Bauhaus and the New TypographyWalter Gropius, founder of
the Staatliches Bauhaus—
the state-funded school of
arts and crafts—in Weimar,
Germany, began his
revolutionary school “not to
propagate any style, system,
dogma, formula, or vogue,
but simply to exert a
revitalizing influence on
design.” The Bauhaus was
born in 1919. Germany had
just lost a devastating world
war. A fragile new republic
had been established with its constituent assembly in Weimar, but despite
the hopes of the Weimar Republic, the nation was in economic turmoil.
The Bauhaus derived its strength from the social ferment, but ultimately
suffered from the relentlessly belligerent political environment. For the
Bauhaus to have been closed down only months after the Nazis came to
power in 1933 suggests that it was a radical political institution at odds not
only with German tradition, but also with Adolf Hitler’s nationalist
ideology. In fact, though the Bauhaus was built as a “Cathedral of
Socialism” on a foundation that included Marxist theories about art and
industry, politics per se was not primary.
The Bauhaus was established to help save the German economy
by preparing a new generation of artists and artisans to deal effectively with
the increasing demands of industrialization and its profound impact on
society and culture. Gropius and his Bauhaus faculty sought to end the
designer/craftsman’s “alienation” from labor, and were dedicated to the
concept of the “unified work of art—the great structure, bringing together
the artist, producer, and consumer in holy union.”
At the outset the Bauhaus resolved to reform society through
education. It would democratize art by removing the distinction between
“fine” and “applied” art, and by making art responsive to people’s needs. The
earliest Bauhaus manifesto offered a program that was, however, difficult to
maintain given the complexities of German life. Plagued by outside critics154