Abstract

The Bauhaus had a seminal influence on architecture and design that extended far beyond Germany and beyond 1933. This map shows the three sites of the Bauhaus school in the Weimar Republic as well as some of the architectural sites shaped or inspired by Bauhaus (in some cases by significantly modifying Bauhaus approaches). The various sites on this map illustrate, spatially, the reach of Germany’s and central Europe’s innovative design sensibilities in the interwar period.

The Global Reach of the Bauhaus School (1919-1933)

Source

Places marked on the map:

Weimar: Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school in Weimar in 1919, and the school remained there until 1925.

Dessau: The Bauhaus moved here in 1925, where its reputation as an international design school solidified. The Nazi-controlled city government voted to close it in 1932.

Berlin: The Bauhaus moved here in 1932 and was forced to close by the Nazis in 1933. Modern architects and city planners, including Hans Scharoun, Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, and Martin Wagner designed residential communities in the late 1920s, including Siemensstadt, the Hufeisensiedlung, and the Onkel-Tom-Siedlung.

Bernau bei Berlin: Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer designed the landmark ADGB Trade Union School here, 1928-1930.

Erfurt: Bauhaus student Margaretha Reichhardt opened a hand-weaving school and workshop in 1933.

Frankfurt: The “New Frankfurt” program, led by chief architect Ernst May, constructed 12,000 modern dwellings between 1925 and 1931, most of which featured the efficiency-minded “Frankfurt Kitchen,” designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.

Essen: Shaft 12 of the Zollverein Coal Mine, 1928-32, is considered a landmark of modern industrial design.

Stuttgart: The Weissenhofsiedlung was unveiled in 1927 to showcase modern international architecture and design.

Brno: Third and final Bauhaus director Mies van der Rohe designed the Villa Tugendhat here in 1929.

Moscow: Former Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer worked on large-scale housing projects in the early 1930s.

London: The Isokon Flats, a modern experiment in minimalist and semi-communal living, opened in 1934, and early residents included Bauhaus émigrés.

New York: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened the exhibition “Bauhaus: 1919-1928” in 1938 in recognition of the school’s global influence on art and design.

Chicago: László Moholy-Nagy founded a “new Bauhaus,” the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, in 1937.  Architect and former Bauhaus director in Berlin Mies van der Rohe joined soon thereafter.

Asheville, NC: Bauhaus alumni Josef and Anni Albers shaped the arts program and overall vision of Black Mountain College from 1933 to 1949.

Cambridge, MA: Walter Gropius taught at—and served as the guiding light for—the Harvard Graduate School of Design from 1937 to 1952, where Marcel Breuer joined him for a for a four-year period.

Tel Aviv: A number of Central European Jewish architects, many having trained at the Bauhaus, designed thousands of buildings in the “White City,” a modern, planned community developed in the 1930s.)

Ankara: Modern architects Ernst Egli, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, and Bruno Taut, as well the city planner Martin Wagner, contributed to the design of the new Turkish capital in the 1920s and 1930s.

West Bengal: Bauhaus ideas influenced new design elements at the Visva-Bharati University, whose leader Rabindranath Tagore organized a 1922 exhibition featuring artists from the Bauhaus and India’s own avant-garde scene.

Source: Cartography by Gabriel Moss in collaboration with Erik Jensen, 2022.