First period (1919-1923)
At the time of its founding, the objectives of the school, characterized by Gropius in a manifesto, were: "The recovery of artisanal methods in construction activity, raising artisanal power to the same level as the Fine Arts and trying to market products that, integrated into industrial production, would become affordable consumer objects for the general public" since one of its goals was to become independent and begin to sell the products made at the School, to stop depending on the State that until then was who subsidized them.
It was formed when Gropius united the School of Fine Arts with the School of Applied Arts or School of Arts and Crafts, transforming it into the first design school in the world.
In 1919, the founding manifesto of the Bauhaus was published in Der Austausch, the student newsletter.[5]
In this phase, the so-called "vorkurs" or preliminary course, created by Johannes Itten, was implemented in the school. As its name indicates, the preliminary course, prior to the studies themselves, had the mission of freeing the future member of the institution from conventions, awakening their personal gifts and guiding them spiritually for further training.
Among the first students were Marcel Lajos Breuer and Joost Schmidt, who achieved some success. The students were flexible and willing to do all kinds of work, therefore they left school well trained, knowing how to draw, model, photograph or design furniture. The school had workshops for cabinetmaking, design, theater, ceramics, weaving, bookbinding, metalworking, and glassmaking. But not painting and sculpture in the traditional sense.
The theater workshop, directed by Oskar Schlemmer, was considered very important within the school's program due to its nature as a social activity that combined various means of expression. Sets, costumes, etc. They were part of the students' practices. Schlemmer's works were famous, especially the Triadic Ballet, a work premiered in the Stuttgart theater.
Paul Klee arrived at the school in 1920. A very cultured person (in addition to being a notable violinist and painter) very interested in the theoretical problems of art. He developed his activity in the weaving workshop, teaching composition classes. His teaching was based on elementary forms, from which, according to him, all the others were derived. Art had to discover these forms, reveal them, make them visible. He conscientiously prepared classes by writing in notebooks that were later published in book form.
In 1922 Kandinsky joined the project. He had participated in educational reforms at the time of the Russian Revolution, founding several schools in the Soviet Union. During that time he corresponded with Gropius. When the Russian revolution began to suffer difficulties and political disputes and purges began, Kandinsky decided to move to the Bauhaus. His prestige, after the publication of De lo spiritual en el arte in 1911 and his first abstract works in 1910, was already very great by then. He replaced Schlemmer in the mural painting workshop and taught with Klee in the basic design course. Their theoretical mind was decisive in starting the path towards a more intellectual and reasoned art, where they used the soul of the object to sculpt it on the fabric with abstract features.
Klee retired in 1931.
This first stage culminates with the imminent need to change the school's location caused by the Great Depression. The first stage of the Bauhaus can be summarized as a phase of experimentation of forms, products and designs and, therefore, also of design educators.
Second period (1923-1925)
In 1923 Theo van Doesburg, founder of neoplasticism in the Netherlands, painter, architect and theorist, created the magazine and movement De Stijl in Holland and upon arriving later in Weimar, he exerted a decisive influence on the students and on Gropius, who would end up leading the school to take another direction.
Starting in 1923, the previous expressionist trend was replaced by New Objectivity, also an expressionist style of painting, although much more sober, that was becoming established throughout Germany. The incorporation into the Bauhaus of László Moholy-Nagy, an artist very close to Van Doesburg, meant the introduction to the school of the ideas of Russian constructivism of El Lissitzky and Tatlin, who advocated a communal art, based on the idea and not on inspiration.
Some of the most important theoretical writings of the Bauhaus in the field of painting date from this time. Thus, Klee writes “Ways of Nature Study” (Wege des Naturstudiums, 1923) and “Pedagogical Sketchbook” (Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch, 1925); and gives the conference Modern art (Über die moderne Kunst) at the Jena Art Association. For his part, Kandinsky published "Point and Line on the Plane" (Punkt und Linie zu Fläche, 1926) as No. 9 of the Bauhaus series.[6] In 1925, the Dessau headquarters opened.
Third period (1925-1933)
In 1928, László Moholy-Nagy, after five years of teaching, left the Bauhaus, a decision made due to the growing pressure exerted by the group of communist-leaning teachers and students.
In 1933, the Nazi party decided to close the school, so Ludwig Mies van der Rohe moved the Bauhaus to Berlin with funds earned from the illegality of closing contracts. The school, located this time in an old telephone building, would survive only until April of that same year. The protests of Van der Rohe, who insisted on presenting himself as a patriot and war veteran and defended that his work had no political implications, were useless.
We owe the Bauhaus innovations such as functionality, interdiscipline, professionalization of creative disciplines and experimentation. In addition, it continues to be a strong influence for design educational institutions around the world.