by Sue Osgood

Created on: November 26, 2008

In the very literal sense, the name Bauhaus comes from German words meaning "construction" and "house." In practice, the Bauhaus was a design school formed in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I as Germany sought to reinvent itself after the devastating blow dealt its monarchy. If turbulent times define the form that an organization takes, then the Bauhaus was very much a product of its time. Throughout its history, the school changed philosophies, directors and locations in its fourteen-year existence.

The first director was Walter Gropius, an architect who came to the post with experience in the firm of Peter Behrens (other employees at the time included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier). Gropius also brought experience with the Deutscher Werkbund, an organization of businessmen, intellectuals and craftsmen who were concerned that rapid industrialization would obliterate a German cultural identity.

Formed in 1907, Werkbund membership tended to split along two lines of thought. Hermann Muthesius, head of the Prussian Board of Trade for Schools of Arts and Crafts, was first and foremost a staunch believer in the absolute necessity of standardization in design and adherence to precise formulas. Countering this rigidity was the philosophy of Henry Van de Velde, a Belgian painter who turned to architecture in response to the Arts and Crafts movement. Van de Velde saw the machine age as one of romanticism and felt design to be a very personal process. In the process of trying to arrive at an appropriate synthesis of personal and national cultural expression, Deutscher Wekrbund sponsored design exhibitions to display the best examples of artistic industrialization. The Cologne Exhibition of 1914 featured a glass pavilion, a model factory designed by Gropius and Adolf Meyer, and a theater designed by Van de Velde, all of which delighted those attending.

To better espouse his views of joining craft traditions to mass manufacture, Van de Velde opened a private craft school in Weimar. He persuaded the Grand Duke to make it part of the State-owned Academy of Fine Arts. By 1914, the Duke was losing interest in the school. Reflecting a growing distrust of foreigners in the prewar years, he became highly suspicious of Van De Velde, who chose to resign. Along with his paper of resignation, he provided a list of suggested successors, one of whom was Gropius.

Although the Duke abruptly closed the school and dismissed all staff, local officials opposed him and began

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