Posted on 01/15/2019 6:40:28 AM PST by C19fan
A century ago, as Germany was still licking its wounds from World War I, the Bauhaus school of design opened its doors in the eastern city of Weimar. The legendary name still resonates: If you have €237,000 ($273,000) in spare change, you can buy yourself a turnkey “Bauhaus” home, all set to be constructed on a piece of empty land.
The ready-made abodes – prefabricated, modern, stylish and typically bright white in color – vaguely reflect the popular conception of the Bauhaus label. But what does it actually stand for today?
(Excerpt) Read more at handelsblatt.com ...
Bela Lugosi’s dead.
Bela Lugosi may be dead, but how do you feel?
While I was taking the Engineering degree in the New York State College of Ceramics At Alfred University (as it was called then), I spent a lot of time relaxing in the college library by reading through the art and design magazines as a relief from the essentially artless courses that define engineering.
The College was itself an attempt to entwine the artisanship of practical design with the glass and clay-based manufacturing engineering required to bring the artistic designs to life. As corollary to its purpose, library's subscription to expensive art and design magazines of that time--late '50s and early '60s--contained a great deal of illustrations embracing the "Bauhaus" effect on architecture, furnishings, and landscaping. I felt greatly refreshed from the labors of working out engineering problems by seeing the applications in useful objects of daily life.
This "Bauhaus" post-WWI implementation cannot be dissociated from the spirit taking over the emergence of American products of artful designs with cleaner lines, and the explosion of visual reproduction. Frank Lloyd Wright (click here) was just then coming into his own, and his philosophy was quite similar:
"Architecture is the triumph of human imagination over materials, methods, and men, to put man into possession of his own Earth. It is at least the geometric pattern of things, of life, of the human and social world. It is at best that magic framework of reality that we sometimes touch upon when we use the word order."An excerpt from this link demonstrates that Wright was quite aware of the contemporary Bauhaus movement in Europe, and considered it competition to his own expression of practical minimalist design:
Wright was in large part responsible for creating the first indigenous American architecture, the Prairie Style, derived in part from the Arts & Crafts Movement, which reflected the flat landscape of the Midwestern United States and advocated for buildings with a strong emphasis on horizontality and natural materials, with broad, flat roofs with wide overhanging eaves.One thing that I found from temporarily residing in one of Wright's Prairie-style houses was that they were interesting in carrying out the long, lean lines that please the eye from a distance, or the photographer's composition in artful images, but they are impossible to live in, and do not satisfy the soul or help compose your desire for comfort over a long stretch of occupancy. I would think that the Bauhaus style emphasizing flat roofs, unadorned openings or fixtures, and the overwhelming whiteness that lacks bold and colorful figures, makes the implementation spiritually dry and uninteresting.
Wright's huge ego meant that he was highly individualistic, and regarded himself as the foremost, if not the only, practitioner of modern architecture. At nearly every possible chance, he polemically positioned himself against the European originators of the International Style, in particular Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, whose work he believed was merely derivative of his and not innovative.
About something dated, kitsch or too trendy? I’m turned off by that stuff. Never feels right. Period.
Bela Lugosi’s dead!
No, they invented the Goth Rock genre.
Not everyone’s attracted to modernism. It leaves some people feeling cold.
Human nature is hugely individual and I never want to change it. It makes life colorful and interesting.
In a free country, variety is the spice of life and the soullessness of totalitarian conformity holds no appeal for me.
I think I had a kind of nightmare about it, and the plain, blocky grayness of it all, including the people, was extremely depressing.
I once lived in a Bauhaus building built by Gropius. With a few decoration changes, it could have been a prison. Not pleasant in any way, I took it as an indication of the future that leftist utopians plan for the proletariat.
What I like doesn’t work for everyone.
When people are persecuted over differences, there’s no life.
Our imagination should reflect our dreams and hopes for the world, not some central planners vision for it.
I like the design aesthetic of the Bauhaus, not the politics of the people who created it.
Today when politics and design are one and the same, that’s a thing of the past.
I looked up some Bauhaus homes online. Granted I do not know the floor plan but I like about 80% of them.
For me, its the Goldilocks Principle - not too adventurous and not too retro.
Just right. I like it to be tasteful, functional and comfortable. Like its a bad thing.
While not directly derived from Bauhaus:
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-socialist-architectures-so-bad-and-ugly
Some will argue that the functionality of Soviet architecture excuses its general ugliness, I would argue that buildings that cannot heat above 40 degrees F. in the winter are not functional as shelter.
If you live in a cluttered house the openness and clean lines of modern are appealing. (Flat roofs are not...)
Modernism is a style statement while on the other hand, socialist architecture is a political statement.
The two are as different as day and night. Something clean and modern can be beautiful. Something built without regard for style is inhuman and ugly.
A critic can appreciate the difference.
To put it differently, I’m a conservative who is a modernist. On the other hand, no conservative can be a socialist.
The latter is an absurd proposition.
If it ain’t Second Empire, it’s crap.
A nice distinction!
I prefer modern architecture and furniture.
“Something built without regard for style is inhuman and ugly.”
I suspect that a lot of Soviet architecture was deliberately designed to deconstruct concepts like “beauty”.
No. If it isn’t Scottish it’s crap.
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