The Bauhaus Study Rooms 2026 focus on processes of transformation in regions shaped by industrial and post-industrial structural change.
In cooperation with the International Summercamp as part of the Real-World Laboratory ZEKIWA Zeitz, the Academy of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation invites designers and researchers to examine the interactions between industrially shaped landscapes, social infrastructures, and the design of living environments. Possible futures of sustainable ways of living, as well as new forms of collective (energy) communities, will be reflected upon and presented.
The Real-World Laboratory ZEKIWA Zeitz is part of the initiative New European Bauhaus, launched by the European Commission to support structural transformation in formerly industrial regions. Both in its title and its concept, the initiative refers to the historical Bauhaus and its ambition to actively participate in the reshaping of everyday life at the beginning of the 20th century. Engaging with this legacy invites a differentiation of the historical approaches and their ambivalent effects.
Design at the Bauhaus Dessau was closely linked to the industrial logic of production, aiming to develop prototypes for serial manufacturing by local industry. In this respect, the Bauhaus was directly connected to the landscape transformations of the industrial age, the intensification of resource use, and the degradation of the environment. At the same time, the historical Bauhaus already reflected an early awareness of the threats to the natural foundations of life. Holistic approaches to thinking—conceiving humans as part of ecosystems and in reciprocal relationship with their environment—were integrated into both teaching and practice. The Bauhaus was, and continues to be, a complex constellation of often contradictory positions in its reception.
Against this background, the Bauhaus Study Rooms 2026, under the title Irregular Circularities: Foundations, open up diverse perspectives on the Bauhaus legacies. Partners and alumni of the educational programs of the Academy of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation contribute their own questions, practices, and theoretical approaches, which they elaborated during their stay on site and subsequently carry into other contexts.
