Bauhaus philosophy
Manifesto, legacy, influence
Manifesto
Gropius formulated a manifesto for the Bauhaus which started "The final goal of all artistic activity is architecture." The Bauhaus principles are best summarized by Alfred Barr, the Director of the Museum of Modern Art 1938, in his preface to the book Bauhaus (edited by Gropius and Bayer):
• most student should face the fact that their future should be involved primarily with industry and mass production rather than with individual craftsmanship
• teachers in schools of design should be men who are in advance of their profession rather than safely and academically in the rearguard
• the schools of design should, as the Bauhaus did, bring together the various arts of painting, architechture, theatre, photography, weaving, typography, etc., into a modern synthesis which disregards conventional distinctions between the "fine" and "applied" arts
• it is harder to design a first rate chair than to paint a second rate painting-and much more useful
• a school of design should have on its faculty the purely creative and disinterested artist such as the easel painter as a spiritual counterpoint to the practical technician in order that they may work and teach side by side for the benefit of the student
• manual experience of materials is essential to the student of design- esperience at first confined to free experiment and then extended to the practical workshop
• the study of rational design in terms of techniques and materials should be only the first step in the development of a new and modern sense of beauty
• because we live in the 20th century, the student architect or designer should be offered no refuge in the past but should be equipped for the modern world in its various aspects, artistic, technical, social, economic, spiritual, so that he may function in society not as a decorator but as a vital participant.
Gropius himself said,"The Bauhaus...