The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 5 March 1998
by Frank Whitford
The Bauhaus was one of the most influential schools of art, architecture and design of the twentieth century. Located in Weimar, Dassau and Berlin during the 1920s and 30s, a remarkable number of prominent artists and architects taught and studied there. The likes of Klee, Kandinsky, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe formed a highly inventive community that attempted to revolutionize and merge the arts and the crafts in our newly technological age. In this overview, Whitford tells the entire history of the school in the politically and economically chaotic age in which it struggled and thrived. The school's ideology changed and evolved, the original director, Gropius, dreamed big and tried to bring those dreams to fruition. Powerful personalities affected the school's path and teaching. Though the school was ultimately declared decadent and degenerate, and then closed by the Nazis in 1933, it remains a highly influential artistic force. Design of everything from chairs and fabrics to buildings and graphics still bear the stamp of the modern movement typified by the Bauhaus. This book is a broad overview, short on details of the colorful personalities, and on the ultimate influence of the school. However, it is an excellent introduction to the broad appeal of an institution that had surprisingly wide influence.