"Bauhaus" book - Taschen

In the space of fourteen fleeting years, caught between two world wars, the German school of art and design Bauhaus changed the face of modernity. Guided by utopian ideals, the school developed a revolutionary fusion of fine art, craft and technology that would be applied to painting, sculpture, design, architecture, film, photography, textile art, ceramics, theatre and art installations. Both an intensely human community and a collective open to the public, the Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius (1883-1969) and counted among its members Josef and Anni Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, Gunta Stölzl, Marianne Brandt and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In its premises, established successively in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin, the school encouraged charismatic and creative exchanges between teachers and students, all of whom possessed varied and personal styles and tastes, yet were united by their idealism and their profound interest in the total work of art, drawing on different disciplines and practices. This book celebrates the innovative daring of the Bauhaus movement, a forerunner in the development of modernism and a paradigm of artistic education, within which the conjunction of complete liberation of creative expression and avant-garde ideas gave rise to magnificent, functional creations.

About the author: Magdalena Droste studied art history and literature in Aachen and Marburg. After working from 1980 at the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, she has been professor of art history at BTU Cottbus since 1997. She has contributed to numerous exhibitions and publications dealing with Bauhaus artists and published many essays on the Bauhaus textile workshop as well as on artistic craft as a female profession.

About the editor: Peter Gössel runs a design agency for museums and exhibitions. He has published for TASCHEN monographs devoted to Julius Shulman, R. M. Schindler, John Lautner and Richard Neutra, as well as several titles in the Petite Collection architecture.