IN 1923 the Haus am Horn, with its predesigned objects and built-in furniture, doubtless not only suggested a new, frill-free way of life, but actually forced this on its occupants. The tenant would have been in trouble had he or she wanted to assert personal tastes by bringing furniture of another...

Chapter 1. The Beauty of Progress

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

On 20 APRIL 1919 Walter Gropius received his appointment as director in the Weimar Court Chamberlain's Office. In 1969 he recalled: 'I arrived at the name instinctively. I did not want to use the term Bauhütte which had exclusively medieval connotations. I wanted a new, paradoxical name, something m...

Chapter 12. The Part Versus the Whole

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

THE PROCESSES that took place In the Bauhaus after 1923 became increasingly crystallized around the ideal of the 'perfect technician'. It is obvious that by this time the meanings of the words individuum and collective - at least in their everyday usage - had altered in a way closely related to the...

Chapter 13. Why did Gropius Leave?

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

'SOME TIME ago, among other papers pertaining to the Bauhaus period, I found a diary that my wife kept from 1923 to 1928 and that we had not looked at since. I began to read and the further I went the more depressed I became, for it became clear from the text that about 90 per cent of the unpreceden...

Chapter 15. Parallel Fates? Weimar, Dessau and Moscow

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

WHEN in the autumn of 1930 Meyer took the train to Moscow, he as it were with his own body, drew a line connecting Bauhaus utopias and views of art to the parallel Soviet Russian theories. The wider historical and intellectual environment of the Bauhaus included not only those currents of internatio...

Chapter 4. First Steps

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

GROPIUS proceeded in a consistent manner to create the formal elements of a guild-like environment. In the 'Bauhaus Programme', a broadside issued at the same time as the Manifesto, he states that 'The school is the servant of the workshop, and will one day be absorbed in it. Therefore there will be...

Chapter 2. Time out of Joint

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

THE FIRST WORLD WAR postponed dreams of progress and prosperity for all of society light-years away into the future. Germany lost the war in 1918, and after the November revolution the country was rid of the Kaiser and the institution of the Empire. The troops dispatched to put down the October revo...

Introduction

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

IN APRIL 1919 the Bauhaus opened Its doors in Weimar, under the directorship of the architect Walter Gropius. It was the successor Institute to the Grand Ducal Saxon Art Academy and the Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts, the latter having been shut down at the outbreak of the World War. Our firs...

Chapter 16. Endgame

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

IF WE SEE the history of the Bauhaus as the fate of the original Bauhaus idea as defined by Gropius, then we may consider this fate fulfilled by Hannes Meyer's manifesto, 'bauhaus and society'. However, the school's history still had a final chapter left: that of Judgment Day. Mies van der Rohe was...

Chapter 5. Weimar

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

THE TOWNSFOLK of Weimar were weary and frustrated in the autumn of 1919, when it became all too apparent that the new director of the renamed art school was not going to steer the Bauhaus in the spirit of Goethe and Schiller - or even according to the norms expected by Professor Max Thedy. Weimar's...

Chapter 14. Hannes Meyer

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Dessau, 31 March 1929 Dear Mr Gropius,As your former colleagues we greet you on the occasion of your honourary doctorate from the Technische Hochschule of Hanover. This appreciation of your pioneering work fills us with gladness and satisfaction, all the more so since we are aware of the tremendous...

Acknowledgments

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

I first became fascinated by the Bauhaus when I was discovering the writings of the late Hungarian art critic Ernó Kállal In the collections of the Deutsche Bücherel In Leipzig. Throughout my years of thinking and working on this subject I have received unfailing encouragement, help and advice from...

Chapter 8. New Faces

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

THE unfavourable responses to the exhibitions of 1922, and their hostile reception in Weimar, again strained the by now almost peaceful relations between the Bauhaus and the town. The upkeep of the school, because of financial and political considerations, continued to depend on legislative decision...

Chapter 3. 'We Shall Draw Grand Designs...

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

GROPIUS did not receive a response to his 'Proposals' written in 1916. The stand taken by the Grand Ducal State Ministry Department of the Interior was rather unfavourable: it found that Gropius's plans 'outline only a tenuous relationship with the crafts'. The letter sent by the State Ministry to F...

Chapter 10. The New Unity

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

THE EXHIBITION that took place between 15 August and 30 September 1923 (although the Bauhaus postcards printed for the occasion stated the date as July-September) signalled a new epoch, and not only in the history of the Bauhaus. It indicated quite accurately how far and in what direction Germany ha...

Chapter 6. Breathing Exercises

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

FROM the outset the internal structure of the Bauhaus was hierarchic, the tip of the pyramid occupied by the person of the director, Gropius. He had the right to decide about any and all organizational, personal or educational matters, unless it was an issue to be deferred to parliament or outside a...

Chapter 9. If We Intend to Survive

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

ON 5 OCTOBER 1922, Feininger wrote in a letter: 'Two meetings again today and tomorrow. We are forced into a compromise to come out now with the big exhibition we had been planning. We are all reluctant to agree to such art politics… The fact is that we have to show to outsiders how we perform (and...

The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Art historian Éva Forgács's book is an unusual take on the Bauhaus. She examines the school as shaped by the great forces of history as well as the personal dynamism of its faculty and students. The book focuses on the idea of the Bauhaus - the notion that the artist should be involved in the techno...

Chapter 11. Man at the Control Panel

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

THE IDEAL of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the Integral work of art, had, in the form of the Haus am Horn, moulded itself to the realities of the situation. However, the functional single-family dwelling of 1923 could not be expected to engage the totality of those energies directed towards the realization o...

Chapter 7. Time

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Éva Forgács (23 janv. 2013)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

'THE development of art is a thing of slow growth. It requires time and plenty of it. It cannot be forced. What would have become of me with insufficient time to struggle through my problems? … I found Gropius open to discussion. Only he wants to see quick results. For him, "It takes too long. It ta...

Des mots et des arts. Y a-t-il une terminologie adéquate pour l’art de l’ “autre Europe” ?

Articles

Éva Forgács (2009)

Articles

Eva Forgacs: The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics, translated from the Hungarian by John Batki, Budapest/London/New York, Central European University Press, 1995. 237 p., 10 ill. en n. et bl. Jacques Aron: Anthologie du Bauhaus. Bruxelles, Didier Devillez éditeur, 1995.289 pages.

Recensions

Lionel Richard (1995)

Recensions

Richard Lionel. Eva Forgacs: The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics, translated from the Hungarian by John Batki, Budapest/London/New York, Central European University Press, 1995. 237 p., 10 ill. en n. et bl. Jacques Aron: Anthologie du Bauhaus. Bruxelles, Didier Devillez éditeur, 1995.289 pages.. I...