The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics
by Éva Forgács
"Drawing heavily on the large number of exceptionally
strong monographs and published document collections,
as well as Bauhaus archives, Forgacs retells the story
with considerable verve, focusing on personalities and
ideas, not on the objects or buildings produced... What
is noteworthy is the centrality in Forgacs's tale of
'spirit of the age' as the driving force and determining
factor in events. Defining 'the polarization of artistic
individuality versus the increasing depersonalization
of mass production' as one of the fundamental conflicts
of our age, Forgacs argues frequently and flamboyantly
that the spirit of the age-embodied in tides, waves,
currents-shaped the outcome of conflicts." - The
American Historical Review
"In this thought-provoking work, the author brings
to bear the understanding of the postmodern era and
an Eastern European perspective." - Choice
"Forgács tells her story well." - Art History
Forgacs examines the development of the Bauhaus school
of architecture and applied design by focusing on the
idea of the Bauhaus, rather than on its artefacts. What
gave this idea its extraordinary powers of survival?
Founded in 1919, with the architect Walter Gropius as
its first director, the Bauhaus carried within it the
seeds of conflict from the start. The duration of the
Bauhaus coincides very nearly with that of the Weimar
Republic; the Bauhaus idea - the notion that the artist
should be involved in the technological innovations
of mechanization and mass production - is a concept
that was bound to arouse the most passionate feelings.
It is these two strands - personal and political - that
Forgacs so cleverly interweaves. The text has been extensively
revised since its original publication in Hungarian,
and an entirely new chapter has been added on the Bauhaus's
Russian analogue, VkhUTEMAS, the Moscow academy of industrial
art.
1995
248 pages, 10 illustrations
ISBN 978-1-85866-012-7 paperback $26.95 / €22.95 / Ł17.99
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