Bauhaus ideas

As the centenary year of the Bauhaus, possibly the single most influential modernist art and design school of the 20^th century, draws to a close, it may be wortwhile to recall the creative drivers and main ideas behind the school's achievements. First, Bauhaus didn't emerge from nowhere; it was inspired and influenced by the international Arts and Crafts movement (c. 1880-1920), the Werkbund, the creative associations of artists, architects and industrialists established in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the early 1900s, and the Dutch de Stijl movement (1917-). Second, it saw as its mission to bridge the gap between traditional arts and crafts and modern industrial manufacturing aiming at an alliance of the arts under the wing of architecture. This mission also paved the way for the International Style and Brutalism as well as postwar modernism in architecture. Third, Bahaus developed a pedagogic model which combined the teaching of arts, crafts and architecture stressing design as a process where ideation and experimentation with new materials were integral to problem-solving, a model that later became a blueprint for design education worldwide.