The Bauhaus celebrates its 100th birthday - a tribute

Exactly 100 years ago today, on April 12, 1919, the State Bauhaus was founded in Weimar. What to do with the birthday boy?

Eberhardt Schrammen, five hand puppets, c. 1923. On permanent loan to the Klassik Stiftung Weimar from the Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung der Universität zu Köln. Weimar Classic Foundation

Last weekend, it was officially laid to rest. In Weimar, the site of its founding, the Bauhaus now has a massive, windowless concrete sarcophagus, perfectly air-conditioned archive and testimony to a history that is just that: history. It's nice to look at, but that's the end of it. The world has moved on.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the school; on April 12, 1919, Walter Gropius, together with Henry van de Velde, blew the whistle on a new beginning and intellectual clearing out.

The avant-garde in the cradle - Peter Keler, Kinderwiege, 1922.

Weimar Classic Foundation, © Jan Keler

"The ultimate goal of all visual activity is construction," the founding manifesto proclaimed in its very first sentence, meaning the reunification of all visual arts in a common, grand project - that of a better, more modern, and more beautiful society. Artists and craftsmen were merely a difference of degree, and the necessary basic training was to be provided for both by the new school. The school was christened the "Bauhaus" after the model of medieval building lodges as interdisciplinary associations of artisans. It was not teachers working together with students, but masters with journeymen and apprentices. What followed was a rather elusive project with three directors, frequent changes of direction, hardly compatible styles, and in general considerably more variance than the reception wanted to admit (or perceive) soon after the dissolution of the school in 1932.

Conservation in concrete: the new Bauhaus Museum in Weimar.

Andrew Alberts, © Heike Hanada Laboratory of Art and Architecture 2019

Raptured into the beyond: the "ladder to heaven."

Andrew Alberts, © Heike Hanada Laboratory of Art and Architecture 2019

1919-2019: View of the second floor of the new Bauhaus Museum.

Andrew Alberts, © Heike Hanada Laboratory of Art and Architecture 2019

Bauhaus behind glass: objects from the metal workshop on display in Weimar.

Weimar Classic Foundation

And today? 100 years later, in the great German Bauhaus year, everything oscillates between reverent, deep-frozen musealization and the unconditional belief that a timeless recipe for the solution of more or less every problem of today lies dormant here. Neither is quite the case. The Bauhaus was first and foremost an experiment and as such full of triumphs, but also failures. And both should be conceded to it. It responded to the problems of a world that was just beginning to understand what industrialization actually meant, that had no idea of climate change, and that was more than cautious in its approach to women's rights. And it was less singular than one would like to believe, but rather connected to a zeitgeist that was also blowing elsewhere.

So perhaps 100 years later we should celebrate the Bauhaus more for its special spirit and its desire to look to the future, emulating it more in the fun of the thing, of unfamiliar questions and of trying things out than in the concrete solutions. For this, however, more than just showcases are needed. Original Peachskinsheets Breathable Sheet Set Review