The Whole World a Bauhaus presents eight chapters with varied, exciting and surprising insights into work and life at one of the most important art academies of the twentieth century – the Bauhaus, founded in Weimar in 1919. In 1926 the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, and in 1932, when the Nazis made it impossible to continue there, it moved to Berlin, only to finally close forever in 1933.
This exhibition presents photographs, works on paper, models, documents, films, and objects, inviting you to explore the wide range and diversity of Bauhaus theory and practice in contemporary modernist design in architecture, everyday objects, painting and theatre, and including theories and models of teaching. The Bauhaus always endeavoured to create suitable and improved environments, and to promote new ways of life.
In each thematic chapter in this exhibition you will also find selected biographies of Bauhaus people, based on one work and illustrating differences and common ground in their careers.
Throughout the fourteen years of its existence the Bauhaus underwent a constant process of redefinition and reinvention. Strategy was enthusiastically discussed and defined – and often disputed – by the three Bauhaus directors, the architects Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the Bauhaus masters and students. For this exhibition, audio recordings of some of these different positions at the Bauhaus and also of contemporary critical voices from outside have been made, and you can listen to these on headphones.
There was always lively debate and controversy concerning the purpose and significance of the Bauhaus at the Bauhaus itself, and also outside, and this continues to this day. This is illustrated by posters with quotations from various sources, mostly from newspapers from 1945 to today. They show the reception history and the changing interpretations of the Bauhaus.
Boris Friedewald, Curator
This exhibition presents photographs, works on paper, models, documents, films, and objects, inviting you to explore the wide range and diversity of Bauhaus theory and practice in contemporary modernist design in architecture, everyday objects, painting and theatre, and including theories and models of teaching. The Bauhaus always endeavoured to create suitable and improved environments, and to promote new ways of life.
In each thematic chapter in this exhibition you will also find selected biographies of Bauhaus people, based on one work and illustrating differences and common ground in their careers.
Throughout the fourteen years of its existence the Bauhaus underwent a constant process of redefinition and reinvention. Strategy was enthusiastically discussed and defined – and often disputed – by the three Bauhaus directors, the architects Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the Bauhaus masters and students. For this exhibition, audio recordings of some of these different positions at the Bauhaus and also of contemporary critical voices from outside have been made, and you can listen to these on headphones.
There was always lively debate and controversy concerning the purpose and significance of the Bauhaus at the Bauhaus itself, and also outside, and this continues to this day. This is illustrated by posters with quotations from various sources, mostly from newspapers from 1945 to today. They show the reception history and the changing interpretations of the Bauhaus.
Boris Friedewald, Curator