Research

The project Bauhaus im Texts is concerned with the textual legacy of the historic Bauhaus, which has recently become the focus of research for the first time. Up until now, no complete overview of the texts written by the Bauhauslers from 1919 to 1933 has existed. Although the book Das Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin 1919 – 1933, published in1962 by Hans Maria Wingler, contains a collection of literary texts written at the Bauhaus, it only presents a selection of authors and specific areas. It was thus decided to narrow this gap in Bauhaus research, and make the texts digitally accessible to scholars all over the world.

In addition to this annotated index of all writings and sources, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation has been working on two digital sample editions. The academic staff first investigated political life and work at the Bauhaus on the basis of the magazine Bauhaus. Sprachrohr der Studierenden. Organ der Kostufra, which was published by communist students. The second project was a critical examination of the theoretical work of the urban planner, architect, and Bauhaus teacher Ludwig Hilberseimer. Researchers focused on his book The New City: Principles of Planning and on Hilberseimer’s early writings, which began at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1928/29.

The two-year project, funded by the Saxony-Anhalt Ministry of Economics, Science, and Digitisation with a total of EUR 620,000.00, is available online from the website of the Thuringian University and State Library Jena (ThULB).

For the centenary of the Bauhaus three new Bauhaus museums open their doors to the public in Germany. The museums in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin are connected to the transnational history of Bauhaus exhibits that has grown over one hundred years of global acquisition and collection. For the canonical representation of modern art and design in the twentieth century the Bauhaus is a constant. Produced in the brief but enormously productive period between 1919 and 1933, the work of the Bauhaus is inextricably linked to its dramatic history in the twentieth century, from closure to expulsion and exile.

From its inception, the Bauhaus served as an international platform for a wide-ranging European and international avant-garde movement in architecture, art and design. As such, the school itself formed a vital, global network. In recent years historians have tried, by way of a synthesis of global perspectives, to move away from restrictive, nationally based ideas of identity. The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation too subscribes to this new approach to historiography.

The conference Collecting Bauhaus brought together international experts from public and private institutions with Bauhaus collections. The aim was to discuss the globally dispersed objects and collection histories of the Bauhaus, revisit exhibition and communication strategies and consider how museums in the twenty-first century might benefit from these global interconnections. The initial idea for the conference concept was developed by Regina Bittner. The conference focused on the provenance, relocation and changing ownership of Bauhaus objects concluded the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation’s centenary year while inaugurating a range of cooperative projects.