Demystifying the Bauhaus as a reference in design education and as the fountain-head of modern industrial design

It does not happen often that you find a rational critique of a widely agreed truth. John Heskett in his book 'Industrial Design' (1980) presents a series of criticisms that provide a good counterbalance to all the praise the Bauhaus you have probably come across in multiple books, exhibits, conferences, etc. Rather than paraphrasing, I have copied the fragment here so you don't miss any detail of the author's great discourse. I strongly encourage you to go and buy a second hand copy of Heskett's book. It is a great read and, according to some pundits, one of the first books to provide a comprehensive history of Industrial Design.

[Extract from Page 101]

"In Germany, the belief that art and life could be reconciled by abstract artists creating universally relevant forms for industry came to be identified, above all, with the Bauhaus, the teaching institution founded at Weimar in 1919 following the amalgamation of the art and craft schools under the directorship of Walter Gropius. In the 1920s it was the focus of enormous publicity, arousing enthusiasm or opprobrium depending on one's point of view, and its closure by the nazis in 1933 earned it a kind of institutional canonization that has only recently been questioned.

To attempt to disentangle the web of myth and actuality surrounding the Bauhaus would require a separate volume, but two aspects of its reputation require consideration here: the first is the claim that the method of education evolved there was uniquely appropriate to industrial design; the second, that the institution is to be regarded as the fountain-head of modern industrial design

In the early years of the Bauhaus, the stress was placed on uniting art and craft. The foundation of the educational structure was the Vorkurs, or preliminary course, initially developed by Johannes Itten, and compulsory for all students. It emphasized learning by doing. On a basis of theoretical studies, practical work explored and combined form, colour, material, and texture. There followed workshop training in a selected discipline of art, craft and, from 1924, architecture in which the basic Vorkurs method was applied to the chosen specialist activity.

Under Itten, the emphasis was metaphysical: on experiment as a means of self-discovery. After his departure in 1923, the Vorkurs was taken over by Lazlo Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers, who stressed technical objectivity and abstract, geometric form supported by a Platonic idealist theory.

This change reflected a development in Gropius' ideas, with his advocacy in 1923 of 'art and technology: a new unity'. What this actually meant was summarized in a document entitled 'Principles of Bauhaus Production', written in 1926: 'The Bauhaus workshops are essentially laboratories in which prototypes of products suitable for mass-production and typical of our time are carefully developed and constantly improved.

'In these laboratories the Bauhaus wants to train a new kind of collaborator for industry and the crafts, who has an equal command of both technology and form. To reach the objective of creating a set of standard prototypes which meet all the demands of economy, technology and form, requires the selection of the best, most versatile, and the most thoroughly educated men who are well grounded in workshop experience and who are imbued with an exact knowledge of the design elements of form and mechanics and their underlying laws.'

Gropius' terminology needs to be examined in the context of Bauhaus practice in order that his statement may be evaluated. The Bauhaus 'workshops', for example, remained craft-based, and the experience gained in them bore little relation to industrial practice. The Bauhaus concept of 'standards' differed similarly from the industrial concept, Gropius using it in the same sense as Muthesius and Le Corbusier, as a cultural type defined in terms of aesthetic form. Gropius' ideas of economy and form linked to underlying laws display the tendency to aesthetic abstraction evident also in contemporary art movements. This is hardly surprising, for the Bauhaus was a meeting-ground of many of the ideas and personalities already discussed in this chapter. Gropius and Le Corbusier had worked together under Peter Behrens; El Lissitsky visited the Bauhaus in 1921; and Vassily Kandinsky, leader of the Vchutemas painting course, left Russia in 1922 to become a Bauhaus teacher. Theo van Doesburg from Holland was also a visitor in 1921-2.

If the results of Gropius' policy are assessed in terms of Bauhaus prototypes actually put into production, the results are quantitatively insignificant. Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe developed a series of designs for tubular steel furniture, produced by Thonet and Standard Möbel of Berlin, that exploited the structural qualities of the material to produce very original and widely imitated forms; Marianne Brandt and Hans Przyembel designed lights for Schwintzer and Graff of Berlin and Körting and Mathiesen of Leipzig; Gerhard Marcks, Marguerita Friedlander, Otto Lindig and others had ceramic-designs produced by several firms including the prestigious Staatliche Porzellanfabrik in Berlin.

The Adler Cabriolet designed by Gropius appeared in 1930, after he had resigned from the Bauhaus, but it illustrates his approach to design. It was an expensive vehicle, constructed in limited quantities by coach-builders using craft methods. Its severe geometric emphasis was modified by the rounded edges of the bodywork. Though it was large and stately, the rear end was poorly handled, with, literally, a trunk for storage: a large box resting on a protruding frame. The integration of such elements was becoming commonplace in production cars, but neither this example, nor the technical advances introduced by Ford, nor the ideas on streamlining developed in Germany in the previous decade, find any recognition in Gropius' work.

In sum, the list of industrial product emanating from the Bauhaus was hardly sufficient in range or accomplishment to warrant sweeping claims regarding its significance. In the context of the overall development of design in one of the world's leading industrial nations, moreover, Bauhaus products appear no more than a minuscule contribution from an avant-garde fringe group.

Its educational significance, in contrast, has been enormous, its methods forming the basis of art education in institutions the world over; though the history of its most notable successors, the New Bauhaus at Chicago, and the Hochschule für Gestaltung at Ulm in Bavaria, again cast doubt on the appropriateness of Bauhaus methods as a preparation for industrial design.

The New Bauhaus, founded in 1937, and later incorporated into the Illinois Institute of Technology, owed its existence to the indefatigable commitment of Lazlo Moholy-Nagy and his wife Sybil. Established as a direct successor to the Bauhaus, it brought a new dimension to creative education in the United States. Yet, as was later pointed out by the journal Industrial Design, most of its alumni were employed as artists, craftsmen and teachers, and not as designers in the industry.

The Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm, was inaugurated in 1955, largely as a result of initiatives by Max Bill, its first director and a former Bauhäusler. Its early existence was scarred by deep controversy between Bill and his deputy, Tomás Maldonado. Bill had conceived of Ulm as an institution for 'promoting the principles of the Bauhaus'. Maldonado argued that those principles could only be realized by abandoning Bauhaus methods; the emphasis on new forms was irrelevant; instead it was necessary to formulate principles and new methodologies which would enable designers to cope flexibly with the complex demands of technology and industry. Bill failed to gain adequate support among the staff and resigned as director, to be succeeded by Maldonado.

Whatever reservations may be expressed about the Bauhaus, the fact of its enormous influence is undeniable. The varied community of talent gathered together by Gropius was highly individualistic, but developed, too, a strong corporate identity. When scattered by emigration from the Third Reich, the members of this community carried with them a deep sense of conviction that had a profound impact wherever they worked and taught, and was reaffirmed by large numbers of student and adherents. What the Bauhaus was, appears to have been less important than what its members and followers believed it to be. Its influence, far greater than the sum of its practical achievements, is above all a testimony to the power of ideas."