New Bauhaus museum debuts in Dessau
BERLIN — The eastern German city of Dessau marked the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus school of design in September with the opening of a new museum featuring a collection of exhibits and objects that tie in with the movement’s iconic buildings.
Chancellor Angela Merkel told a crowd at the opening of the Bauhaus Museum Dessau that the school featured an avantgarde style that “we still really enjoy today.”
The city was the school’s second home after it moved from Weimar, and the new museum building — described as a soaring concrete block enveloped in glass — was designed by Barcelona’s addenda architects to interface with the city and nature.
The opening exhibition tells the story of the famous school in Dessau, featuring more than 1,000 exhibits.
Rather than focusing on iconic designs and masters, the museum said the emphasis instead is the school and the students: “the daily reality of learning and teaching between the poles of creative design and industrial prototype production, artistic experiment and economic pressure, educational institution and emancipatory aspiration.”
Bauhaus was founded in Weimar in 1919 under architect Walter Gropius as Germany grappled with its political future after World War I.
Weimar opened its own new museum earlier this year, showcasing many of the school’s items that blurred the lines between the artistic and the industrial.
“In Bauhaus not only tradesmen and artists worked closely together, but also many women put a strong stamp on Bauhaus style,” Merkel noted in a recent installment of her weekly video podcast.
Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, Weimar and also Bernau have been designated UNESCO World Heritage sites.