The Bauhaus #itsalldesign

The major exhib­i­tion The Bauhaus #itsalldesign, conceived by the Vitra Design Museum and the Art and Exhib­i­tion Hall of the Federal Repub­lic of Germany (Bundeskun­sthalle) presents a compre­hens­ive over­view of design at the Bauhaus for the first time. It encom­passes a multi­pli­city of rare exhib­its from the fields of design, archi­tec­ture, art, film and photo­graphy. At the same time, it confronts the design of the Bauhaus with current debates and tend­en­cies in design and with the works of contem­por­ary design­ers, artists and archi­tects. In this way, The Bauhaus #itsalldesign reveals the surpris­ing present-day relev­ance of a legendary cultural insti­tu­tion.

Bauhaus artists and design­ers featured in the exhib­i­tion include Mari­anne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Lyonel Fein­inger, Walter Gropius, Wassily Kand­in­sky and many more. Contem­por­ary parti­cipants include the works of Olaf Nicolai, Adrian Sauer, Enzo Mari, Lord Norman Foster, Opendesk, Konstantin Grcic, Hella Jongerius, Alberto Meda and Jerszy Seymour.

The mission of the Staat­liches Bauhaus, foun­ded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, was to educate a new type of designer. Students at the Bauhaus were to acquire artis­anal and artistic found­a­tions as well as know­ledge of the human psyche, the process of percep­tion, ergo­nom­ics and tech­no­logy – a profile that contin­ues to define the occu­pa­tion of the designer to this day. Yet the concept of design at the Bauhaus also gave design­ers a compre­hens­ive creat­ive mandate: they were not to merely fabric­ate objects of daily use, but should take an active role in the trans­form­a­tion of soci­ety. With this approach, the Bauhaus sketched out an all-encom­passing under­stand­ing of design, one that today finds itself embraced with new vigour. With such keywords as social design, open design or »design think­ing«, we now see renewed discus­sions of how design­ers can place their work in a larger context and help shape soci­ety. Viewed from this present-day perspect­ive, the exhib­i­tion regards the Bauhaus as a complex, multi-dimen­sional «labor­at­ory of modern­ism» with close links to current design tend­en­cies.

An Exhib­i­tion of Vitra Design Museum and the Art and Exhib­i­tion Hall of the Federal Repub­lic of Germany (Bundeskun­sthalle)