WHAT DOES BAUHAUS MEAN?

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According to biographer Reginald Isaacs, Gropius originally envisioned his school like a “Bauhütte with a few like-minded artists.” Literally, Bauhütte means “building huts,” but as the name given to the medieval masons’ guild, Bau is associated with the guilds of old German history as well as the crafts aspect of the Bauhaus idea. On the opposite end, the noun Bau “building” is short, simple and honest, and thus suits the break with Historicism that the streamlined Machine Age espoused.
Joined with another simple word, haus, or “house,” Bauhaus loosely translates as “house of building.” Given Gropius’ high regard for architecture as the supreme union of all the arts, this catchy combination of building and house in one word seems entirely fitting, given that all arts were reunited under one roof and all instructors were to work toward one goal—the idea being to train architects, not to teach architecture.
 
Interestingly, the verb bauen “to build” has a secondary meaning, “to till or cultivate,” which evokes the idea of nurturing and growing seedlings. Metaphorically speaking, students who learn, in turn become the teachers who spread and disseminate Bauhaus ideas.

In hindsight, could Gropius have coined a more perfect word? It is simple, but complex in its multilevel range of associations, an appropriate addition to the vocabulary of the modern age.

ON THE BAUHAUS TRAIL

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In 1996, UNESCO included the Bauhaus sites in Weimar and Dessau in its roster of World Heritage Sites on the grounds that the Bauhaus buildings in Weimar (Thuringia) and Dessau (Saxony-Anhalt) “revolutionized architectural and aesthetic concepts and practices. The buildings put up and decorated by the school’s professors (Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, László Moholy-Nagy and Wassily Kandinsky) launched the Modern Movement, which shaped much of the architecture of the 20th century.”

Weimar and Dessau, which became part of East Germany after World War II, underwent great changes in attitudes toward the Bauhaus during Communist times. At first reviled, they were respected by the end of the 1960s, but the emphasis was on the social renewal and community aspects of Bauhaus philosophy rather than on architecture and design. Importantly, in Weimar, collections were conserved, organized and displayed; in Dessau, the main Bauhaus building was restored after some 30 years of disuse. After German reunification, additional restoration to Bauhaus architecture makes Dessau today a must-see destination.

The former Grand Duke’s Saxon School of Fine Arts (1904–11, today Bauhaus University) and the former School of Art and Crafts (1905–06, today the Art & Design Faculty of Bauhaus University), both designed by Henry van de Velde and considered fine examples of Art Nouveau or Jugendstil architecture, were home to the Bauhaus. 

Walk from there to land that once grew Bauhaus vegetables. You come upon Haus am Horn, the only original example of early Bauhaus architecture in Weimar. The model house (1923) was planned as a synthesis of art and function, an experiment in design for future living featuring new construction methods and new materials. This was to be the first house for an entire Bauhaus settlement, a project that never came to fruition.

In Weimar’s city center on Theaterplatz, across from the famous statue of Goethe and Schiller and the German National Theatre—best known as the place where the National Assembly drafted the constitution of the Weimar Republic in 1919—visit the Bauhaus Museum. On display is one room devoted to the Art Nouveau of Henry van de Velde; several rooms exhibit Bauhaus works (from a collection of 10,000 objects) in different media, including rare postcards, graphics, toys, furnishings and textiles.