negotiations to keep the craft school as a department within the State school and establish a separate architecture school as well. Gropius argued against an independent school of architecture, saying he did not understand how he would function outside of the Arts and Crafts School: architecture, he said, embraces all disciplines. He also mentioned concepts from his Werkbund days, that a vast gulf had opened between craftsmen and industry and that artists must be involved in mass production while industrialists must learn to accept the artist and his values. His model of successful integration was the teams of varied artisans who joined to accomplish the great Gothic cathedrals.
With the German monarchy's defeat in the war, the Duke's input in school matters ended, the principal of the Academy of Fine Arts resigned, and it was not immediately known whether State backing for Gropius's school would continue. As Germany sought to reestablish itself as a democracy, Gropius sought confirmation that he could proceed to organize his school, confirmation that he received in April 1919. Shortly thereafter, he wrote a manifesto expressing his design concepts and had it published in newspapers and circulated at art schools. Among other points, he proclaimed that all craftsmen must recognize that every building is a composite entity and that artist, craftsman and industry are equal in the building process. The building of the future, moreover, will embrace architecture, painting and sculpture in one unity.
The Bauhaus school was open to students to students of all ages from all over Germany, many of whom had fought in the war. Many students were penniless and most were looking for a cause and a sense of a place where they could belong in postwar Germany. Nor was the situation always easy for Gropius as he experienced regular resistance from Weimar officials - unwillingness to provide as much funding as he would have like or to recognize his authority in school decisions.
Nonetheless, Gropius organized the school. He dispensed with educator/student terminology, using instead master/journeyman/apprentice terminology familiar from medieval guilds. He set up workshop classes and staffed them with two masters - one an artist, one a technician. He further riled the Weimar officials by not using instructors inherited from the earlier school. Instead, he hired staff from the ranks of craftsmen highly skilled in their own disciplines. Apprentices studied materials and work processes
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