The German school Bauhaus was founded in 1919 and is one of the world’s most famous art and design schools. Today, Bauhaus is primarily associated with steel furniture, abstract weaves, the primary colours red, blue and yellow and objects with geometric shapes. Even though the school was only active for 14 years, its ideal of functional simplicity in design is still valid.
In the Bauhaus Manifesto, many of the ideas about arts and crafts that prevailed at the beginning of the 20th century was captured, originating from the Arts and Crafts movement and focusing on craft skills and freeing artistic disciplines from the demands of industrialism.
In the education offered at Bauhaus, all students were required to do a compulsory preliminary course before being admitted to specialized workshops. Bauhaus included architecture, crafts and art, and became a stylistic forerunner to functionalism. The school was founded by Walter Gropius and was originally housed in the former arts and craft school in Weimar. The school later moved to Dessau and experienced its heyday from 1925 to 1932. After that Bauhaus moved to Berlin but was closed down already in 1933 by the Nazi regime. Many of the Bauhaus tutors and students emigrated and continued successful careers as teachers and designers in other countries.
Although the school was only active for 14 years, sandwiched between two world wars, it succeeded in creating aesthetics and theories about learning that are important today. Bauhaus is regarded as one of the world’s most influential art and design schools.