on to the United States.
882
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:45,760
He went to Harvard,
883
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:49,320
where he became the head of the architectural department.
884
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,920
Mies was bitterly, bitterly pissed off
885
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:56,200
that Gropius got to go to Harvard and he was stuck in Chicago IIT.
886
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:59,160
Harvard was the place which, for a long time,
887
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:02,080
trained the elite of American architects.
888
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:07,280
When Mies got to Chicago, he was able to design the campus for IIT.
889
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:12,200
Mies also began to build high-rises to house people.
890
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:14,080
This had always been an idea
891
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,280
that people would live in tall apartment towers,
892
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:21,400
but really it's in this period where Mies' particular aesthetic
893
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:26,280
and structural system allow these tall towers of glass and steel.
894
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:30,320
Tom Wolfe, the late, great novelist, wrote the famous account
895
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,840
of the Bauhaus and he described the arrival of the Bauhaus gang
896
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,320
in America as being like one of those black and white movies
897
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:40,600
in which the silver princes arrive in the jungle,
898
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:43,000
and are worshipped by the natives.
899
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:45,520
And Wolfe saw that as America being infected
900
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:47,760
by these alien European modernists.
901
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:50,720
Mr Wolfe has turned on the architects in a book called
902
00:50:50,720 --> 00:50:53,640
From Bauhaus To Our House.
903
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,880
It was very exciting to people at a place like the Bauhaus
904
00:50:56,880 --> 00:51:00,040
to be brought together under a figure like Walter Gropius,
905
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:02,280
and to be told to start from zero
906
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,880
is like saying, "You are the young gods of the future."
907
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:09,920
The great irony is that all these forms were created for the workers
908
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:13,760
after the First World War, under a social democratic government,
909
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:15,600
and somehow these same forms
910
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:20,640
are housing the corporate giants of America.
911
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,760
The paradox about the Bauhaus was that it apparently embraced
912
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:27,360
the machine age, but without industry
913
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:31,080
to make its products it was carefully making things by hand
914
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:34,160
to look like they had been turned out by machines.
915
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,360
Its idea about a social message
916
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:39,120
didn't last the transition to America.
917
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:43,040
America embraced the look of the Bauhaus but turned it into
918
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:46,760
a corporate style, rather than one about social inclusion.
919
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:50,440
Critics argued that the Bauhaus had lost its way in America,
920
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:53,640
and betrayed its ideals, that the project which had meant
921
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:58,440
so much to Gropius must ultimately be considered a failure.
922
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,360
The unique and incredible and wonderful thing about creativity
923
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:04,960
is I think you can never call anything a failure.
924
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:08,080
It's all exploration and experimentation,
925
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:10,600
and failure compared to what?
926
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:13,520
It was completely unique in what came before it,
927
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,120
it stands alone with what came after it.
928
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:20,400
It was, instead, just a way of looking at things
929
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:25,560
that was different and revolutionary and brilliant.
930
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:28,040
A school that has moved already three times,
931
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:31,520
Weimar to Dessau to Berlin, so I'm not sure if this
932
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:35,640
is about failure. It's kind of about a certain strength.
933
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:40,480
So, we have actually 12, 13 years that was so new and radical,
934
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:45,200
that maybe later it would not have worked in the same way.
935
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:47,640
But on the other hand, we will never be able to prove that,
936
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:49,840
because of that traumatic break
937
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,680
that was introduced with the arrival of the Hitler regime.
938
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:57,760
We very often think that everybody
939
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,040
at the Bauhaus must have been upright,
940
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:03,120
or maybe even socialist, or left-wing.
941
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:04,440
This isn't true.
942
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:08,560
You will find Communists, you will find conservatives,
943
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:11,840
right-wing, even National Socialists.
944
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:15,880
What was more interesting is what became of all these people.
945
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:20,080
There are many that collaborated, that stayed in Germany,
946
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:23,320
and who gave up their Bauhaus spirit.
947
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,840
Remember, the early Nazi regime,
948
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:29,360
they were much more concerned about Communists.
949
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:34,560
Franz Ehrlich, who was a Communist, was imprisoned in Buchenwald,
950
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:38,680
so the gates of Buchenwald, which say, "Jedem das Seine",
951
00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:41,480
to each his own, are done in a Bauhaus font
952
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,200
because they were designed by him.
953
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:48,680
Of course, there were also quite a number of Bauhaus people
954
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:50,720
who were from Jewish families
955
00:53:50,720 --> 00:53:54,920
and were taken to concentration camps and murdered.
956
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:57,840
You will also find National Socialists,
957
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:03,320
architects who designed the barracks for Auschwitz concentration camp,
958
00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:06,200
also there again, a Bauhaus person.
959
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:12,720
The Bauhaus school lasted only 14 years, but its legacy continues
960
00:54:12,720 --> 00:54:16,000
to be felt around the world today.
961
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,440
Other movements may have come and gone but we're living
962
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:20,800
still in the Bauhaus here.
963
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:25,000
The reality is, they prepared us for modern life.
964
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:29,320
They took the creative risks and leaps of imagination and faith,
965
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:30,840
and they set the benchmark
966
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:34,080
for the way we actually live our lives today.
967
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:37,560
I think it has had huge influence.
968
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:41,200
The idea that beauty isn't marginal,
969
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:44,960
that beauty is part of human understanding,
970
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:47,920
we need to cling to that thought.
971
00:54:47,920 --> 00:54:51,960
At its most simplistic, Bauhaus is about the most refined forms,
972
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:55,640
so the idea of a shop like Ikea, which is about mass production,
973
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:57,840
but also with an attention to design,
974
00:54:57,840 --> 00:54:59,880
this is probably the thing of their dreams.
975
00:54:59,880 --> 00:55:02,720
Our iPhones today - I mean, it's this beautiful marriage
976
00:55:02,720 --> 00:55:06,760
of form and function. I mean, that's what they were all about.
977
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:09,240
Well, I think that the Bauhaus was very influential
978
00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:13,280
over the 20th century, but what I suggest to keep in mind
979
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:15,160
is that the Bauhaus was really a school,
980
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:19,600
so in most of the designs and most of the devices that we use
981
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:22,160
that are being connected with the Bauhaus in their simplicity
982
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:25,680
and elegance, they don't carry the idealism.
983
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:29,320
Bauhaus, it was a teenager when it died.
984
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:31,960
The things that it moved and the meaning it still has now,
985
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:35,200
100 years is later, it's amazing. What other institution has that?
986
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:38,000
Not many. The way they taught, the way they hung out is...
987
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:40,480
You can see in that building, and that's why it's even
988
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:43,280
more of a shame that that building has become a dead museum.
989
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:44,920
I mean, it's nice and flattering that
990
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:46,720
it's become a UNESCO World Heritage site,
991
00:55:46,720 --> 00:55:48,840
but it also means that you can't change anything.
992
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:50,480
It's dead. It's a mausoleum,
993
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:53,240
it's not even a monument any more, which is too bad.
994
00:55:53,240 --> 00:55:54,920
We shouldn't celebrate a corpse,
995
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:57,960
we should celebrate the spirit that was in that corpse at one time.
996
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:01,600
The time is, to an extent, comparable to the '20s.
997
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,960
We have a society that is very rich and very poor, and we have got
998
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:06,640
right-wing movements starting again.
999
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:08,480
People kind of need new ideas
1000
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:12,000
and the Bauhaus would be perfectly suited. It's too bad.
1001
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,480
One of the German television channels, they have a series
1002
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:17,840
of concerts that they have been recording in the Bauhaus,
1003
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:20,360
and they had this sort of leftist punk group.
1004
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:23,760
They were going to have a concert there and record it.
1005
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:26,160
The right-wing mob said, "We're going to go there,"
1006
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:27,920
there was suddenly a threat in the air.
1007
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:29,720
"If you will let them perform there,
1008
00:56:29,720 --> 00:56:33,040
"we'll have a demonstration of right-wing people there."
1009
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:34,600
In other words, a bunch of Nazis.
1010
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,680
And that's how, unfortunately, that part of Germany at the moment
1011
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:39,600
is kind of, like, infamous for,
1012
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:42,200
having more than their fair share of Nazis.
1013
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:45,720
The Bauhaus took that threat, went, "Oh, my God,
1014
00:56:45,720 --> 00:56:48,160
"if we have a demonstration of Nazis, not only is it bad for
1015
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:50,320
"our image, but also it might damage the building."
1016
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:51,840
I think the biggest concern was,
1017
00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:54,600
"Oh, my God, someone is going to scratch the paintwork."
1018
00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:56,280
I don't blame the director.
1019
00:56:56,280 --> 00:56:58,920
I mean, she really is in this awful position,
1020
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:01,440
"What am I going to do, I've got to protect my institution?"
1021
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:03,640
That's her duty, that's what she's paid for,
1022
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:07,000
but she talks about the building and we talk about the idea.
1023
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:12,440
What's happening throughout Europe is that more and more governments
1024
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:17,600
are right-winged party governments, so we've observed this in Italy,
1025
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:23,920
in Austria, in Hungary, in Poland, even in the United States.
1026
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:30,160
We are noticing a great change in society right now in Germany.
1027
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,640
We are moving into an absolutely new time where things are getting
1028
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:38,160
more and more difficult for cultural institutions.
1029
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:44,440
Gropius was battling against attacks from the first day he opened
1030
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:47,320
the Bauhaus until he left Germany.
1031
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:51,520
Every attack which went into his direction and the Bauhaus,
1032
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:56,360
he stood up at once, he would react at once, and I think
1033
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,040
that's also what one has to do.
1034
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:02,480
Maybe it's a little scandal and the Nazis threatening and stuff,
1035
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,560
maybe it's all useful.
1036
00:58:04,560 --> 00:58:06,920
It's not pleasant, but then those discussions never are,
1037
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:08,800
and the process is unpleasant,
1038
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:12,160
but I got the impression maybe something will come of it.
1039
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:17,240
The Bauhaus was opening new worlds for a new generation.
1040
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:21,920
This utopian spirit, I think, is something that we admire today.
1041
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:27,320
Originally, it was just an idea of a better society through work,
1042
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:29,920
through design, which I think is a pretty tall order
1043
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:31,320
but a good one.
1044
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:35,000
Who doesn't want to change the world for the better?
1045
00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:40,440
Walter Gropius died in Boston, Massachusetts,
1046
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:42,360
on 5th July, 1969.
1047
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:47,920
At his request, a metal themed fiesta a la Bauhaus was held,
1048
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:51,200
with drinking, dancing, laughing and loving.
91893
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