Читать книгу Bauhaus. 1919-1933 - Michael Siebenbrodt - Страница 11

The great Bauhaus exhibition took place in Weimar from 15th August to 30th September 1923, and included the publication of Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923, an activity report which took stock of the formation work, the Haus am Horn as the only realised Bauhaus building in Weimar, the 1st International Modernist Architecture Exhibition and a Bauhaus Week with concerts, lectures and stage productions in Weimar and Jena. Gropius gave the opening lecture, “Art and Technology – A New Unity”, and thus focused the discussion on the Bauhaus’s profile since 1921. At the same time he took up his own conceptions of the connection between art and technology of March 1910, which he had presented to the then-CEO of the AEG, Walther Rathenau, in the form of a programme for the Modern Builders’ Association.[4]

The German National Theatre in Weimar staged the Triadisches Ballett by Oscar Schlemmer, as well as concerts with works by Krenek, Busoni, Hindemith and Stravinsky. On 4th September the Deutscher Werkbund held a meeting in Weimar and was given repeat performances of Kurt Schmidt’s Mechanisches Ballett, Oskar Schlemmer’s Figurales Kabinett and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack’s (1893–1965) Reflektorische Lichtspiele. The visual arts achievements of the students and teachers were presented in a comprehensive review at the Weimar State Museum.

Particularly in the workshops – the future “laboratories of industry” – many prototypes had been developed in the previous year, which made clear the transition from the manual trades to industrial technology. This included the “slat chair” by Marcel Breuer and a toy cabinet by Alma Buscher, the table lamp by Carl Jakob Jucker and Wilhelm Wagenfeld and a seven-branched candelabrum and seemingly minimalist floor lamp by Gyula Pap, the combination tea pot and mocha machine by Theodor Bogler and coffee pots by Otto Lindig in porcelain and ceramic, textile goods by Agnes Roghé, Hedwig Jungnik and Gunta Stölzl and individual wall hangings with form, material and bonding experiments.

The artistic interior design of the school buildings by Oskar Schlemmer, Joost Schmidt and Herbert Bayer as well as the director’s office by Walter Gropius gave a multifaceted overview of the topics of colour and architecture.

The twenty Bauhaus postcards for the exhibition, based on designs of the Masters and students with 2,000 copies each, probably led to the first mail-art campaign in connection with the event programme. Train and railway station advertisements, posters and especially city maps made for an unusually professional advertising campaign.

Portrait of Walter Gropius, 1928, photograph by Hugo Erfurt

This was all achieved while the German currency crashed completely in the summer of 1923, and 60 % of the German population was unemployed. In October there were Communist uprisings in Hamburg, Saxony and Thuringia. Social Democrats and Communists also formed a “workers’ government” in Thuringia, which was crushed when the Reichswehr (German army) marched into Weimar on 8th November. On the 23rd of that month the Reichswehr conducted a search of Gropius’s house following anonymous political accusations. The political right in the Thuringian state government was questioning the organisation and operation of the Bauhaus as early as March 1924, while National Education Minister Max Greil defended the school.

In October, Gropius began negotiations with the president of the Thuringian National Bank regarding the foundation of a distribution company for Bauhaus products, the future Bauhaus Ltd. In connection with an intensification of production efforts in the Bauhaus workshops, Gropius wanted to try to free the Bauhaus from public financing and political influence and set up, if possible, a privately-owned company. On a smaller scale, this model had already been tested on students. Scholarships, grants and studios were awarded not only on the basis of social need, but also on the basis of achievement. Furthermore, the students received the sales proceeds of their products (less costs for material and machines) and were thus able to help finance their studies with qualified work, even before industry licensing fees had to be paid to employees and students of the Dessau Bauhaus.

This markedly practical approach in the production workshops meant yet another noticeable push for Bauhaus design work. High-quality furniture by Erich Dieckmann, tea and coffee sets by Marianne Brandt and Wilhelm Wagenfeld, and the Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig were produced.

The third Thuringian state parliamentary elections on 10th February 1924 brought about a radical political change of course after the victory of the “Thuringian Order Union”, an association of right-wing conservative parties (DNVP, DVP, and DDP). As early as 20th March the new Thuringian Public Education Minister, Leutheußer, informed Gropius that the contracts with the Bauhaus would not be extended. Attacks on the Bauhaus by the manual trade circle, the Weimar Artists’ Council and the German nationalist bloc in the parliament increased, accompanied by the Yellow Brochure, an inflammatory pamphlet by former Bauhaus syndic Hans Beyer. On 9th April 1924 the Thuringian Finance Ministry determined the unprofitability of the Staatliches Bauhaus, which resulted in the government terminating its contracts with the Bauhaus from 31st March 1925 as a “precautionary measure.” The final step in this cultural policy farce was the parliament’s cutting of the budget from 100,000 to 50,000 Reichsmark. A petition by more than six-hundred Weimar citizens in favour of the Bauhaus had just as little effect as the petitions by national and foreign artists, architects and organisations. Even the Society of the Friends of the Bauhaus, formed in the autumn of 1924, which included Nobel Prize winners such as Albert Einstein and Wilhelm Ostwald, could not persuade the state government otherwise. In an open letter dated December 26th, the Masters’ Council declared the Bauhaus in Weimar dissolved from 1st April 1925 on the expiry of their contracts.

Georg Muche / Gropius Architecture Studio, Haus am Horn, north-west view, 1923

Call of the Bauhaus for the building of the Haus am Horn, 1922

Herbert Bayer, Project for the poster of the Bauhaus Exhibition, 1923

Walter Gropius, together with museum director Wilhelm Köhler, chose the best 165 workshop works from the 2,000 exhibits in the Bauhaus inventory for the National Art Collection in Weimar, works which today form the core inventory of the Bauhaus Museum – almost all of them twentieth-century design classics. The original photographic documentation from the Weimar Bauhaus is preserved at today’s Bauhaus University in Weimar, as is the Bauhaus library with its approximately 500 volumes. The files of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar are almost completely preserved in the State of Thuringia Main Archive in Weimar, and today form the basis of any serious Bauhaus research. After making initial contact in February 1925, the Dessau City Council, headed by Fritz Hesse, decided to take on the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1st April of that year.

With the foundation of the State Academy of Crafts and Architecture in Weimar under the leadership of Otto Bartning on 1st April 1926, a second “Bauhaus chapter” began in Weimar, since 80 % of the staff were Bauhaus graduates. It ended with a politically-motivated closure in the spring of 1930 by Nazi Minister Dr. Wilhelm Frick (1877–1946), who was executed in the autumn of 1946 and who is also responsible for the destruction of Bauhaus wall designs in the academy buildings as well as the shattering of the Bauhaus collection at the National Art Collection in Weimar.

Herbert Bayer, Bills from the emergency currency of the Thuringia region, 1923