Dessau - Bauhaus

Bauhaus, meaning 'building house,' is not a style. It was a school of art, with three incarnations: the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar (1919-1925), Bauhaus Dessau - School of Design (1925-1932, architecture department founded 1927), and the Freies Lehr- und Forschungsinstitut, Berlin (1932-1933). And it is a piece of Modernist architecture, the Bauhaus Building. Walter Gropius both founded the school and designed the Dessau building - along with the Masters' Houses and the Törten Estate.

The moves resulted from pressure from right-wing politicians. The school of design was ultimately closed by the Nazis. What remains is Gropius' building, which when constructed stood alone, surrounded by green lawns. Reinforced concrete, rendered brickwork and expanses of glass are now commonplace, but when the Bauhaus was built in 1925/26 the architecture was revolutionary.

The building was home to both the school of design and Dessau's municipal vocational school. There are three wings: the four storey workshop wing, the studio building, and the north wing. Many of the fixtures and fittings were designed by masters and students of the school of design. Gropius designed the door handles.

The workshop wing presents the three storey glass curtain wall, and Herbert Bayer's capital lettering, for which the Bauhaus is visually famous. In March 1945 an incendiary bomb destroyed much of the curtain wall. After various temporary fixes, this was replaced in 1976, in aluminium and set flush to the floors, rather than in steel and with a space between the curtain wall and the floors, as built.

The studio building was a hall of residence, 28 student rooms over four storeys. Fitted furniture and a washbasin made these rooms luxurious for the time. In 1930 Mies van der Rohe, the last of the three directors, had some of the studios combined to form classrooms. The original furniture is gone, but it is possible to stay in the renovated student rooms.

A two storey bridge (photos three and six) links the studio building to the north wing, and at each end gives onto the wide staircases that serve each 'half' of the whole building. The north wing, occupied by the vocational school, was of a more conservative design, but enlivened by the bright blue, red and yellow paint used throughout the complex. The colour design was by the then head of the wall-painting workshop, Hinnerk Scheper.

After closure of the school of design in 1932 - the vocational school remained - the Dessau building was used by Junkers and the armaments minister, Albert Speer. After WWII the building was employed as a hospital and then as a school. Since German reunification in 1994 the building has housed the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. It underwent extensive renovation from 1996 to 2006.