The Bauhaus Reassessed

Sources and design theory

GILLIAN NAYLOR
lstituto Universitario Archllettura Venezia

STUR
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Servizio Bib!iografico Audiovisivo

e dl Documentazione
THE BAUHAUS REASSESSED
SOURCES AND DES IGl'\ THEORY

GILLIAN NAYLOR

THE HERBERT PRESS

 CONTENTS

Introduction 9

PART I SOURCES

Educational theory
2 Craft and industry
3 The Werkbund 37

PART II THE BAUHAUS IN WEIMAR

War and revolution

2 The Cathedral of Socialism
3 The workshops
4 Johannes Itten and the Basic Course
5 Claims for Art: (I) Kandinsky and Klee
(2) Van Doesburg and Moholy-Nagy 93
6 Crisis and consolidation 103

PART III THE BAUHAUS IN DESSAU

Dessau: the great transformation 124

2 Dcssau and architecture 129

3 From workshop to laboratory 144

4 Hannes Meyer: formalism or functionalism' 165
5 Confrontation and collapse 175

Sources and notes

Select bibliography
Index
 Gillian Naylor's earlier work on Th e Bauhaus quickly established itself as a basic
textbook when it was first published in 1968. This new book - a complete re-
assessment of the aims and achievements of the school - is based on a re-
examination of the source material, as well as research in Weimar and Dessau, and
in the Bauhaus-Archiv in West Berlin. This research, together with the experience
of teaching in colleges of art and design for over ten years, has enabled the author
to reconsider the dilemmas of a school that attempted to transform teaching
methods as w ell as initiate reforms in architecture and design in a period of social,
political and economic uncertainty . Gropius himself, Klee, Kandinsky, Itten,
Schlemmer, Muche, Feininger, Albers, Bayer, Stolz!, Moholy-Nagy and Hannes
Meyer were among the leading figures in architecture, painting, design ,
performance, photography and graphics who played important parts in
determining the standards of this seminal school. Their work and theory are
described here with a new insight, as is the development of the school through all
its vicissitudes, from its found ation in 1919 until its final dissolution under
Hitler.
The author is a Senior Tutor in Cultural History at the Royal College of Art,
London.

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