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and undertook "formal" instruction in study of nature; representation as learned in geometry, construction, draftsmanship and model-making; and composition through volume, color and design. If preliminary courses were successfully completed, the apprentice went on to a three-year round of workshop instruction and received a journeyman diploma. Those with journeyman certification could take the architectural course.

The workshops were numerous and included carpentry, weaving, pottery, typography, stagecraft, and metals. Needless to say, Gropius was constantly petitioning for funds. An uncomfortable balance in the best of times, the situation worsened when conservatives took power in fall of 1924. The Thuringian Ministry gave notice that all staff must sign new contracts granting government the power to dismiss them. Gropius and his staff returned a letter stating that they would close the school when their current contracts were up the following April. The Bauhaus then moved to the town of Dessau. To further mark the change in location, a "coming of age" of the program, Gropius changed the teaching method of the workshop system from the previous technician/artist model to a single instructor. At the same time, he allowed the staff more flexibility to develop their own teaching styles based on their individual talents.

In 1928, Gropius decided to leave, designating Hannes Meyer his successor. Meyer was very much a technician and introduced mathematics and engineering to the coursework. Unfortunately, his left wing political stance brought conflict with the Dessau authorities, further exacerbated by his insistence that design was first of all a social activity and no true architect could stay politically uncommitted. By summer of 1930, Meyer had pushed the political activism envelope too far, and was asked to leave. Knowing that the Bauhaus required a less polarizing leader to survive, Dessau officials asked Gropius to return, but he suggested Ludwig Mies van der Rohe instead.

Mies van der Rohe was an ideal antidote to Meyer's activism - he banished all political activity at the school. His was, instead, a purist and a perfectionist, passionate about order and clarity in his architecture and his leadership. The German political climate was changing again, though, and Mies did not retain his leadership much longer. In 1932, Nazis gained control of the Dessau area and in 1932 closed the institution that they thought decadent and subversive. Mies kept the school going privately in Berlin for another uneasy six months, but on April 11, 1933 the Gestapo totally closed the facility and officially ended the Bauhaus school.

Although the institution had a hard time defining itself and finding its place in Germany between the wars, there is no doubt that students and faculty continued to define quality design. The names associated with the school were famous - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Gropius themselves, Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, Paul Klee, Marcel Breuer and Josef Albers. Iconic styles first saw the light of day during the Bauhaus era: Breuer's cantilevered "S" chairs with tubular steel frames, van der Rohe's familiar Barcelona chair, sleek sans serif type faces. Gropius and van der Rohe also continued teaching, at Harvard and Illinois Institute of Technology, respectively. Perhaps the Bauhaus school and the movement that it engendered will continue to define themselves. In Walter Gropius's words "If your contribution has been vital, there will always be somebody to pick up where you left off, and that will be your claim to immortality."

Learn more about this author, Sue Osgood.
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