Barhaus - Workshop For Typography and Commercial Art

In the first years of the Bauhaus at Weimar, typography did not yet play the central role it was later to take on. For Johannes Itten and Lothar Schreyer, calligraphy was essentially an artistic means of expression. At first, practical fields of application remained seldom and were restricted to small, miscellaneous printed matters.

With the appointment of Moholy-Nagy in 1923, who was to introduce the ideas of "New Typography" to the Bauhaus, the situation radically changed. He considered typescript to be primarily a communications medium, and was concerned with the "clarity of the message in its most emphatic form". His influence is clearly visible already in 1923 in the advertising campaign for the large Bauhaus exhibition of Summer 1923. Moholy-Nagy designed the layout for the exhibition publication and further took over the typography of the "Bauhaus books".

From then on, typography at the Bauhaus was closely connected to corporate identity and to the development of an unmistakable image for the school. Characteristic for the design were clear, unadorned type prints, the articulation and accentuation of pages through distinct symbols or typographic elements highlighted in color, and finally direct information in a combination of text and photography, for which the name "Typofoto" was created.

In addition, the consideration of economic factors led to the usage of normed formats, a partly simplified spelling, and more particularly, the abolition of capitalization.

In Weimar, next to Moholy-Nagy, both Joost Schmidt and Herbert Bayer had also been concerned with typography. In Dessau, Bayer took over the newly installed workshop for printing and advertising and rapidly transformed it into a professional studio for graphic design. He intensively developed Avant-garde typesetting and his posters and printed matters show a concern with contemporary themes from the psychology of advertising.

Following his departure from the Bauhaus in 1928, Bayer continued to work at first in Germany, later in the USA, and became one of the most influential graphic designers of the twentieth century.

Joost Schmidt was his successor at the Bauhaus. He introduced a systematic course for the design of lettering and advertising graphics and expanded it to the practice of exhibition design. Examples of the applicability of experimental forms of presentation in architecture, sculpture, photography, and typography were presented in Bauhaus traveling exhibitions and at conventions in and outside Germany. The stands were designed by the advertising workshop.

Source From :-www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/werkstaetten

Barhaus - Weaving workshop

From the very first, the weaving workshop was the domain of women. Already since Jugendstil, craft weaving rated as a profession particularly well-adapted to women; the connection between women and weaving, however, goes much further back. Many of the women who came to the Bauhaus chose the weaving section purposefully for a later profession. In addition, the council of masters preferred sending women to the weaving workshop in order to "avoid unnecessary experiments" and be able to reserve the few other workshop places allegedly more suited to men. In the Weimar years of the Bauhaus, only particularly talented or persistent women made the grade to another workshop.

At the beginning, Helene Börner, the crafts director of the workshop, worked with all of the techniques of arts and crafts. Soon, however, the emphasis was concentrated on weaving, the technique offering the best conditions for a coupling with the Bauhaus program. Here, "experimental work" could be performed for industrial manufacture. The products ranged from cushions, blankets, and clothes fabrics, to knotted carpets, Gobelins, and wall hangings. The workshop in Weimar was equipped with a jacquard loom.

The female pupils learned the basic impulses for pattern and color design in the classes of Johannes Itten, Georg Muche, and later, Paul Klee. Although "function" in weaving was one of the magic words, for a long time a strong aesthetic orientation could still be felt. This stood in the way of the required functionality: contrasts between thick and thin or mat and glossy thread were often primarily of aesthetic relevance and posed more of a hindrance in usage than anything else.

In 1927, the workshop was taken over by the "young master", Gunta Stölzl, with less rights, however, than her male colleagues. Stölzl not only entirely re-equipped the workshop in Dessau, she also created an educational course over eight semesters, starting with an apprenticeship and ending with a journeyman's examination, re-rated after 1929 as a Diploma.

The workshop now experimented with synthetic fibers such as cellophane and also rayon, a new thread which at that time revolutionized the entire textile market. Robust steel yarn was developed for the use on tubular steel chairs.

After Stölzl's departure in 1931, Lilly Reich and Otti Berger set new accents. The two last years of the Bauhaus saw the production of three textile albums (in the dimensions of the wallpaper books). Due to the interruption of their product licensing in 1933, however, they never succeeded in reaching the popularity of the Bauhaus wallpaper. The simplicity and unassuming modesty of these textiles stand in strong contrast to the earlier fabrics.




Source From :-www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/werkstaetten

Barhaus - Metal workshop

In line with the overall guidelines of the early Bauhaus, the metal workshop in Weimar, which at first ran under the name of gold, silver, and copper forge, taught traditional metal working techniques.

Johannes Itten was the artistic director during the first years, and then in 1922, the experienced silversmith Christian Dell took on the position of master craftsman until 1925. The student's production clearly stood under the influence of Itten's teachings: the main concern in the production of vessels and appliances was the free study of form together with the experimentally acquired knowledge of metallic materials and their possible treatment. When, in 1923, László Moholy-Nagy became head of the workshop, the focus was directed towards more functional aspects. Straightforward vessels reduced to elementary forms in brass, nickel-plated brass or silver were produced. These were indeed conceived for industrial serial production, but realized only as single pieces or in handcrafted series.

This was the period in which the first lamp models were produced, namely the "Bauhaus lamp" by Carl Jakob Jucker and Wilhelm Wagenfeld. In Dessau, the more professional and extensive workshop's equipment was capable of accomodating a more rational serial production of vessels and appliances. Already in 1926, the metal workshop mastered the design and production of all the lighting requirements for the new Bauhaus building. In the following years, it became more and more a "design laboratory" for new lighting equipment and, finally, when several industrial lighting manufacturers took the models into serial production, it achieved the status of one of the most effective and successful workshops at the Bauhaus.

The production of some of the types, such as the Kandem lamps by Marianne Brandt and Hin Bredendieck, was continued for many years after the closure of the Bauhaus.


Source From :-www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/werkstaetten