8 misunderstandings about Bauhaus

Color was an important element in Bauhaus architecture. The state Bauhaus school in Dessau, which opened in 1926, was painted gray, white and red on the outside. In old black and white photographs, the red doors, the gray facade and the blue or yellow painted walls in the rooms are not visible. Color was intended to underline the architecture and serve as orientation.

True, but not always. Of all things, this icon of Bauhaus design, designed by Wilhelm Wagenfeld in 1924, first turned out to be a flop. The hemispherical lampshade burst because it became too hot. The lamp had to be redesigned. In addition, it is now known that Wagenfeld designed the lamp not alone, but together with Carl Jacob Jucker.

The straight line and the right angle are the hallmarks of Bauhaus. For the most part, that is. But Bauhaus architecture also worked with curves. Commissioned by a brewery, the restaurant Kornhaus in Dessau-Rosslau, located on the Elbe River, was built between 1929 and 1930 by the architect Carl Fieger.

In Germany, Bauhaus is a household name. Many regularly visit the home improvement stores of the same name, which are found in every major city from the north to the south. Unfortunately, the school of design in Dessau didn't register the name "Bauhaus" as a trademark. That's why, in 1960, it also went to a carpenter from Heidelberg who turned it into a business.

Bauhaus is not in everything that says Bauhaus. This also applies to the Bauhaus burgundy, offered by a discount chain in Germany. The swill is supposed to look like a masterpiece. Still, the winegrower managed to convince the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin with the quality, and he was allowed to use one of their motifs, a 12-part color circle, for the design of the label.

Bauhaus architects envisioned an architecture for a new kind of person. The focus was on the neglected ones in history: the workers. They moved into the white boxes, but weren't comfortable. They hung curtains in the windows and were reprimanded for it, or they hung pictures on the wall to make things cozier. The designers did not like that at all.

Narrow doors, low railings, thin walls. Anyone who lived with a family in a Bauhaus house needed a good night's sleep. But the walls were paper-thin, so it was loud. And children certainly didn't want to spend much time in their tiny children's rooms. They preferred to romp through the narrow staircase. It was easier to live in a Bauhaus apartment in theory than in practice.

When the Bauhaus opened in Weimar in 1919, there was a rush of applicants. More women than men enrolled. This was a novelty. Until then, women had not been able to attend an art school. Unless they asked their husband's permission. Anni Albers was one of the women who began studying there in 1922.