Bauhaus typography

 A reaction against the class system and aristocracy
 Architects were looking for a leading force behind the expectations to develop a
“Brave New Word”
Sinnde Photo Bauhaus Exhibition Barbican Center 2012
 A new way to integrate art, aesthetic & industry as a means of replacing the old approach in education & design.
New direction: ART TO INDUSTRY!

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Utility come first
Muuz lamp Norman Copenhagen
 Walter Gropiu’s philosophy ”form follows function” transformed advertising, typography, architecture, people living’s spaces and public’s esthetic expectations in fundamental way
 Information first, artistic flair after. Use your design to reinforce your message never the other way around
 Mission : to provide affordable artistic utilitarian design for every class of person - proved to be a success

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Towards design enlightment
Albers Stacking Stables
 The school was founded on collaboration. It achieved an openness and collaborative style few groups had.
 Gropius's vision towards a union of art and design -
Proclamation of Bauhaus”(1919) - describes a utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture and painting into a single creative expression
 Work with each other, share ideas, don’t live in fear of losing credit.
Sometimes getting better and learning is more important

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There’s always a connection between
 Their crisp geometric style and in some cases primary colors are reflected in design everywhere. The purpose: to honor functionality with beauty and simplicity, to please the eye and capture the mind.
 Kandinsky strove for a visual style beyond cultural differences. He believed certain colors complement each other and communicate specific ideas or emotions.
 Bauhaus design still feels incredibly fresh and current . Displaying the “perfection of geometry” is still highly sophisticated

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Poster for Senator Obama in Berlin 2008
 For Bauhaus, words were a graphic element. Therefore they became a part of the architecture.
 Like a chair in a room – functioning on their own as words, as artistic tools within the space.
 Be as imaginative with your typography as you are with every other tool in your toolbox, but make sure it never detracts from your visual message

Bauhaus seal
The Metal Party group photo – Oscar Schemler Traadic
Costumes 1926
Young people come to Bauhaus!
 Teaching techniques and social principles aimed to foster :
T lux Feininger – Sport at Bauhaus
1927
Creativity / Happiness/ Friendship
 Design education was seen as a means to create reaction against, rather than to follow.
 Its spirit and ideas , the greatest legacy, were to influence many generations of architects designers and artists.

Katz Bau Bookshelf
 Gropius decided that they should generate design for mass production that were simple, rational and accessible to everyone.
 Their furniture A new way of living - became a signature of their work more than architecture.
M Breurer’s Wassily B3 club chair with woman seated wearing Schemler Mask
 The school’s philosophy : the artist should be trained to work with industry.
Artists created prototypes for industrial production, as they saw the machine as a potential force for good both aesthetically and socially.
Red/Blue armchair 424
G. Rietveld 1918

Marcel Breuer Armchair 1922
 He stressed on the social function of architecture and design. Favoured the public good rather than private luxury
 The architectural focus shifted away from aesthetic to functionality
Sinnde Photo Bauhaus Exhibition Barbican Center 2012
 His mission was to focus on the “ needs of the people , not on the needs of luxury ”
Haus am Horn Kitchen (1923)

 Author of Less is more philosophy
- the perfect summary for modernism
 Added an increased emphasis on architecture & building at Bauhaus school; moved it to Berlin in 1930;
 He designed The German Pavilion at the
Barcelona Universal Exhibition
Sinnde Photo Bauhaus Exhibition Barbican Center 2012
Mies Van der Rohe Barcelona chair and otoman
 Lily Reich controlled the interior design department
 Became the most influential modernist architect of the 20 th century and an inspiration for Ayn Rand‘s book ‘The Fountainhead’

Germany circa stamp showing
Bauhaus architecture steel building
Bauhaus Manifesto Quote
The Bauhaus Building designed by Gropius in Dessau in an industrial aesthetic with concrete and steel and a curtain of glass is a component of what we now recognize as modern architecture !
The Bauhaus paradox: it didn’t have an architecture department until 1927
Other Bauhaus hallmarks of modernist architecture:
• steel-frame construction
• an asymmetrical pinwheel plan
• maximum efficiency
• spatial logic

. UNMATCHED IMPACT
Bauhaus had what no other art school had :
Successive leadership
01 from three of the leading designers of the time
Emblematic building
Sinnde Photo Bauhaus Exhibition
Barbican Center 2012 that embodied the philosophy of it’s founder in an unmistakable image
Unshakable place at the heart of Modernism the dominant movement of the 20 th century
International student body & supporters
Celebrated faculty staff treated as “Silver Princess” by a awestruck USA when they moved there en masse

What would have happend if a bomb would have denotated under this group photographed on the roof of the
Dessau Bauhaus’ building in 1926?
L-R: Josef Albers, Hi. Scheper, Georg Muche, L. Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer,
Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, V. Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel
Feininger, Gunta Stölzl and Oskar Schlemmer
 The course of visual culture of the 20th century would have looked totally different
B
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A
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 Between them, they touched everything from photography and theatre to painting and architecture
 The middle classes lived in tasteful simplicity ever
Typography with facial outline of its seal after

List of cited works:
1. B is for Bauhaus, Deyan Sujic, Penguin Books, London, 2014
2. Young people come to Bauhaus – article inspired from Barbican Center: Bauhaus Art is Life exhibition, 2013, http://sinnde.com/blog/young-people-come-to-bauhaus/
3. Six Lessons from the Bauhaus: Masters of the Persuasive Graphic: http://blog.visual.ly/six-lessons-from-the-bauhaus-masters-of-the-persuasive-graphic by
Anni Murray
4.
Quick History: The Bauhaus http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/post-241-93344
& Its Influence:
5.
"The Bauhaus, 1919–1933". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000 – Griffith Winton, Alexandra, .
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm (August 2007)
6 . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus