Latest / The History of Germany: Kingdoms, War, and Rebuilding Europe — Fexingo History / Bauhaus at Weimar: The School That Built Modern Germany
Transcript
- Lucas: So, Luna, we've talked a lot about Germany's political and military history — the wars, the revolutions, the walls falling. But there's another side of Germany that left a mark on the world, and it's one you can still see every day in the furniture you sit on, the buildings you walk past, even the font on your phone. Luna: You're going to say the Bauhaus, aren't you? Lucas: Exactly. The Bauhaus. And I want to go deeper than just the name. We've touched on it in the Weimar Republic episodes, but the Bauhaus itself — the school, the people, the ideas — that's a story that deserves its own conversation. It started in 1919, in the city of Weimar, just after World War I ended and the Kaiser fled. Luna: Weimar — the same city as the National Assembly. So there's this strange pairing of democracy and artistic revolution. Lucas: You're right. And that's not a coincidence. The Bauhaus was born out of a sense that the old world had collapsed — the war, the monarchy, the hierarchies. A young architect named Walter Gropius was given the chance to merge two existing schools in Weimar: an arts and crafts school and an art academy. He called his new school the Staatliches Bauhaus — State Bauhaus. And from the start, it was radical. Luna: In what way? I mean, what made it radical? Lucas: Well, Gropius wanted to tear down the wall between 'fine art' and 'craft'. In his famous 1919 manifesto, he wrote, 'Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all return to the crafts!' He believed that art shouldn't be something you hang in a museum — it should be part of everyday life. A chair, a lamp, a teacup — those could be works of art too, if designed well. And the school itself was structured like a medieval guild. Students started with a preliminary course — the Vorkurs — then moved into workshops with masters, not professors. Luna: So less lecture hall, more apprenticeship. Lucas: Exactly. And the Vorkurs was legendary. It was first taught by Johannes Itten, a Swiss painter who was a follower of a fire-based religion called Mazdaznan. Itten made students do breathing exercises, shaved their heads, and pushed them to experiment with materials — wood, metal, glass, textiles — without any preconceived notion of what art should look like. It was part spiritual retreat, part boot camp. Luna: I can only imagine what the conservative townspeople of Weimar thought of that. Lucas: They hated it. The Bauhaus was constantly under fire from local politicians, the old art establishment, and later the Nazis. But Gropius was an excellent diplomat — for a while, he managed to keep the school afloat. He also brought in a series of extraordinary teachers: the painter Wassily Kandinsky, the composer Paul Klee, the Hungarian constructivist László Moholy-Nagy, and later Josef Albers, who took over the Vorkurs from Itten in a more rational, less mystical direction. Luna: And the students — were they as eccentric as the teachers? Lucas: Oh, yes. The student body was a mix of war veterans, idealistic young women, and international artists. They dressed in avant-garde styles, had open relationships, and held wild costume parties that scandalized the locals. But they also produced incredible work. The Bauhaus is famous for its geometric, functional designs: Marcel Breuer's tubular steel chairs, Marianne Brandt's teapots, the Bauhaus building itself in Dessau. Luna: Wait — Dessau. I thought we were in Weimar. Lucas: We were — but in 1925, the political pressure in Weimar became too much. The conservative Thuringian government cut the Bauhaus's funding, so Gropius moved the school to Dessau, an industrial city in Saxony-Anhalt. There, he designed a new building complex that became an icon of modern architecture: the Bauhaus Dessau, with its glass curtain wall, asymmetrical layout, and that famous sign with Bauhaus letters. The school also built houses for the masters — the Masters' Houses — which were like cubes with flat roofs, very different from the traditional German homes nearby. Luna: And that's where the Bauhaus really flourished? Lucas: It did — for a while. The Dessau years, from 1925 to 1932, were the most productive. The school developed a recognizable style: clean lines, primary colors, industrial materials. They started producing prototypes for industry — furniture, lighting, textiles — that could be mass-produced. But internally, there were conflicts. Gropius stepped down as director in 1928, replaced by Hannes Meyer, a Marxist who pushed the Bauhaus toward socialist housing projects. He was fired in 1930 after a scandal involving his political views and a student communist cell. Luna: And then came Mies van der Rohe. Lucas: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe took over in 1930. He tried to depoliticize the school and turn it into a private architecture academy. But by then, the Nazis were rising in Dessau. In 1931, the local Nazi party won the city council elections, and they saw the Bauhaus as a den of Bolsheviks and degenerates. In 1932, they shut down the Dessau campus. Mies moved the school to Berlin as a private institution, but in April 1933, the Gestapo raided it. Mies tried to negotiate with the Nazi authorities, but they demanded that he dismiss Jewish and leftist faculty. He refused, and in August 1933, the Bauhaus was dissolved. Luna: So a school that wanted to build the future was crushed by the forces of the past. Lucas: That's a powerful way to put it. But the story doesn't end there. The Bauhaus faculty scattered across the world. Gropius went to Harvard, Mies to the Illinois Institute of Technology, Moholy-Nagy started the New Bauhaus in Chicago, Josef Albers taught at Black Mountain College. They carried Bauhaus ideas with them — functionalism, honesty to materials, the integration of art and technology. And after World War II, those ideas became the backbone of modern architecture and design worldwide. The Bauhaus didn't die; it emigrated. Luna: And today, when I look at an IKEA catalog, I see a little bit of its legacy. Lucas: Exactly. The flat-pack furniture, the focus on simplicity and affordability — that's the Bauhaus democratization of design. But there's also a bittersweet irony. The Bauhaus was shut down by the Nazis, yet some of its ideas — efficiency, standardization, mass production — were later used by the regime in their own building projects. Not that the Bauhaus people were complicit; they were in exile or hiding. But it shows how ideas can be twisted. Luna: I want to ask about one specific thing: the Bauhaus building in Dessau. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site now, right? What makes it so special? Lucas: It is, yes. The Dessau building is often called the 'cathedral of modernism'. Gropius designed it as a total work of art — each part of the building reflects its function. The workshop wing is a three-story glass curtain wall, showing the activity inside; the bridge connects the workshops to the vocational school; the auditorium has a flexible interior. It's not decorative — it's honest. And that was revolutionary. Before the Bauhaus, buildings were designed to look like something — a castle, a temple, a palace. After the Bauhaus, buildings could just look like what they are. Luna: So form follows function. But also, form is function. Lucas: Beautifully said. And that philosophy extended to everything the Bauhaus touched. Take the student dormitory, the Prellerhaus — it had tiny rooms, but each one had a balcony and a view of the park. The idea was that even a student should have light, air, and a sense of dignity. That's the Bauhaus spirit: good design isn't a luxury; it's a basic human need. And if today was actually useful to you, the way these shows stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a small gesture keeps us going. Luna: Absolutely. It's how we can keep exploring these corners of history without any commercial breaks. Lucas: So, back to the Bauhaus. One of the most fascinating aspects is how its legacy was reclaimed after the war. In East Germany, the Bauhaus was initially denounced as 'formalist' and 'bourgeois', but by the 1970s, the GDR began to embrace it as part of their modernist heritage. In West Germany, the Bauhaus became a symbol of democratic openness. And today, the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin holds thousands of objects and documents — a constant reminder of that moment in Weimar when a small school dared to reimagine the world. Luna: Do you have a favorite Bauhaus piece? Like, if you could own one thing from that era? Lucas: I'd probably choose Marianne Brandt's teapot from 1924. It's made of silver and ebony, with a geometric, almost cubist shape. It's not just a teapot — it's a sculpture you can use. And that's what the Bauhaus was all about: making the everyday beautiful. It's a reminder that history isn't just battles and treaties; it's also the chairs we sit on, the lamps we read by. Those things have stories too. Luna: And they tell us just as much about a society as any constitution. Lucas: Exactly. So next time you see a glass office tower or a minimalist chair, remember the school that started in a small German town a century ago, and the dreamers who thought that design could change the world. In many ways, it did.