Christine Gallone

The Bauhaus’ legend has had a great deal of impact on late modern graphic design since 1933, however myths have led to many obscured truths about the Bauhaus failure to cope with real world issues even though the institution is known for its integrity and high moral value, being open-minded, anti-fascistic, cross-culturally responsive and universally astute.

The Bauhaus did not hold deep opinions about the social content of its ideas or about the purpose and impact of its design philosophy. Its ideology was taken from the cultural social concerns of Ruskin and Morris who wanted to alter the social conditions of the working-class population. The Bauhaus envisioned beautiful but practical and functioning images born out of socially responsible design philosophies. The Bauhaus also took and opposing stance to anything resembling a previous order and condemned the intellectual components of academic education in the arts.

Bauhaus had a great sense of enthusiasm to energetic American life, the larger cities and architecture. However, they found little in American Ideology to transfer to the German social condition. The public had little change to influence or shape the Bauhaus ideology and resulted in social separation, isolation from the public, and essentially a continuously growing lack of interest from the public.

Strangely enough, there was a discrepancy between the education received by the Bauhaus staff and the education it provided for its students. The staff was taught with classical and high-quality education, with emphasis on illiterateness in the humanities. The students were educated in such a manner that limited their education to merely studio teaching.

The failure of the Bauhaus model has helped designers recognize the need for cultural data. The Bauhaus succeeded in finding those areas of visual perception, but even there, only within the framework of very restricted visual languages. Although the school held a place in the forefront of world opinion, it took a very neutral and a political stance, they were in touch with the legislators who forged the conditions of the time. Designers have discovered that being closer to corporate management is being closer to power and that this power provides status in the design community. Larger budgets are more desirable and more opportunity for posturing.

It is right to celebrate the Bauhaus’ success, but it is also prudent to use its failures as warnings. The substantiation must include responsibility to the social environment and honest appraisals of the real worth of the design efforts.

Tyler Ham Pong

One of the most influential art schools of the 20th century for modern design and architecture to originate from Germany, the Bauhaus has been both revered as successful and known as prestigious. However, despite the critical acclaim of the Bauhaus’ success (having closed in 1933, but still having influence on contemporary design), there has been very little information published on the moral position of the art school, leading to scepticism over the school’s influence on the ‘public good’. Morality and Myth: The Bauhaus Reassessed by Dietmar R. Winkler, is a reevaluation of the assumption that the school was a source of moral responsibility – in politics, culture, and society.

One of Winkler’s contentions is the naivety of the Bauhaus, i.e., the ideology was influenced by socialism, a political movement for better social conditions for the working-class. Nevertheless, the Bauhaus maintained a lack of understanding of the public and seemed far removed from their actual perception, making a clear distinction between the aristocratic and the bourgeois.

Further problems ensued with the lack of coherency between teacher and student; the teachers were educated in a traditional manner, but denied ‘intellectual’ teachings, thus vindicating an anti-intellectual position. Furthermore, many of their ‘innovative’ techniques are said to have originated from other schools, or other arts such as Futurism or Dada.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, one of the greatest transgressions against the public good was the Bauhaus’ association with the Nazi government (the Bauhaus being a state-run institution). Granted, the Bauhaus was founded during the post-World War I government, the fact that the Bauhaus later received funding from a fascist regime completely contradicted their socialist ideology.

Question: Since the Bauhaus taught open-mindedness (among other things), is it still moral that the school accepted funding from the Hitler regime?

Elisa Iannicone

According to Dietmar R. Winkler, a writer who has been Design Dir. at Harvard, MIT, Brandeis and the WGBH Educational Foundation, states that the Bauhaus teachings have greatly influenced modern graphic design. Dietmar mentions that the Bauhaus’ closure in 1933 is often related to the fascist government, clouding the unethical and immoral ideologies present within it. The Bauhaus was based on ‘existing credos’ like Marxism and German socialism, but was more interested in recognition than taking action.

The author states that Bauhaus students and staff were ignorant on topics like politics, literature and social sciences. Anti-intellectuality was imposed, limiting future design education. It isolated from the German Republic, admired American life and larger cities, and finally adhered to the traditional German class-consciousness. The Bauhaus showed no collaboration towards removing obstacles for cultural integration. (Recall the unit on ‘Difference and the Limits of Cultural Context’)

Many of its publications were written as original ideas, which were truly based on existing ideologies like Constructivism and Futurism. Its lack of cultural perception was soon adopted in the American society. Bauhaus members who went to the U.S. were prejudist, ignorant of the culture and found it hard to comprehend the ‘utopian’ American Constitution. The Bauhaus, a state run institution, was in contact with legislators who settled conditions to allow it to continue running. Van Der Rohe closed the school for economic conditions, but stated he would have agreed to remove Kandinsky and Hilberseimer from teaching. Dietmar questions if a true designer can be politically neutral and ignorant of social matters. He states that we must take the Bauhaus as a warning, for modern designers have adopted dogmatic ideas. The author urges us to eliminate anti-intellectualism from design schools.

Are intercultural limitations and anti-intellectualism present only within design, or have they become interdisciplinary postures? Explain.

Janet Lee

• Bauhaus closes in 1933, but there is a myth for The Bauhaus having great impact on today’s subject of graphic design. However, They failed to study the real world issues and did not work for the good of the people.

• High status was achieved by the Bauhaus: governments of East and West Germany, exhibitions and publications enhanced their status

• We have to understand where graphic design comes from, its history and the base on which it was built in order to create in the future and understand the reasoning behind present behaviours.

• Bauhaus behaviours: no opinions were made on social content, no purposeful ideas

• Bauhaus ideology: cultural and social concerns of Ruskin & Morris who believed in British socialism (alter social conditions of working class) & ignored the chance to integrate social concerns (support unions, working class needs)

• Students and staff of the Bauhaus were not informed and ignorant of a previous order including: social concerns, political systems, and philosophical ideas. They allowed only intellectual activities including: “language of form, color, and image, and object construction…” (para.5, p. 39) » basis of graphic design

• Positive responses to the American life, but not to the German horizons; eventually followed the traditional German class consciousness (separation of working classes) » the public had no influence on Bauhaus ideology, and were misunderstood with their worldly perspectives

• Social separation, public isolation, ignorance of the daily concerns » created the design of products that were remote from public view. Soon, public opinions made its way to the regional politics and Bauhaus was seen as an “Alarming irritant to the cultural traditions of the various class systems.” (p.39)

• Staff education: aristocratic, classical manners / Students: privileged, gifted, intelligent (restricted design education for the future)

• Bauhaus was wrongly acknowledged as the “originals” for open-mindedness

• Public relations: Gropius replaced by Hannes Mayer and Meyer assessed the public relations to have “Outstripped manifold the quality of the work produced.” (para.10, p.40)

• Bauhaus was functional in a technological aspect, in that it standardized cultural experiences, but did not concern peoples values, traditions, languages, and customs.

• Bauhaus faculty settled in America (U.S.) and thought Americans were stupid and uneducated, because American’s had the belief of the “American Life.” The belief was that all your dreams could come true (no class separation)

• The Bauhaus failure on political morality helps designers recognize the need for cultural information. Designers today do not all have a cultural perspective

• Present times: we see fashion and what ever is “in” (designed by the designers) is what celebrities will wear, and then the public will want to wear it because it is the latest trend. » There is no real purpose behind these creations! Something marketable will be created. It doesn’t have to be comfortable, simply appealing to the eye. Simply having power provides status in the design community.

• There are designers out there that are creating designs that keep cultural perspectives in mind, and there are too many designers who do not keep this perspective when designing, but would they really make a difference? For example, if a popular fashion designer created a shirt that says “save the environment” and it became the trend of the season, the public will wear it. However, that does not mean they will go out there and take action to save the environment. By next season there will be another trend and saving the environment will be “so last season.”

Tori Maas

In Morality and Myth, Winkler questions the philosophies and principles of the Bauhaus. In his thesis, he claims that the Bauhaus never succeeded in benefiting the public, despite its utopian ideals.

Winkler goes on to explain that the Bauhaus has been given an “exalted status” in the design world, but its moral and political stances have never been questioned. He says that since the school was closed by the German government, people assume the school was anti-fascist, and morally responsible. Winkler questions whether it is right to make these assumptions because the Bauhaus seemed, in actuality, to be politically neutral.

Winkler also states that publications by the Bauhaus were partly taken from unpublished writings by members of the Futurist, Dada, Constructivist, and De Stijl schools. Another way the Bauhaus gained recognition as an influential school, according to Winkler, is that they opposed all previous ideas and philosophies about art and politics, simply for the sake of being recognized.

In conclusion, Winkler questions whether the political aloofness and ignorance of the Bauhaus is acceptable for designers today, or if they have a responsibility to take a position on current events and trends. He ends by urging designers to stop following often-used mottos and manifestos commonly used in the design world such as “form follows function’ and “less is more” without considering their importance or relevance.

Wade Noble

The article entitled The Bauhaus Reassessed by Dietmar Winkler is an analytical paper reviewing the Bauhaus institutions design positions. The article states that the Bauhaus was a school of thought that produced great works and great short-comings, one being the complete lack of discriminating opinions about the social content of its ideas.

Being an emerging school, the Bauhaus opposed everything resembling a previous order. They shunned social and political issues and focused more on the development of language, form and colour. The Bauhaus maintained discrimination between social classes and isolated themselves from new positive German politics. This isolation from the social world contributed to both wrong responses and lack of interest from the public.

In my opinion the author of this article is too subjective. His focus is mainly on the flaws of the institution and not any of their contributions. His arguments are taking something that the group contributed and pointing out its flaws neglecting to mention any positive contributions the group might have made. He mentions the Bauhaus definitions of visual language and principles of form, colour and construction as not the constructs of them, but a manifestation of many schools only brought together by the Bauhaus. In order to protect the schools interest they avoided the ideas of competing dogmas. Winkler states that this is an open contradiction to the schools open-minded attitude, when in reality it could be just a choice of artistic integrity.

Winkler states that the Bauhaus, although considered an important originator of product design, had flawed and misconstrued ideas. He states that the lack of cultural connections creates work that is socially ignorant. According to Winkler, because of the Bauhaus naïve ideology their work is to narrow to contain real significance. He also states the school was highly subject to ‘play by the rules’ of the political legislator, and in doing so, lost a lot of its integrity.

Winkler makes some strong arguments evident in reassessing the Bauhaus’s design school of thought. The successes and failures of the school must be taken into account and used as a tool to gauge design today. However, when reading an article which seems so one-sided, I can’t help but wonder what the author’s background is? Perhaps he was a supporter of another school of design which didn’t quite measure up to the success of The Bauhaus. Even though a lot of the points Winkler addresses in the article are ideas which I generally agree with, I can’t help but want a more objective view on the Bauhaus design ideology.

Evette Sintichakis

In this article, Dietmar Winkler argues that the history of the Bauhaus is an important demonstration of the progress of design over the years. The Bauhaus had a narrow concentration, which made it possible to avoid intellectual and ethical components and only allow intellectual aspects that had to do with the development of form, colour, image, and object construction. When the public became less and less involved because of their lack of worldly perspective, the Bauhaus became an alarming irritant to the traditions of culture. A contradiction lay in the fact that there was a difference between the education received by the Bauhaus staff and the education it taught to students. The problem could have been that the school was mostly available to the privileged or gifted intellectuals. This bias restricted design education for the future and even design schools today are effected by the narrow vision of the Bauhaus. Personally, it seems like the staff used ignorance to avoid dealing with the morals and ethics of the school. By this time, the reputation of this avant-garde school exceeded the quality of education and work produced there.

The Bauhaus took on a very political and neutral position, most likely because it was largely funded by legislators. The school eventually closed in 1933 for financial reasons, however, Winkler believes otherwise. There is no reason aside from the demand to hush and censor the school- that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the school's director of architecture, would have released Ludwig Hilberseimer and Wassily Kandinsky as teachers. The failure of the school has made newer designers face the reality that the world needs cultural information. The only problem is that any culture out there is an interpretation of a reality of truth, which is highly subjective and is in no way an opinion shared by everyone. It will always be incredibly difficult to find a public opinion that will accommodate and please everyone, so it is something designers will always have to work on. Winkler believes it is coming to the point where we are ignoring large segments of society because we are trying to control the information we receive and use. I agree with him. We cannot just leave out groups of people just because we do not want to hear what they have to say.

We can celebrate the Bauhaus' success, but also use its failure as a warning of traps not to fall into. If we can change the anti-intellectualism of design schools today, we can form a more responsible system of critique that the public deserves.

What, if any, is the morality or the responsibility of a design professional today? Can a designer be uninvolved and politically neutral and yet still hold credibility and integrity as a designer?