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MUSIC: Zuruck In Unserer Stadt
by Feine Sahne Fischfilet

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The Bauhaus was the first true
revolutionary design movement.

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It's a movement
that only existed for 14 years,

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and yet, it had
a kind of worldwide impact.

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The Bauhaus was never one thing.

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It was a school.

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But unlike most schools,
it has this remarkable legacy.

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It was just this incredible
historical moment,

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where you have some of
the leading avant-garde artists

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coming to this one place,

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for the purpose of defining what
art would be for the coming age.

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I think most people
are really pessimistic

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at the moment, and they don't see
design as a means of

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saving the world, or moving on
to a more beautiful future.

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I think we can learn a lot
from that attitude of positivity

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and the belief that you can change
the way that people think

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and the way that people
do things, through design.

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The amazing thing about the Bauhaus
is its continued influence.

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And the fact that so many
of the things they produced,

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if we look at them now,
look so modern.

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We would not recognise those things
now as being revolutionary.

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But at the time,
they were beyond imagination.

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Despite its brief life,
the impact of the Bauhaus School

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of Art and Design
continues to be felt today.

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Now, as it approaches its centenary,

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it's attracting headlines,
once again.

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Shocking, funny and raucous,

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Left-wing punk band,
Feine Sahne Fischfilet,

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has had its fair share
of controversy.

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The band was due to play the iconic
Bauhaus building in Dessau.

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Once home to the world-famous
School of Art and Design.

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But far-right extremists threatened
to protest at the concert

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and the director of the Bauhaus
cancelled the gig.

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The director's actions have provoked
a backlash from critics,

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who say the Bauhaus

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has played into the hands of
these neo-Nazi groups.

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2019 marks the centenary

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of the opening of
the Bauhaus school in Weimar.

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But is there a danger that,
in seeking to protect itself,

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the institution has
actually forgotten its past?

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Well, we're here in Weimar,

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on one of the campuses
of the Bauhaus University.

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This is actually where the original
Bauhaus school was founded.

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That school eventually wound up
being one of

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the defining
early Modernist movements.

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Now, in this building here,
the theme was not the human figure,

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it was the geometric figure.
So, shapes.

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And we can really see here,
as we go up this staircase,

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we've got three different murals
that are showing

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the three fundamental shapes
as the Bauhaus saw it.

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So we got the circle,
we've got the triangle

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and we've got the square.

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Looking at this one
here in particular,

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is a big arrow pointing
towards the Sekretariat.

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Where you find the secretary
is also where you find the director.

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So that's what we're going to do
now, is we're going to take

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a look at Walter Gropius' office.

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The Bauhaus was the brainchild
of Walter Gropius,

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who created the school

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and became its first director.

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And is now considered

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one of the greatest architects

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and educators of the 20th century.

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Walter Gropius came from a family
which was very well-known,

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in Berlin, especially.

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He had some famous ancestors
who were architects.

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And when he was born,
it was already absolutely clear

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that he also
would have to be an architect.

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The good architect always
had a wider view of society,

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how your in-built environment
changes, as of course it does.

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Beyond being an architect,
he was a thinker.

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He certainly had
this concept in mind.

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Let's go and redesign society.

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His most important building
was the factory in Alfeld,

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which can be seen as a predecessor
of the Bauhaus building

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that he later created.

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So, really, at the edge of
the avant-garde back then.

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War broke out in 1914

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and Gropius was
drafted into the cavalry.

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He was soon to receive a message
that would lead to the formation

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of the Bauhaus school.

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At the beginning of the war,

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the director of
the School of Applied Arts in Weimar

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contacts Gropius because he is
looking for his replacement.

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He feels strongly that Gropius,
because he has gained

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this reputation,
would be a good successor.

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But war interrupts the proposal.

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Gropius was a lieutenant.

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At the beginning he was actually,
like so many men,

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eager to go on the battlefield.

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The reality of war proved
very different to his expectations.

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Gropius experienced fierce combat
on the front lines

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and was injured on
numerous occasions.

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Gropius was obviously
affected by the war.

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He described how he had
the screaming jeebies in the night,

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because his experiences
had been so terrible.

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He survived some
really desperate incidents.

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There's story told that he led
his men in Normandy to shelter

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in a building
that was hit by a bomb.

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And the building collapsed.

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And everyone died
except for Gropius.

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So I imagine him, in the rubble,

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thinking about what he's going to do
when he gets out.

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This is an architect,
almost crushed by architecture.

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A little bit broken
and very idealistic.

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And at this point,
Gropius was a man on a mission.

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What could we do new,
how could we use technology

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in a progressive way,
rather than a destructive way?

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Gropius was really a visionary.

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I think it took a particular
personality to dream this big.

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People came out of the First World
War and really wanted to see change

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on so many levels.

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The old world
wasn't trusted any longer.

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And I think the Bauhaus
is a direct result of that.

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They wanted a different art,
different architecture

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and a different education.

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I still remember when
I came out of the First World War,

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I thought everything would snap back
as it has been before.

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But all of a sudden,
I became aware that

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I would have to take part in
something completely new,

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which would change the conditions
I had been living in before.

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Driven by this new radical thinking,
Gropius decided to accept

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the invitation he'd had
from Weimar before the war.

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But instead of just taking over
the Applied Arts school,

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he would merge it with
the School of Fine Arts,

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bringing together
all the disciplines under one roof.

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This was just the idea of the
Bauhaus, to mix up these things.

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To see that there is no barrier,
of any real meaning,

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between a painting or the other
things of our environment.

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When you make a chair,
it's a very practical thing.

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But beyond that, also,
it should be beautiful.

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I consider beauty
a basic requirement of life.

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Defeated at the end of the war,
the Kaiser abdicated,

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paving the way for something
new and hopeful,

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but also leading to
a period of unrest and chaos.

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Coming out of the First World War,
Germany founds its first democracy,

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the Weimar Republic.

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There were radical groups on
the far-left and on the far-right,

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who were just
trying to get to power

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and who were shooting at each other.

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Everything had been destroyed.

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There was a real need to rebuild.

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So, to me, the Bauhaus
is really a series of experiments

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in trying to rethink the place
of art and design in society

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after the First World War.

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The first Bauhaus in Weimar

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was a hostile takeover
of a traditional art school.

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Full of much more traditionally
minded artists, who were absolutely

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horrified by what's going on
in the world of academic politics.

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Of course, intrigue and infighting
and factionalism

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are part of the deal, and
the early Bauhaus was no exception.

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Weimar is the classical spot
for Goethe and Schiller,

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the big poets of German literature.

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So this wasn't the place
to start off something new.

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On the face of it,
Weimar was an unlikely location

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for a radical project
like the Bauhaus.

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So, to attract teachers
and students to his new school,

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Gropius now produced a manifesto -

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a kind of mission statement,
in which he outlined his vision.

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At the Bauhaus, all the disciplines
would come together,

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to create what he considered to be

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the pinnacle of artistic
achievement - a building.

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The manifesto proclaimed...

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It wasn't that new, of course.

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A lot of the ideas that Gropius
put into the first manifesto

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came from William Morris.

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He was talking about
the unity of the arts,

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it was about making painting
and architecture and design

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all part of the same thing.

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This manifesto was distributed
throughout Germany.

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And we know, from many, many
students, that they got hold of

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this manifesto, and that was like
a strike of lightning

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and they said, "Wow, that's
something where I have to go."

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But, maybe even larger
than founding the school,

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you find, if you look at
the staff of the Bauhaus,

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if you look at the famous teachers,
Gropius brought together

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all the most important people
and stars at their time.

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I was aware, after what I had done
already, as an architect,

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that in order to really penetrate,

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that couldn't be done
by one person alone.

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You have to build-up a whole school,
which follows certain principles,

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out of which it may develop.

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And that gave me the idea
for organising the Bauhaus.

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The other thing that's interesting
about Gropius as an architect,

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especially an architect of his era,
is that he couldn't draw.

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So he, either by necessity
or temperament,

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was a born collaborator.

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As his teachers, Gropius assembled

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a Who's Who of the greatest artists
and thinkers of the period,

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including Wassily Kandinsky,
Paul Klee, Marcel Breuer,

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Laszlo Moholy-Nagy,
and Oskar Schlemmer.

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Wassily Kandinsky,
he is, at this point,

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one of the most famous painters
in Europe.

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He's Russian, he brings this idea
of a new kind of painting,

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which is not representational,

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and is much more kind of
a tool for expressing the spirit.

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Paul Klee is an incredibly
influential teacher.

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He was, one can see in his
paintings, quite a spiritual person.

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You know, he's painting ghosts,
he's painting angels,

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a lot of Bauhaus students recall
his lectures as transformative,

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in terms of thinking about how art
and spirituality can go together.

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If we look at Oskar Schlemmer,

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it's always the human figure
in his field of interest.

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He was first a painter
and then a sculptor,

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but he was also quite active
in theatre or dance.

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Exploring sculpture in motion.

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They talk about
the total work of art.

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The stage, of course,
is an excellent field

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where you could explore
the togetherness of many

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disciplines, like in architecture.

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At the Bauhaus, architects
and designers dance themselves.

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To play with temporary architecture,

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to make a space in a second
and to change it.

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And this is quite unique.

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I think you couldn't found
any other school where such a thing

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like dancing for architects,
and dancing for designers

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is part of the curriculum.

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They didn't hire teachers

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because they followed a certain
style or ideology. On the contrary.

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They hired people
because they were different.

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And you name me
one school today that does that.

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Why, just look at the breadth.
Look at the Kandinsky painting

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and then the chair without hindlegs.

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Bent wood turned into metal.

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And then you look at
a Klee painting,

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which was like a child's dream.

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And that's what it was such
a fantastic revolution.

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They redefined everything.

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It was an amazing time.

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Now that Gropius' team
was assembled, the students

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began to arrive in droves,
seeking out the teaching

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that had been promised
in the manifesto.

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Students came to
the Bauhaus from all over.

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Students who wanted to
break with tradition,

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with the old, wanted to look to
a hopeful new future.

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There were students who had gone
through a traditional art training,

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there were young students,
18-year-olds who just came

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straight from high school education,

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and then there were so many
returning soldiers.

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Some who, famously,
literally walked to the Bauhaus

241
00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:07,000
because they were so poor.

242
00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:11,440
And so, it was a really vibrant,
diverse mix of students all coming

243
00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:16,560
for different reasons but who then
became involved in this project,

244
00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:20,240
this project of modernism
that was the Bauhaus.

245
00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:24,280
Gropius and his team set about
putting his manifesto into practice

246
00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:26,720
and planning
the school's curriculum.

247
00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:30,400
The prevailing artistic movement
of the time was Expressionism,

248
00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:34,360
and the Bauhaus was to be
a reaction against this.

249
00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:36,200
There was a lot of undercurrents
going on

250
00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:39,280
in the culture of
post-World War I Europe.

251
00:15:39,280 --> 00:15:41,440
There were the Expressionists

252
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:46,200
who were, I suppose you'd call them
sort of, moody Goths.

253
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:48,640
It's like those Gothic films
of the period

254
00:15:48,640 --> 00:15:51,360
that were going on
in the Berlin film studios.

255
00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:55,640
The early Expressionist movement
within the Bauhaus was suppressed

256
00:15:55,640 --> 00:16:01,120
by the teachers. Mainly by Itten,
who gave the introductory course.

257
00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:04,800
Johannes Itten, this crazy
vegetarian, sun worshipper,

258
00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:08,200
who had his head shaved,
putting a star on the back of it

259
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:11,120
and persuading his students
to join the cult.

260
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:13,840
The man who was
most responsible for the Vorkurs -

261
00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:15,640
what became the foundation,
you know,

262
00:16:15,640 --> 00:16:18,040
which every art school in Britain
still follows.

263
00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:21,200
The students were supposed to
forget everything

264
00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:24,280
they had learned at school
and to start off without any

265
00:16:24,280 --> 00:16:26,440
kind of preconception.

266
00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:30,680
The six months preliminary course
was really quite revolutionary.

267
00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:33,800
Up until then,
everyone had been a specialist.

268
00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:38,400
You were a chair designer or you
made pottery or lamps or weaving.

269
00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:40,840
But never before had these things
been brought together.

270
00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:44,800
So the six months, what
we now call a foundation course,

271
00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:48,000
equipped people with
transferable skills

272
00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:51,800
to understand how to work in
all of these different media.

273
00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:56,040
Many of them had already started
their education in art academies.

274
00:16:56,040 --> 00:16:59,760
Famously, Marianne Brandt burned
all her previous work when she

275
00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:03,280
got to the Bauhaus and realised
how traditional it had been.

276
00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:07,960
Itten really was responsible
for coming up with this idea

277
00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:13,040
of colour as having a kind of power
of its own, an emotive resonance.

278
00:17:13,040 --> 00:17:16,960
That it wasn't just about something
that you used to create

279
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:20,880
a representation of the natural
world, but this was your grounding.

280
00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:24,360
The Bauhaus was really interested
in going back into the fundamentals

281
00:17:24,360 --> 00:17:27,280
of art and design,
and really asking basic questions

282
00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:29,480
about how things worked,
trying to find rules,

283
00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:31,040
trying to figure things out.

284
00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:32,920
And so, in this particular case,

285
00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:35,800
their theory they were
trying to represent here was

286
00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:39,040
that shapes have other attributes
associated with them.

287
00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:42,440
So this isn't randomly a red square,
this is supposed to represent

288
00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:45,040
their idea that all squares are red.

289
00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:47,880
Now, that would mean if you took
a white sheet of paper and drew

290
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:50,320
yourself a square, where
there was no colour visible,

291
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:54,400
they would argue it was still
somehow intrinsically red.

292
00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:57,440
It's really a turning point
when there's no longer

293
00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:01,520
just copying the masters, but
instead thinking about how to become

294
00:18:01,520 --> 00:18:03,680
an artist through movement.

295
00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:06,960
So Johannes Itten
said that before you draw a tiger

296
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:09,560
you have to roar like a tiger.

297
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:11,760
He was assisted in this endeavour

298
00:18:11,760 --> 00:18:16,120
by a teacher who was much less-known
called Gertrud Grunow.

299
00:18:16,120 --> 00:18:20,080
She was actually a musician,
a composer and a concert pianist,

300
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:23,720
who had developed a new synaesthetic
theory that there was

301
00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:26,760
a harmony between colour,
sound and movement.

302
00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:30,360
Students were instructed
to feel these resonances

303
00:18:30,360 --> 00:18:32,520
and connections between
these different senses

304
00:18:32,520 --> 00:18:34,000
within their bodies.

305
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:37,440
So she would teach students to,
one of them famously recalled,

306
00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:39,640
"Dance the colour blue."

307
00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:44,960
What they were trying to do
was a kind of artistic esperanto.

308
00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:49,040
Something international,
something which would enable

309
00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:52,200
these students
to go out into the world.

310
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:59,400
Itten had a really quite excellent
method of getting us relaxed

311
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:04,600
by breathing exercises
to loosen us up.

312
00:19:04,600 --> 00:19:10,520
He was really the first who saw
the importance of the subconscious

313
00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:11,960
in creative art.

314
00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:16,280
But, during that time,

315
00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:19,680
he got more and more involved with

316
00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:26,200
this quasi-religious cult
of Persian origin called Mazdaznan.

317
00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:32,240
And, in consequence,
he became more and more remote,

318
00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:37,560
less involved, and gradually
more and more aloof.

319
00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:41,880
Yeah, there was quite a big sort
of, spiritual movement in Germany.

320
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:45,200
I'm not talking about Christian -
a more spiritual, you know,

321
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:47,760
dancing and being naked and stuff,
going back to nature.

322
00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:50,360
Also, it existed before
the First World War but again,

323
00:19:50,360 --> 00:19:52,200
the first war,
this amazing catastrophe,

324
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:55,600
the biggest up to then, had made
people more aware of things.

325
00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:57,080
And he was sort of into that.

326
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,520
And even his teaching,
his colour schemes and his drawings

327
00:19:59,520 --> 00:20:01,760
and paintings were all
little sort of, hippie-ish,

328
00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:04,040
one would say.
He was a very early hippie.

329
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:06,960
And then he also... like some of
those gurus, he had followers,

330
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:09,880
who would, like, you know,
pray with him and dance on the roof.

331
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:12,000
He certainly wasn't
what you would expect -

332
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:14,680
the rigorous, mechanical,
Gropius kind of engineer.

333
00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:15,840
On the contrary.

334
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:21,000
Johannes Itten, the students really
needed to leave their prejudices

335
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:23,280
at the door when they
entered his classroom.

336
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:26,320
He also restricted
what the students would eat.

337
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:29,240
There is a very famous quote
of the early Bauhauses,

338
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:32,080
that everybody smelled
very strongly of garlic.

339
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,120
When you take somebody in
as a teacher,

340
00:20:35,120 --> 00:20:38,200
as a member of the faculty,
you cannot interfere.

341
00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:40,040
But when it doesn't work,

342
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:44,160
you have to say no
and get rid of him.

343
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:47,280
Johannes Itten was an extraordinary
teacher

344
00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:50,520
but he mixed it up
so very much with Mazdaznan,

345
00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:54,600
there was a clash between us,
and he withdrew.

346
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:56,160
Which I was sorry about,

347
00:20:56,160 --> 00:20:59,720
because he was a strong personality
and gave very much to it.

348
00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:03,280
But this idea of the Vorkurs,
as he taught,

349
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:05,840
was taken up by Moholy-Nagy.

350
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:08,360
Moholy-Nagy, who was
completely different,

351
00:21:08,360 --> 00:21:10,040
if you compare him to Itten.

352
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:14,120
But he was more interested
in technology.

353
00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:15,880
So here the Bauhaus takes,

354
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:19,280
with its different masters
and different teachers,

355
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:22,440
it takes different shifts
and different directions.

356
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:26,960
And with Moholy coming,
Gropius also has this new motto

357
00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:31,000
which is art and technology -
a new unity.

358
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:36,200
You need a lot of strength
to change the direction of a school,

359
00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:39,920
to convince all the others
around you who are teaching,

360
00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:43,280
and also to take
all the students along with you.

361
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:45,720
And, this was something
that he was doing

362
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:47,600
every three or four years.

363
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:52,560
The first generation of young people
educated in the Bauhaus were now

364
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:56,560
ready to be head of the workshops,
and that's what I did.

365
00:21:56,560 --> 00:21:59,360
When Itten left,
Gropius asked me suddenly,

366
00:21:59,360 --> 00:22:02,840
to my surprise,
to teach the introductory course.

367
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:04,280
I said, "What?"

368
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:08,920
But he persuaded me and so,
I decided that the material,

369
00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:11,320
as such, is the beginning.

370
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:16,600
I presented wire and said,
"Let's try what we can do

371
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,920
"new with wire.
Give it a new shape."

372
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:23,560
And then later
I introduced study of paper.

373
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:28,000
What was, at that time,
considered wrapping material.

374
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:29,920
So, their approach to practice

375
00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:32,680
was really to understand
the material itself.

376
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:35,720
The object that takes
its own nature, effectively.

377
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,520
"Form follows function"
is right there at the heart of it.

378
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:41,280
The Bauhaus is probably one
of the most crystallised versions

379
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:44,760
of form following function,
as an overriding ethos

380
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:46,960
to the entire institution.

381
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,360
I think, in many ways,
form does follow function.

382
00:22:50,360 --> 00:22:53,160
That thinking would have
come out, Bauhaus or not.

383
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:55,240
But they managed to encapsulate it

384
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,160
and make it into slogan
and make it into a movement.

385
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:05,000
The Bauhaus school was truly
revolutionary in its approach

386
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,600
to art education.

387
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,040
However, by today's standards
it was anything but radical

388
00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:12,920
in its treatment of
the female students.

389
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,200
According to
the law of the land at the time,

390
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,760
women were entitled to
absolutely equal rights.

391
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:22,320
In practice, this was not
how things worked.

392
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:27,320
The very first semester
of the Bauhaus, there were 51% women

393
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:32,040
studying there and
Gropius became concerned about this.

394
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,160
This was a man who was a realist

395
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,160
about what society was
ready for, and wasn't.

396
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,520
He thought that if the school
was entirely filled by women

397
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,600
it would not be taken seriously.

398
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,200
Not only Gropius,
also all the other male,

399
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:50,680
and they were almost only male,
teachers at the Bauhaus,

400
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,200
were brought up in the 19th century.

401
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:58,440
So, they had this
very male view of society.

402
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:02,080
The big failure in my mind
is the workshop experience.

403
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,080
In the preliminary course,
all the students, men and women,

404
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,520
had very similar experiences.

405
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:10,480
When they advanced to the workshops,
the men had the choice -

406
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,160
they could go to the carpentry
workshop, they could go

407
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:15,480
to the printing press,
they had options.

408
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,520
Women, of course, had to
go into the weaving workshop.

409
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:20,760
They had no choice.

410
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,200
Anni Albers came to study
with the great painters.

411
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:26,520
To study with
Klee, Kandinsky or Feininger.

412
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,200
And she was extremely upset

413
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,080
when she learned
she wouldn't be able to continue.

414
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:32,360
And she talks about

415
00:24:32,360 --> 00:24:36,000
how dismissive she was of
the weaving workshop at the time.

416
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:39,240
But, there were
a few women who opposed,

417
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,520
who said, "No, I do not believe
that textile is the right thing

418
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,920
"for me, I want to go
to the metal class."

419
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,200
And it was extremely difficult
for them.

420
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:54,200
Marianne Brandt told an interesting
story about the metal workshop,

421
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:57,280
of which she was
the only female graduate.

422
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:58,640
When she first got there,

423
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:03,080
she was given the most boring task
to do over and over again.

424
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:06,640
And she thought that everyone just
had to do that when they were new.

425
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,240
And only later when her male
colleagues decided she would

426
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:10,640
probably be acceptable,

427
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:14,000
they told her they were
just trying to get her to leave.

428
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,960
She in fact, became the head
of the workshop's assistant.

429
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,040
The head was Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

430
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,520
And, when he left, she took over
as the acting director.

431
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:27,720
She's one of the examples of
a real Bauhaus success story.

432
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:29,200
I think it's typical of its time.

433
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,240
And I'm sure there would be people
who would say,

434
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,560
"Oh, that's trying to force
a feminist perspective on it."

435
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:34,800
I don't see it like that at all.

436
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:39,120
I just think it's re-establishing
the facts, really.

437
00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:42,400
Outside the school, both men
and women alike were proving

438
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:46,280
far too radical
for the quiet town of Weimar.

439
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:48,960
Weimar then and now
has a reputation.

440
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:53,040
It's a very sleepy, historical city,
it's more associated with Goethe

441
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:56,640
and Schiller, or its lovely parks,
its lovely historical homes,

442
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,280
and there was something
very enervating

443
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,360
for some of these young artists
to be in Weimar.

444
00:26:02,360 --> 00:26:09,000
Wherever you have an art academy
with a young group of students

445
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,200
who feel that they themselves
are something completely different

446
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,800
than the rest of society,
you have these conflicts.

447
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,400
When I see some of those strong
images of the students at that time,

448
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,240
the most famous one would be
Marcel Breuer and his wife,

449
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,720
and two other female students,
which they called Breuer's harem.

450
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,160
And they make me think
about Siouxsie and the Banshees.

451
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,840
They look like art students
in London in the 1980s.

452
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:40,960
The students who were here,
we could call them certainly

453
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:42,880
the equivalent of
young radicals now.

454
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:44,720
Perhaps they would have been
in punk bands,

455
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:46,240
they would have been protesting.

456
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:47,800
They wanted to be different.

457
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:49,840
They wanted to provoke.

458
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,920
To some extent, they could be seen
as being out to shock

459
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,400
but they could also
just be expressing the new,

460
00:26:55,400 --> 00:27:00,000
a celebration of modernism, of
modern life, of just being young -

461
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,240
after the horrors of war.

462
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:04,600
There was so much optimism.

463
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,320
Young people with a new look.

464
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:11,360
They were so enthusiastic.
No other school was so free.

465
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,640
In a way, they are much
more modern than we're now.

466
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,240
You know, in terms of how
they challenged the norms

467
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,680
and really believed that
what they were going to do

468
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,760
was going to influence the world
for the better.

469
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,760
Cutting their hair short,
men taking a more androgynous look,

470
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:31,160
breaking down gender codes
and gender norms.

471
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:35,840
Opening up homosexuality
and being more out in culture.

472
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,920
They were women and they were men
and they danced together

473
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,720
and they socialised together,
and the women drank and smoked,

474
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,600
and it was everything that
the good citizens of Weimar

475
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:48,280
associated with the major cities
and thought they were free from.

476
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,600
And they were probably
seen by the natives

477
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:52,280
as weirdos from outer space.

478
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:54,440
It was radical,
they must've had a lot of fun.

479
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:56,200
They would parade through the town

480
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:57,880
in whatever they
happened to have on.

481
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,040
And, of course, the citizens
thought the Bauhaus

482
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,240
was a terrifically immoral place.

483
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:06,040
They wore these outlandish costumes,
a lot of them.

484
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:10,200
The students thought that the
Weimarians were living in the past

485
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:15,560
and that they hadn't noticed that
times had changed since Goethe died.

486
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:19,000
So one day they took a bucket of
paint and just poured it over

487
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,560
these sculptures of
Goethe and Schiller,

488
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,040
and everybody, of course,
knew that it had to be

489
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:25,880
the Bauhaus students
who had done this.

490
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:27,640
So, obviously, I mean,
they were students.

491
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,440
It's like they're doing it
today, you know.

492
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,480
They were, like,
provoking the society

493
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,440
and it created a big opposition.

494
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,040
Which eventually led to
the Bauhaus leaving Weimar.

495
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,400
And at this point,
the local government is getting

496
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:46,040
a little tired of the Bauhaus.

497
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:47,360
They just are not ready

498
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,680
for something
quite as progressive as this.

499
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:53,160
The money was coming
from the government and, of course,

500
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:57,120
the politicians wanted to know
what they were doing at the Bauhaus.

501
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:59,680
And they wanted to see results.

502
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:04,160
Germany was incredibly unstable,
the economy was in freefall.

503
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,160
Gropius, he's periodically
having to go to the government

504
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,400
and say, "I need several million
more marks just to cover the basics

505
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:13,240
"that we were already covering."

506
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:17,880
At a certain point, the government
had to look at manifesto and said,

507
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,680
"Well, you're not really doing
what you're promising here."

508
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,360
With tensions on the rise,
the Weimar government pressured

509
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:29,240
the Bauhaus into holding an
exhibition to justify its funding.

510
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,040
Despite Gropius' reservations,
it was given a year.

511
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,520
August, 1923
marked the opening of

512
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,320
the first great Bauhaus exhibition.

513
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:43,040
Gropius was furious. In his opinion,
it was way too early to hold

514
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:44,120
an exhibition like that.

515
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:47,000
Because he was still creating
the infrastructure here

516
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,000
in order to provide this teaching.

517
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,120
But I'm imagining that the students
were actually pretty happy about it.

518
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,080
Because now they had a goal,
they had a clear direction.

519
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:56,240
And if you look at

520
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,960
the amount of stuff that was being
produced for this exhibition,

521
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,360
you can really see there was a lot
of energy, there was a lot of drive.

522
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:04,800
They did something
really incredible.

523
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:07,160
They built an entire house.

524
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:12,160
I mean, imagine a school
building a house nowadays,

525
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:13,880
just for an exhibition.

526
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,480
And a house which was not
supposed to be torn down again

527
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,120
after the exhibition,
but to be lived in.

528
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:23,960
A huge production that
the entire school is involved in.

529
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,800
Everything goes into that.

530
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,680
They also cancelled the preliminary
course for a semester,

531
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,040
just so that everyone
could work towards this.

532
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,640
And it was completely furnished

533
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,600
by the works of
the Bauhaus students

534
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,000
to demonstrate their ideas
of what they thought was

535
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,320
the modern kind of living
in this new kind of house.

536
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:48,720
Through the sheer ingenuity
and variety on display,

537
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,120
Gropius and his students sought
to convince the Weimar public

538
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,480
and government
of the importance of their work.

539
00:30:55,480 --> 00:31:01,000
This was nothing less then a battle
for the survival of the school.

540
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,800
Gropius, being such a brilliant
networker, also invited a lot of

541
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,680
industrialists, professors,
journalists from all over the world

542
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:08,640
to bring them here to Weimar

543
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,560
and to really show
what his Bauhaus is doing.

544
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,320
Among the foreigners,
people were leaving Weimar

545
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:17,320
and seeing, "OK, you know,
these Germans, they are obviously

546
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,800
"producing something valid
for the new society

547
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:22,680
"for the post-war period."

548
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:24,480
But the local people
and the government

549
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,120
who was actually in charge,
they were not really impressed.

550
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,320
So, there was a lot
of criticism about it.

551
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,160
This great exhibition
was to show the town that, "Look,

552
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:33,960
"this is what we have achieved.

553
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:35,400
"This is what we have done."

554
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:37,840
And that actually backfired
because the people of Weimar

555
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,040
didn't like what
they were presented with.

556
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:41,360
Yes, they had made things,

557
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,680
but they had made, in the Weimar
residents' minds, the wrong things.

558
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,880
If you look at all the cut-outs
that Gropius collected,

559
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:52,160
something like
80 or 90% were negative.

560
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,960
There was no understanding
for what they were doing.

561
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:58,320
And just a year later,
the money that they received

562
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,160
from the government
was cut down by 50%.

563
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:06,800
Gropius, very wisely resisted
every attempt of the pupils

564
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:08,960
to be active in politics.

565
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,480
But the government changed,
became a nationalist government,

566
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:16,480
according to the whole trend of
development in Germany,

567
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:20,880
and that was the end
of the Weimar Bauhaus.

568
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:24,600
Gropius and other people
at the Bauhaus ensure that the story

569
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:28,360
of the defunding of the Bauhaus
becomes, in modern terms,

570
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,320
a social media success.

571
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,400
There are news stories
about it across the country,

572
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,120
it's shocking, it's controversial.

573
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:38,360
Gropius encourages that
like a shrewd businessman,

574
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,160
because he knows that
it's attracting attention

575
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:46,760
to his cause, and he starts,
unbidden, to receive offers.

576
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:48,800
Probably any other director
would say,

577
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:50,600
"OK, folks, that's it.

578
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,400
"Beautiful time, but now
we're all going somewhere else

579
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,080
"and living our own life."

580
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:57,920
No, the entire school moves on.

581
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,160
Most of the students
and all of the teachers

582
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,880
just go to another place
and restart.

583
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:07,760
It was at this point that
Gropius' a talent for self publicity

584
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:09,080
came into its own.

585
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,200
He embarked on a tour
to raise awareness for his school.

586
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:16,720
And it was during one of these talks
that he met his future wife, Ise.

587
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:21,160
She told him that the Bauhaus ideals
had captured her totally.

588
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:23,120
He married Ise.

589
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:27,120
She was really an important
influence on the Bauhaus.

590
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:29,200
The loving companion of his life.

591
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:34,120
You think to yourself, "How
would he have managed the Bauhaus

592
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:36,320
"without Ise by his side?"

593
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,680
And she became known as
Frau Bauhaus.

594
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,600
By the time the traditionalists
had won in Weimar,

595
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,920
Gropius was already
a serious celebrity

596
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,440
and the Bauhaus had become
a pretty famous brand.

597
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:53,560
Most ambitious German mayors
looking to put their city on the map

598
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:58,040
were offering bids
to persuade Gropius to relocate.

599
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,080
Gropius' charm and connections
become important,

600
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,280
as do those of his new wife,
Ise Gropius.

601
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:05,880
And she travels to various cities.

602
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,840
They go to the city of Dessau
and the mayor there

603
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,840
particularly makes notes about
how charming Frau Gropius is.

604
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,240
Dessau was a very small city,

605
00:34:15,240 --> 00:34:19,280
but a dynamic place
for industry and technology.

606
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,880
It was left-leaning,
there was a Communist government

607
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:23,800
that was as progressive
as they were.

608
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:29,360
It was also where the Junkers
aircraft and metalworks factory is.

609
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:31,480
This allowed the Bauhaus
to have a ready home

610
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:33,800
where it could then
send its students out

611
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,440
to look at actual
manufacturing practices.

612
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:40,960
They are given a significant parcel
of land just on the outskirts

613
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,760
of town, and they can build
their first and only large-scale

614
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:48,280
purpose-built building
and a campus around it.

615
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,040
And so, it was a wonderful offer

616
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,920
that the Bauhaus got
from the city of Dessau,

617
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:54,680
and one that allowed them

618
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:58,360
to bring a lot of what they had
talked about to fruition.

619
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,400
Gropius very quickly sets to work
and is able to build,

620
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:06,280
really in record time, a very
modern, very large school building,

621
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:10,000
full of light with a glass curtain
wall with a steel structure

622
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:11,360
that allowed for this.

623
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:13,280
And that you could also
live and work together

624
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,480
through the wonderful
dormitory wing.

625
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:19,320
A large cafeteria which then
opened up also to the stage,

626
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:21,520
a full auditorium.

627
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,800
I would say that the Bauhaus
building is the best building

628
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,280
that Gropius ever built.

629
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,920
It's a symbol of the Bauhaus itself.

630
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:36,120
You have to walk around it. It's not
a building in an old-fashioned sense

631
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:39,200
that you stand in front of a facade.

632
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,600
It must have been like
a spaceship landing in Germany.

633
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:42,760
I mean, it's so radical.

634
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:44,080
And it's a complex building,

635
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:46,600
which is why it's a little bit
difficult to photograph it.

636
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:48,960
You always see this one side
with the Bauhaus lettering

637
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,640
but that's not what you see when
you come out of the train station.

638
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:53,600
The first thing in front of you
is the student wing

639
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:54,880
with the famous balconies.

640
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,680
And then just a short stroll away,
of course, you have

641
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,560
the masters' houses
set amongst the pine trees nearby.

642
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:01,960
And you have the bridge.

643
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,400
And Gropius, as a director,
would be sitting in the bridge

644
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,840
and looking down at
everything passing by.

645
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:12,720
Of course, it's a very good
opportunity, if you move from

646
00:36:12,720 --> 00:36:15,920
one place to the other,
to reinvent yourself.

647
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,240
When we came to Dessau
there was a little bit more money

648
00:36:19,240 --> 00:36:22,520
available and I thought,
"Now is the moment where we have

649
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,160
"to build-up
an architectural department."

650
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:29,440
And I got in Hannes Meyer
from Switzerland, who had done some

651
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,920
very good design work
for the United Nations and others,

652
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:34,480
which I liked.

653
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:39,480
And so he started to build-up
this architectural department.

654
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,240
The Dessau period
under Walter Gropius,

655
00:36:42,240 --> 00:36:46,640
these were the most stable years
in German society.

656
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:49,880
And they're also most stable
years at the Bauhaus.

657
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:53,760
With his new building, Gropius had
finally realised his dream.

658
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:56,600
The Bauhaus Dessau
was now home to painting,

659
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,560
sculpture, weaving,
furniture design,

660
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:01,560
pottery and architecture.

661
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,120
But for Gropius,
the work inside the school

662
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:05,960
was only part of the picture.

663
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:09,400
We have this, perhaps,
image of the Bauhaus

664
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:12,720
being this very serious place
where everything's rectilinear

665
00:37:12,720 --> 00:37:14,080
and we all follow the rules,

666
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:16,640
but, in fact,
they threw these wonderful parties.

667
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:18,360
The metal party
or the paper party

668
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:20,320
or any number of
other themed parties.

669
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:23,120
But, they were clearly
out having a good time.

670
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:27,560
The Bauhaus fests were also
these ideas of a total piece of art

671
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:31,200
which includes costumes,
music, movements.

672
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:35,120
Oskar Schlemmer famously said,
"Show me how you party,

673
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:36,680
"and I'll show you who I am."

674
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:39,320
They took over the whole school.

675
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:44,920
They had these great festivities
every few weeks.

676
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:46,960
They're legendary.

677
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,000
And the biggest party of the year
is one still celebrated,

678
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:54,480
which is Gropius' birthday,
May 18th, called Gropius Day.

679
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:57,920
And then there were these big
performative parties that were open

680
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,560
to the outside, that also could
potentially bring in some money.

681
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:06,760
There were a lot of relationships,
couples, a lot of children,

682
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,800
a very free kind of sex life.

683
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:15,800
Nowadays, we would say, "OK, during
the 1960s everything changed."

684
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,680
No, everything had
already changed in the '20s

685
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:20,720
and especially at the Bauhaus.

686
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:25,560
A lot of people in Dessau
were very traditional,

687
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,160
from sceptical
to real enemies of the Bauhaus.

688
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:33,400
The fight of right-wing people
started from the beginning,

689
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:37,320
giving out leaflets
against an un-German Bauhaus,

690
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:41,040
against these not serious
teaching methods,

691
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,960
against the modernist architecture
and so on.

692
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,680
People were writing brochures,
they were publishing articles,

693
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,840
they were criticising projects,

694
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,720
in order to undermine
Gropius' credibility,

695
00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:55,480
not only as an architect
but also as a director.

696
00:38:55,480 --> 00:39:00,120
There were affairs being invented
between him and students

697
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,960
in order to discredit him
as a person.

698
00:39:04,240 --> 00:39:09,640
Gropius' ongoing difficulties
running the Bauhaus were well-known,

699
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,200
but it was still a shock to everyone
at the school

700
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:14,480
when he suddenly announced
his departure.

701
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:18,600
Despite the efforts of staff and
students to persuade him to stay,

702
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:21,000
Gropius had made up his mind
to leave.

703
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,080
When I stepped out
because I thought that,

704
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:29,920
with the coming up Nazi movement,
that I was a factor which did harm

705
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,600
to the Bauhaus because
they attacked always me.

706
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:36,920
I stepped back and wanted to go
again into private activities

707
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,440
and made Hannes Meyer my successor.

708
00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:45,400
I think that, after nine years,
he also might have had enough.

709
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,600
It was a very good time to leave,
to leave when something

710
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:53,520
is at its best, and knowing
that it would start to get

711
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:57,040
more and more difficult,
it was even easier to go.

712
00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:01,040
Then you have
the world economic crisis in 1929

713
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:07,160
and everything starts falling apart
rapidly, and also at the Bauhaus.

714
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,440
Imagine how you feel
if you're Walter Gropius

715
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:16,040
after six years of exhausting work
building the school, and realising

716
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:19,320
that actually your real motivation
is not to be a great teacher,

717
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,120
but to be a great architect,
and schools are a distraction.

718
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,280
Bringing in Hannes Meyer
was a reflection and a commitment

719
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:28,640
to making architecture
more important.

720
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,000
Hannes Meyer was perhaps
the true functionalist.

721
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:35,680
He was a Swiss-born Marxist
architect and, for him, aesthetics

722
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:39,320
and art were bourgeois distractions.

723
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,360
It was not really a clever idea,
like, the closer we get to

724
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:46,200
the 1930s, to bring a foreigner and
a Communist as the Bauhaus director,

725
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,040
but he was approaching
the whole issue of the Bauhaus

726
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:50,800
from a totally different direction.

727
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,880
So, whereas Gropius was the one
who was encouraging the invention of

728
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:59,920
new forms that would relate
with the spirit of a new society,

729
00:40:59,920 --> 00:41:03,160
Hannes Meyer said, "In the end,
the lower classes don't really

730
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,560
"care for style, they care for cost
and they care for function."

731
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,080
Even though the students
were very sad with Gropius leaving

732
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,800
because he had this, like,
almost aristocratic way of leading

733
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:15,760
the Bauhaus, of keeping the group
together and defending the school,

734
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:19,240
shortly after Meyer was taking over,
there was this new spirit

735
00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:23,320
of the early years being revived,
like a new departure.

736
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,560
What Gropius had actually
always wanted to do

737
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:31,040
but never really achieved was to
bring prototypes into industry.

738
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,280
Under Hannes Meyer,
if you look, for example,

739
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:37,440
at the so-called Bauhaus wallpaper,
it was a giant success.

740
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,760
They sold millions and millions
of these wallpaper rolls

741
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:45,040
so that was something
which also brought money in.

742
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:47,640
One of the problems that
Gropius had was always finance,

743
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,800
partly because of the German
hyperinflation, but also

744
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:55,160
the cost of running the whole place,
so they were relying partly on

745
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:59,120
income from students' designs,
and it is a little bit ironic

746
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:02,280
that most of the women were put
into the weaving textile workshop -

747
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:05,160
that was the only workshop
that actually ever generated

748
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,920
any real money, together
with their wallpaper programme.

749
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:12,040
So what the men were doing didn't
actually generate that much money.

750
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:15,760
It was also ironic that,
despite his Marxist sympathies,

751
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,520
Meyer embraced capitalism
during his tenure at the Bauhaus,

752
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:21,160
and, for a brief moment,

753
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,440
the institution seemed
more financially secure.

754
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:28,400
But Meyer's political views
would soon land him in trouble.

755
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,800
Hannes Meyer, it turned out,
he was very uncompromising

756
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:37,080
in his politics, which were
very left-leaning and very Marxist,

757
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,600
and in this period
that becomes difficult.

758
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:44,680
Hannes Meyer had not told me
about his strong leanings

759
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:48,400
towards the very left-ish
political side.

760
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:52,120
I think he did very much harm
by bringing too much politics

761
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,080
into the Bauhaus.

762
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,240
There was a significant body of
the students that were Communists,

763
00:42:57,240 --> 00:43:01,400
and they became increasingly more
dedicated to their cause over time.

764
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:03,440
It is also important
to remember that

765
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:06,280
there were extreme right-wingers
in the Bauhaus.

766
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,920
The canteen would be divided
between the lefties on one side

767
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:11,800
and the right-wingers on the right.

768
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,240
As the political situation
in Germany

769
00:43:14,240 --> 00:43:18,240
became more and more conservative
and pitched more to the Nazis,

770
00:43:18,240 --> 00:43:20,440
the National Socialist Party,

771
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,280
the Bauhaus became
an object of scrutiny.

772
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:26,200
This made a difficult
and controversial problem

773
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:28,160
for the Mayor of Dessau,

774
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:32,080
and ultimately Hannes Meyer
was asked to leave.

775
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:36,280
He had some very good ideas
but under the very bad conditions

776
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:40,400
of the Nazis coming up at that time,
Hannes Meyer came into hot water

777
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,400
very soon, and that was
the end of him.

778
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:48,040
He made the institution open
to attacks, but I think it also

779
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,040
was inevitable
because the Nazis were there,

780
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:51,960
whether Meyer liked them or not.

781
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,440
At least he had attitude and guts.

782
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:58,480
In 1930, Meyer's strong political
convictions made his role

783
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:02,120
as director untenable,
and he was removed from his post

784
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:04,560
by the Mayor of Dessau.

785
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:06,360
The mayor asked Gropius

786
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,240
who he would recommend
to take over as director.

787
00:44:09,240 --> 00:44:13,520
Gropius suggested Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe, who had become well-known

788
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,520
after the success of his pavilion
at the Barcelona fair

789
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:17,680
the year before.

790
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,160
I don't want to express myself.

791
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:22,880
I am looking for grammar

792
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:26,720
that can be understood
and used by everybody.

793
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:30,480
Where as Gropius was more of
the manager in an architecture firm,

794
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:32,840
bringing skilled people together,

795
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,360
Mies was really
the master architect.

796
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,560
He's the one who can draw
like a god, so he is really like

797
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:40,440
the genius architect.

798
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:43,840
Mies van der Rohe,
in 1930, was a superstar,

799
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,520
so the Bauhaus becomes
a school of architecture,

800
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,880
finally, at the very end.

801
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:53,320
Again, the Bauhaus completely
changed in a different direction.

802
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:56,480
Meyer was playful, experimental.

803
00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:00,280
On the other hand,
Mies van der Rohe was a very serious

804
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:02,880
and much more
authoritarian character.

805
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:08,760
The first thing that Mies did
was to talk to every single student.

806
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:13,680
He was trying to find out if they
were politically active or not.

807
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,280
About 20 students who
were near to Hannes Meyer

808
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:19,720
were thrown out of the school.

809
00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:22,360
Many said he was a great teacher,
he was also a caring teacher,

810
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:24,200
but he took this role
very seriously.

811
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:28,280
He kicked out any students
he could identify as Communist,

812
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:31,720
and declared that there would be
no politics to the Bauhaus.

813
00:45:31,720 --> 00:45:37,000
The Bauhaus had been attacked from
the beginning

814
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:41,600
from the right-winged parties,
especially the National Socialists.

815
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:45,440
They did not agree with
this kind of art and architecture

816
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,800
because they thought it was
internationalist, and not German.

817
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:54,000
It was named
a Bolshevik and Jewish institution

818
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:57,920
and it was neither Bolshevik
nor was it Jewish.

819
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:02,440
This was just the invention
of the National Socialists.

820
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:04,000
So Mies van der Rohe,

821
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:07,560
despite his efforts to
depoliticise the Bauhaus,

822
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:09,960
was not successful in saving it.

823
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:14,520
And in 1932, when a Nazi government
comes to power in Dessau,

824
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:18,360
their funding is cut, they are
kicked out of their own building.

825
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,680
Nazi do come in,
they close down the school,

826
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:25,160
they take control of the school,
they arrest certain students.

827
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,880
Nazis go into the building
and throw furniture out the window.

828
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:31,960
There's talk of burning
the building down which, I think,

829
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:34,640
given how much glass and steel
and concrete it has,

830
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:38,560
would have been a challenge, but
they are stopped from doing this.

831
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:41,400
What they did
is that they took it over,

832
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,240
and it became a party headquarters.

833
00:46:44,240 --> 00:46:47,280
Mies responded by
moving the school once again

834
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,160
into a disused telephone factory
in Berlin.

835
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:54,360
That was really a swansong, Berlin.

836
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:56,440
In Weimar, it was a State Institute.

837
00:46:56,440 --> 00:47:02,840
In Dessau, it was municipal. And in
Berlin, we were a private institute.

838
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:05,840
During the time of the Bauhaus
in Berlin, there's a hope that

839
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,480
if they just can bridge some
of the finances and can keep things

840
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,760
going, then it can start to
build back to what it was.

841
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:17,240
We have the Reichstag burning,
and that is the moment when Hitler

842
00:47:17,240 --> 00:47:19,760
takes his stance
in the new politics.

843
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:25,600
He accuses the Communists
and with it, all leftist groups,

844
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:29,720
all avant-garde groups,
and among them is also the Bauhaus.

845
00:47:29,720 --> 00:47:33,160
From this point on, the writing was
on the wall for the Bauhaus,

846
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,680
and it was only a matter of time
before the Nazis closed it down.

847
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:41,360
So, one morning, Mies van der Rohe
turns up at the ex-factory,

848
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:46,360
the new Bauhaus, and found it full
of Gestapo who had locked the doors

849
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,560
and were interrogating students.

850
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,040
Eventually, Mies was allowed
to reopen the school

851
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:56,160
if he agreed to expel Jewish
and Communist faculty members.

852
00:47:56,160 --> 00:48:00,600
But it was too late for that,
because the Bauhaus,

853
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:05,000
in the eyes of the Nazis, was this
centre of not only Bolshevists

854
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:09,480
but, of course, a lot of the
teachers and students were Jewish.

855
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:14,400
So it's a very sad story and
a sad end for the Bauhaus, really.

856
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:21,080
The teachers, in July of 1933,
gathered for a meeting.

857
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:25,160
Mies brought a bottle of champagne
and they decided that

858
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:27,680
they would rather close the school

859
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:31,920
than to hand the school over
to the National Socialists.

860
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:35,360
They opened the bottle of champagne,
drank it,

861
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:39,400
and then everybody went
their own way. That was the end.

862
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:44,880
When the school ended,
it enabled the ideas

863
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:49,360
to really get a foothold in society
as a whole, in the world.

864
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:53,640
As awful as it sounds, I think we
actually have the Nazis to thank

865
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:58,000
for dissolving the school, because
it sent this talent worldwide.

866
00:48:58,000 --> 00:48:59,480
That also had a lot to do with it.

867
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:01,560
The destruction of the Bauhaus

868
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:03,840
actually helped propagate it
in a way that

869
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,440
really hasn't happened to
any other art school,

870
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:09,480
so you see them suddenly
turning up in Israel,

871
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:13,960
in the UK, in the States,
and having inordinate amounts

872
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:16,560
of influence over
other design courses.

873
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:19,600
Many had to leave,
many wanted to leave.

874
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,320
Albers and his wife were the first.

875
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:25,880
They went to the United States,
to Black Mountain College,

876
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:28,160
and became teachers there.

877
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,920
Hannes Meyer,
he goes to the Soviet Union

878
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:34,720
to work on big projects there.

879
00:49:34,720 --> 00:49:39,280
Gropius left in 1934,
relatively early.

880
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:40,960
He first went to London

881
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:44,480
and from there he continued on
to the United States.

882
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:45,760
He went to Harvard,

883
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:49,320
where he became the head of
the architectural department.

884
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,920
Mies was bitterly,
bitterly pissed off

885
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:56,200
that Gropius got to go to Harvard
and he was stuck in Chicago IIT.

886
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:59,160
Harvard was the place which,
for a long time,

887
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:02,080
trained the elite of
American architects.

888
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:07,280
When Mies got to Chicago, he was
able to design the campus for IIT.

889
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:12,200
Mies also began to build high-rises
to house people.

890
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:14,080
This had always been an idea

891
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,280
that people would live in tall
apartment towers,

892
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:21,400
but really it's in this period
where Mies' particular aesthetic

893
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:26,280
and structural system allow these
tall towers of glass and steel.

894
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:30,320
Tom Wolfe, the late, great novelist,
wrote the famous account

895
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,840
of the Bauhaus and he described
the arrival of the Bauhaus gang

896
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,320
in America as being like
one of those black and white movies

897
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:40,600
in which the silver princes
arrive in the jungle,

898
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:43,000
and are worshipped by the natives.

899
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:45,520
And Wolfe saw that as
America being infected

900
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:47,760
by these alien European modernists.

901
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:50,720
Mr Wolfe has turned on
the architects in a book called

902
00:50:50,720 --> 00:50:53,640
From Bauhaus To Our House.

903
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,880
It was very exciting to people
at a place like the Bauhaus

904
00:50:56,880 --> 00:51:00,040
to be brought together
under a figure like Walter Gropius,

905
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:02,280
and to be told to start from zero

906
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,880
is like saying, "You are
the young gods of the future."

907
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:09,920
The great irony is that all these
forms were created for the workers

908
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:13,760
after the First World War, under
a social democratic government,

909
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:15,600
and somehow these same forms

910
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:20,640
are housing the corporate giants
of America.

911
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,760
The paradox about the Bauhaus
was that it apparently embraced

912
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:27,360
the machine age,
but without industry

913
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:31,080
to make its products it was
carefully making things by hand

914
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:34,160
to look like they had been
turned out by machines.

915
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,360
Its idea about a social message

916
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:39,120
didn't last
the transition to America.

917
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:43,040
America embraced the look of
the Bauhaus but turned it into

918
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:46,760
a corporate style, rather than
one about social inclusion.

919
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:50,440
Critics argued that the Bauhaus
had lost its way in America,

920
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:53,640
and betrayed its ideals,
that the project which had meant

921
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:58,440
so much to Gropius must ultimately
be considered a failure.

922
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,360
The unique and incredible
and wonderful thing about creativity

923
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:04,960
is I think you can never
call anything a failure.

924
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:08,080
It's all exploration
and experimentation,

925
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:10,600
and failure compared to what?

926
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:13,520
It was completely unique
in what came before it,

927
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,120
it stands alone with
what came after it.

928
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:20,400
It was, instead,
just a way of looking at things

929
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:25,560
that was different
and revolutionary and brilliant.

930
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:28,040
A school that has moved
already three times,

931
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:31,520
Weimar to Dessau to Berlin,
so I'm not sure if this

932
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:35,640
is about failure. It's kind of
about a certain strength.

933
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:40,480
So, we have actually 12, 13 years
that was so new and radical,

934
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:45,200
that maybe later it would not
have worked in the same way.

935
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:47,640
But on the other hand, we will
never be able to prove that,

936
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:49,840
because of that traumatic break

937
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,680
that was introduced with
the arrival of the Hitler regime.

938
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:57,760
We very often think that everybody

939
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,040
at the Bauhaus
must have been upright,

940
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:03,120
or maybe even socialist,
or left-wing.

941
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:04,440
This isn't true.

942
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:08,560
You will find Communists,
you will find conservatives,

943
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:11,840
right-wing,
even National Socialists.

944
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:15,880
What was more interesting
is what became of all these people.

945
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:20,080
There are many that collaborated,
that stayed in Germany,

946
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:23,320
and who gave up
their Bauhaus spirit.

947
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,840
Remember, the early Nazi regime,

948
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:29,360
they were much more
concerned about Communists.

949
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:34,560
Franz Ehrlich, who was a Communist,
was imprisoned in Buchenwald,

950
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:38,680
so the gates of Buchenwald,
which say, "Jedem das Seine",

951
00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:41,480
to each his own,
are done in a Bauhaus font

952
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,200
because they were designed by him.

953
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:48,680
Of course, there were also quite
a number of Bauhaus people

954
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:50,720
who were from Jewish families

955
00:53:50,720 --> 00:53:54,920
and were taken to
concentration camps and murdered.

956
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:57,840
You will also find
National Socialists,

957
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:03,320
architects who designed the barracks
for Auschwitz concentration camp,

958
00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:06,200
also there again, a Bauhaus person.

959
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:12,720
The Bauhaus school lasted only 14
years, but its legacy continues

960
00:54:12,720 --> 00:54:16,000
to be felt around the world today.

961
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,440
Other movements may have
come and gone but we're living

962
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:20,800
still in the Bauhaus here.

963
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:25,000
The reality is,
they prepared us for modern life.

964
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:29,320
They took the creative risks
and leaps of imagination and faith,

965
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:30,840
and they set the benchmark

966
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:34,080
for the way we actually
live our lives today.

967
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:37,560
I think it has had huge influence.

968
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:41,200
The idea that beauty isn't marginal,

969
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:44,960
that beauty is
part of human understanding,

970
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:47,920
we need to cling to that thought.

971
00:54:47,920 --> 00:54:51,960
At its most simplistic, Bauhaus
is about the most refined forms,

972
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:55,640
so the idea of a shop like Ikea,
which is about mass production,

973
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:57,840
but also with
an attention to design,

974
00:54:57,840 --> 00:54:59,880
this is probably
the thing of their dreams.

975
00:54:59,880 --> 00:55:02,720
Our iPhones today - I mean,
it's this beautiful marriage

976
00:55:02,720 --> 00:55:06,760
of form and function. I mean,
that's what they were all about.

977
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:09,240
Well, I think that the Bauhaus
was very influential

978
00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:13,280
over the 20th century,
but what I suggest to keep in mind

979
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:15,160
is that the Bauhaus
was really a school,

980
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:19,600
so in most of the designs
and most of the devices that we use

981
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:22,160
that are being connected
with the Bauhaus in their simplicity

982
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:25,680
and elegance, they don't
carry the idealism.

983
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:29,320
Bauhaus, it was
a teenager when it died.

984
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:31,960
The things that it moved
and the meaning it still has now,

985
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:35,200
100 years is later, it's amazing.
What other institution has that?

986
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:38,000
Not many. The way they taught,
the way they hung out is...

987
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:40,480
You can see in that building,
and that's why it's even

988
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:43,280
more of a shame that that building
has become a dead museum.

989
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:44,920
I mean, it's
nice and flattering that

990
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:46,720
it's become a UNESCO
World Heritage site,

991
00:55:46,720 --> 00:55:48,840
but it also means that
you can't change anything.

992
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:50,480
It's dead. It's a mausoleum,

993
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:53,240
it's not even a monument any more,
which is too bad.

994
00:55:53,240 --> 00:55:54,920
We shouldn't celebrate a corpse,

995
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:57,960
we should celebrate the spirit
that was in that corpse at one time.

996
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:01,600
The time is, to an extent,
comparable to the '20s.

997
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,960
We have a society that is very rich
and very poor, and we have got

998
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:06,640
right-wing movements starting again.

999
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:08,480
People kind of need new ideas

1000
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:12,000
and the Bauhaus would be
perfectly suited. It's too bad.

1001
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,480
One of the German television
channels, they have a series

1002
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:17,840
of concerts that they have been
recording in the Bauhaus,

1003
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:20,360
and they had this
sort of leftist punk group.

1004
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:23,760
They were going to have
a concert there and record it.

1005
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:26,160
The right-wing mob said,
"We're going to go there,"

1006
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:27,920
there was suddenly
a threat in the air.

1007
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:29,720
"If you will let them perform there,

1008
00:56:29,720 --> 00:56:33,040
"we'll have a demonstration
of right-wing people there."

1009
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:34,600
In other words, a bunch of Nazis.

1010
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,680
And that's how, unfortunately,
that part of Germany at the moment

1011
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:39,600
is kind of, like, infamous for,

1012
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:42,200
having more than
their fair share of Nazis.

1013
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:45,720
The Bauhaus took that threat,
went, "Oh, my God,

1014
00:56:45,720 --> 00:56:48,160
"if we have a demonstration of
Nazis, not only is it bad for

1015
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:50,320
"our image, but also
it might damage the building."

1016
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:51,840
I think the biggest concern was,

1017
00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:54,600
"Oh, my God, someone is going to
scratch the paintwork."

1018
00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:56,280
I don't blame the director.

1019
00:56:56,280 --> 00:56:58,920
I mean, she really is
in this awful position,

1020
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:01,440
"What am I going to do,
I've got to protect my institution?"

1021
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:03,640
That's her duty,
that's what she's paid for,

1022
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:07,000
but she talks about the building
and we talk about the idea.

1023
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:12,440
What's happening throughout Europe
is that more and more governments

1024
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:17,600
are right-winged party governments,
so we've observed this in Italy,

1025
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:23,920
in Austria, in Hungary, in Poland,
even in the United States.

1026
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:30,160
We are noticing a great change
in society right now in Germany.

1027
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,640
We are moving into an absolutely
new time where things are getting

1028
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:38,160
more and more difficult
for cultural institutions.

1029
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:44,440
Gropius was battling against attacks
from the first day he opened

1030
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:47,320
the Bauhaus until he left Germany.

1031
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:51,520
Every attack which went
into his direction and the Bauhaus,

1032
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:56,360
he stood up at once,
he would react at once, and I think

1033
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,040
that's also what one has to do.

1034
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:02,480
Maybe it's a little scandal
and the Nazis threatening and stuff,

1035
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,560
maybe it's all useful.

1036
00:58:04,560 --> 00:58:06,920
It's not pleasant, but then
those discussions never are,

1037
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:08,800
and the process is unpleasant,

1038
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:12,160
but I got the impression
maybe something will come of it.

1039
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:17,240
The Bauhaus was opening new worlds
for a new generation.

1040
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:21,920
This utopian spirit, I think,
is something that we admire today.

1041
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:27,320
Originally, it was just an idea
of a better society through work,

1042
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:29,920
through design, which I think
is a pretty tall order

1043
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:31,320
but a good one.

1044
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:35,000
Who doesn't want to change the world
for the better?

1045
00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:40,440
Walter Gropius died in Boston,
Massachusetts,

1046
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:42,360
on 5th July, 1969.

1047
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:47,920
At his request, a metal themed
fiesta a la Bauhaus was held,

1048
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:51,200
with drinking, dancing,
laughing and loving.