100 Years of Bauhaus Dessau: What Remains of the Legacy of the Legendary Art School?

In 1925, the school was relocated from Weimar to Dessau for political reasons. In 1932, it moved to Berlin, where it closed its doors a year later under pressure from the Nazis. Many of the approximately 2,000 Bauhaus students fled Germany to escape the Nazi regime. "At that time, the Bauhaus was perceived by people as a rather peculiar sociotope, whose progressive educational ideas, new design approaches, and ultimately the claim to create a 'new human being,' were met with surprise, sometimes even opposition and even rejection in many places," Willmann explains. With the emigration of students and teachers, the ideas of the Bauhaus were spread throughout the world. This shaped design worldwide, whether in Tel Aviv, Shanghai, New York , or Chicago. "Many of the Bauhaus ideas were not realized until after the Second World War. Some historians say the best thing that could have happened to the Bauhaus was that it was closed." This fueled the myth surrounding the Bauhaus and made the art school a legend.

The canteen at the Bauhaus Dessau with stools by Marcel Breuer, 1926.

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The Bauhaus history does not begin with architecture , but with artistic expressionism and issues of applied arts, explains the professor – and says of the present day: "The Bauhaus University in Weimar is more broadly positioned today: There is a Faculty of Media, a Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, a Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and, of course, a Faculty of Art and Design. The Weimar Bauhaus of that time is not the Bauhaus of today." Because the university is so diverse, it is important to him to speak for himself and his chair, rather than for the entire institution. The legacy of the Bauhaus, adds his research assistant Michael Braun, lies not in specific artifacts like a tubular steel chair, but in the idea that design bears a social responsibility. "We often focus on the objects that the Bauhaus produced. But the greatest achievement was understanding design as a service to society," says Braun. "This is still a radical idea today—if you take it seriously. Regarding the climate crisis, social division, and digital inequality, we need a new ethic of responsibility in design."

He sees the historic Bauhaus as a space for projection; he calls it a laboratory, not a dogma. While the myth of the rational and functional style has survived, the Bauhaus also offered courses on esoteric color theory, sensory perception of materials and bodies, and spiritual pedagogy, explains Braun. "When students come to the Bauhaus University today, it's rarely out of historical loyalty," he believes. "They find their own perspective here and increasingly think of design as a social tool."

Who is the successor to the Bauhaus today?

But has there ever been another school of thought like the Bauhaus in Germany? Absolutely, say the experts, pointing to the Ulm School of Design, which closed in 1968 and relied on similar teaching models. Or to the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, dubbed the "digital Bauhaus." Its building also houses the school where Lisa Ertel and Anne-Sophie Oberkrome studied. The designers founded their Studio Πin 2021 and also teach at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts. Their "Neil" chair is already part of the Vitra Design Museum collection.

"The parallels we've identified with Bauhaus have little to do with the style that springs to mind when you hear the word, but rather with the approach we use," says Lisa Ertel, referring to interdisciplinary thinking. "We never saw ourselves as German designers. We studied in Karlsruhe and then went to Berlin, but it could have been the Netherlands," adds Oberkrome. "We can only speak for ourselves, of course, but it would be nice if German design were to dare a little more," says Ertel – similar to the Bauhaus, which still enjoys a reputation for experimentation.