After modern Brightness

With more than 300 light bulbs installed, the Bauhaus Building presented itself as a glass luminary in 1926. Electric lighting in the Bauhaus Building was both medium and material, and at the same time made the infrastructures and electricity flows hidden behind convenient fixtures disappear. Moreover, artificial light had contributed to radically new social relationships between day and night, light and dark, and assigned darkness a place outside of what was considered modern and progressive. The light bulb became the model for the design of lighting fixtures at the Bauhaus, and its technical form was regarded as the most radical expression of functionality. The luminous glass house was embedded in a global geography of players involved with incandescent light and electricity. These included OSRAM and AEG. Taking Marianne Brandt’s pendant lamp as a starting point, the Bauhaus Lab 2025 examines the path of electricity from the power stations and infrastructures of the power supply to the cables and connections through to the Bakelite switches. The exhibition resulting from the research not only takes up Richard Buckminster Fuller’s criticism, but also asks what the design of future lighting conditions could look like – a design that helps to reduce light pollution and improve the perception of darkness.