Part 5: The Bauhaus

​ The essay “The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus” (1923), also known as “The Bauhaus Manifesto,” by Walter Gropius is a directive for artists to learn and find the ideal of creativity in opposition to the well-preserved formats of the past. In his manifesto Gropius explains that the academies of the past have failed artists and industrialists by shutting them off from the world, by telling them what to think and how to make art.  Gropius believed that the academies had locked their students in and pure life out. The academies’ format for art production based on theory and a rigorous set of techniques was seen by Gropius as destructive; in defense he formed a new kind of art school, an art school that allowed its students to think freely, to experiment with objects, mediums and ideas never before used for the production of art.

​The Bauhaus gave a firm ground for the visual arts to flourish by teaching building, not theory, as the foundation of new designs. Through the investigative efforts of experimenting with new forms and honest materials to create new designs, the manifestation of the ideas is in the work not merely theory on paper. With this in mind Gropius established as the goal of the Bauhaus to teach interdisciplinary knowledge to the students as they worked with different materials in the process of creation.  The Bauhaus originally produced mainly one-of-a-kind works. As time went on the focus transformed from individual expressions of art to radical new designs for products that could be mass produced. Without this shift in thinking it is likely that the ideas and the art of the Bauhaus would not have survived the inevitable Nazi destruction. As Hitler’s armies began to overtake Europe, successful Bauhaus faculty, including Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Josef Albers immigrated to the United States.