WEIMAR AND THE EARLY BAUHAUS

Weimar did not become the home of the Bauhaus by chance. When it was established by Walter Gropius in 1919, Weimar was a small town whose cultural history was already enormously rich.  

Henry van de Velde, the architect and a guiding intellectual force in art nouveau, had created the perfect environment in which the Bauhaus could flourish with his Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts. Based in Weimar until 1925, the Bauhaus was the most modern art school of its day. It was to revolutionise architecture and design all over the world through teamwork, workshop principles and openness to the latest international influences.

Gropius assembled virtually the whole of the European avant-garde in Weimar: Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Gerhard Marcks, Johannes Itten, Oskar Schlemmer and László Moholy-Nagy were appointed to teach at the new school of design. The most famous example of Bauhaus architecture in Weimar is Haus am Horn, which was built as a model house for the first architecture exhibition of 1923.

90 years of the Bauhaus is a perfect opportunity to present – for the first time on such a large scale – the background, the historical and intellectual roots and the origins of the Bauhaus philosophy in a comprehensive and highly exclusive series of exhibitions and events.