Bauing out with style

The exhibition includes some new works that feed of the same thematic early 20th-century sensibilities but with a contemporary twist...

By BARRY DAVIS
The mural workshop, Bauhaus Dessau, 1926 (photo credit: BAUHAUS-UNIVERSITÄT WEIMAR/ARCHIVE DER MODERNE)
The mural workshop, Bauhaus Dessau, 1926
(photo credit: BAUHAUS-UNIVERSITÄT WEIMAR/ARCHIVE DER MODERNE)
 In view of UNESCO’s recognition in 2003 of Tel Aviv’s bountiful collection of Bauhaus-style edifices, it seems only natural to have a display devoted to the aesthetic genre, also known as the International Style, in our major metropolitan area.
The It’s All Design exhibition opened at the Tel Aviv Museum in mid- October and will run until January 7.
Its variegated offering was curated by Jolanthe Kugler, who brought the show here from the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein in southwest Germany.
Both Kugler and Vitra Design Museum director Mateo Kries were on hand to enlighten the participants in the press tour of the show about the intricacies, philosophy and intrigue inherent in the Bauhaus – literally “construction house” – mind-set.
Considering the plethora of architectural exemplars of the style in this part of the world, it comes as quite a surprise to learn that the Bauhaus School, which was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, lasted only 14 years. The fact that it ended in 1933, the year in which Hitler came to power, is not incidental. As Kugler explained “the Nazis didn’t like Bauhaus. It was too free and, therefore, dangerous.”
In truth, it is difficult to define the aesthetic ethos in words. If you roam around the back streets of central Tel Aviv, you will espy apartment buildings with long straight lines that, toward their end, take a rotund turn and are reminiscent of something akin to the bow of a ship. Then there are stairwells with crisply aligned slat-like horizontal windows, and metal balustrades in stairwells and on rooftops, which also serve to delineate private gardens areas from the sidewalk.
Once you’ve gotten your eye attuned, the Bauhaus elements are easily noticed.
Then again, it is tough to nail them in a neatly pigeon-holed sort of way, as quickly becomes apparent when you observe the “It’s All Design” exhibits.
Judging by the monochrome print of Woman in B3 Club Chair taken in 1926 by Bauhaus movement-associated photographer Erich Consemüller, there is a clear utilitarian slant to the nearly century-old school of thought.
The Marcel Breuer-fashioned chair sports pristine eminently practical lines, as does the Lis Beyer dress of the model, although the vintage sci-fi mask covering the woman’s face, created by Oskar Schlemmer, conveys an unmissable reference to a more layered way of thinking.
Bauhaus was largely a pragmatic result of the aftermath of Germany’s defeat in World War I. The country was economically devastated. Quick and practicable solutions were required on all levels of daily life – from the provision of inexpensive and easily assembled housing, to all manner of everyday products and utensils. This was a socially-minded philosophical and creative initiative that sought to address the pressing existential needs of the day, in addition to proffering a new across-the-board aesthetic.
It was also a self-nourishing avenue of artistic attack.
“The Bauhaus wants to serve in the development of present-day housing, from the simplest household appliances to the finished dwelling,” notes Gropius 90 years ago, in his definitive paper “Bauhaus Dessau – Principles of Bauhaus Production.”
“In the conviction that household appliances and furnishings must be rationally related to each other, the Bauhaus is seeking – by systematic practical and theoretical research into formal, technical, and economic fields – to derive the design of an object from its natural functions and relationships.”
The new school of thought also emanated from the post-Great War societal hierarchy upheaval that emerged in Germany and elsewhere in the West, as well as the sweeping impact of industrialized methods of production. The short-lived arts movement yielded a feverishly energized bunch of practitioners, who grabbed the opportunity to wield a new broom or two with both hands.
As “It’s All Design” shows, designminded men and women were keen to funnel the construction and production endeavor of all sorts of items through the Bauhaus prism. This covered household objects, such as furniture and lamps, and even stretched as far as information pamphlets and book covers. It seems that nothing, no walk of life, escaped the attention of the International Style boys and girls.
Naturally, Gropius was at the vanguard of putting his money where his mouth was, as portrayed in a tastefully digitally processed rendition of a color photograph of the Bauhaus founding father’s own living room. The original shot was taken in 1926 or 1927 and features an aesthetically appealing home layout – although, if you are the fluffy cushion and cozy sofa type, you won’t find too much to endear you to the design. A monochrome print of the mural workshop at the Dessau center, taken in 1926 by an unknown photographer, imparts a sense of the ambiance there, as well as showing some of the end products of the time.
The exhibition brings us up to date and includes some new works that feed of the same thematic early 20th-century sensibilities but with a contemporary twist. As Kries explains, the here-and-now approach was a prime motivating force for the current Tel Aviv Museum layout.
“The whole perception of what modernism was in the 20th century is much more open today, and that’s our idea of what was part of this Modernist movement, and also includes aspects that have not been part of that before.”
Kries notes that “It’s All Design” is largely about enabling us to gain a new handle on the short-lived but seismically influential view of modern life.
“We wanted to make an exhibition about the Bauhaus from this contemporary perspective, and that allowed us to discover, hopefully, new aspects that you will also discover.”
The Vitra Design Museum director says that the exhibition should allay any stock thinking about Germans and Austrians maintaining a strictly regimented take on life, and convey the strong universal element that was a basic tenet of the design doctrine.
“[The exhibition] allowed us to show that the connection between the Bauhaus and industry was, of course, important but, on the other hand, there was also a lot of space for experimentation, and that the idea of design in the Bauhaus was not an understanding of design as sheer industrial practice, or something that you would only apply to an object, but the whole Bauhaus movement itself was a kind of social design.”
Professional and interpersonal cohesion, says Kries, was central, too.
“It was an experiment in how you can bring people together from different disciplines and create an atmosphere in which innovation can happen. That, for us, was a much more interesting understanding of design at the Bauhaus than just to look at the products that resulted from that.”
That is a cardinal factor in the current exhibition, but my subsequent strolls around downtown Tel Aviv, betwixt the many Bauhaus edifices designed by German Jewish architects who fled Nazi Germany, have been an even more pleasurable, and enlightening, experience.
 “It’s All Design”closes on January 7.


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