Modell Bauhaus

As the open­ing to the overview exhi­bi­tion, vis­i­tors passed through the exhi­bi­tion façade in the his­toric foy­er. The cliché of black-and-white mod­ernism was con­trast­ed with a col­or­ful coun­ter­point to the Bauhaus mod­el. The basic geo­met­ric shapes of tri­an­gle, square, and cir­cle took on a new func­tion as gate­ways to the entrance, pas­sage, and exit of the exhi­bi­tion. In the atri­um, a ring of col­or pan­els offered a chrono­log­i­cal overview of the his­to­ry of the Bauhaus with­in its his­tor­i­cal con­text and, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, served as an over­sized table of con­tents, point­ed to the exhi­bi­tion rooms beyond.

Inspired by Johannes Itten’s col­or wheel, a col­ored band was placed over the dou­ble ring struc­ture of the Mar­tin-Gropius-Bau, and each room was assigned a col­or: from white and yel­low for the Weimar years of the Bauhaus, through orange-red and pur­ple for the begin­ning of the Dessau peri­od, to blue and green for the Berlin phase before the Bauhaus’s final dis­so­lu­tion. This room col­or marked the key objects with a col­or aura.

Each room was rep­re­sent­ed by a title and a key object, which was shown on pan­els as a pre­cise­ly dimen­sioned con­struc­tion analy­sis. The square col­or grid behind it func­tioned like graph paper: the larg­er the object, the small­er the col­or squares behind it. The col­or pan­els in the out­er ring, as coun­ter­parts, ana­lyzed the light-dark com­po­si­tion of the same object and resolved it into increas­ing­ly larg­er col­or pix­els. The exhib­it labels were dis­trib­uted through­out the exhi­bi­tion space as small­er col­or pix­els. The his­toric Gropius build­ing, with its rec­og­niz­able frac­tures, was placed in a dia­log­i­cal rela­tion­ship with the cura­to­r­i­al struc­ture of the exhi­bi­tion as a con­tex­tu­al build­ing. The three locations/​phases of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin were rep­re­sent­ed in very dif­fer­ent design approach­es.
 

In the first three rooms ded­i­cat­ed to the Weimar Bauhaus peri­od, the design reflect­ed Gropius’s appoint­ment pol­i­cy and the asso­ci­at­ed edu­ca­tion­al con­cepts. All works by the new­ly appoint­ed mas­ters were pre­sent­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly. The archi­tec­ture rein­forced the impres­sion of the indi­vid­u­als work­ing with­in the grounds of the School of Arts and Crafts (MGB), pro­duc­ing new works with the stu­dents. This con­cept cul­mi­nat­ed in the fol­low­ing room, a for­est of ste­lae derived from the struc­tur­al design of the Mar­tin-Gropius-Bau, reflect­ing the high and unique pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the Weimar phase. Each side of the rec­tan­gu­lar columns housed a dif­fer­ent lev­el of exhibits. Fes­ti­vals, work­shops, pho­tog­ra­phy, and archi­tec­ture coa­lesced into a pow­er­ful, struc­tural­ly open form. The next room unit­ed the diverse prod­ucts of the Bauhaus on a sin­gle, sus­pend­ed plat­form. Here, the 1923 Bauhaus exhi­bi­tion, and thus the for­mu­la­tion of the Bauhaus idea, was staged under height­ened polit­i­cal pres­sure. The sus­pend­ed struc­ture allud­ed to the impend­ing relo­ca­tion, while the polypho­ny of the objects, almost choral­ly, artic­u­lat­ed and pro­mot­ed the Bauhaus mod­el. The Dessau exhi­bi­tion spaces appeared as an elon­gat­ed, house-with­in-a-house struc­ture. Exhi­bi­tion facades, derived from the glass cur­tain wall of the Bauhaus build­ing in Dessau, inter­pret­ed the World Her­itage build­ing as a show­case for Bauhaus pro­duc­tion and the school itself. With­in the exhi­bi­tion, the facades formed a com­plex struc­ture of dis­play cas­es, win­dows, and sup­port­ing ele­ments. The con­tin­u­ous devel­op­ment of the Bauhaus, includ­ing the change in direc­tor­ship and direc­tion from Walther Gropius to Hannes Mey­er, was reflect­ed through sub­tle changes in col­or, mate­r­i­al, and space. In the cen­tral space, the exhi­bi­tion archi­tec­ture coa­lesced into a sin­gle struc­ture encom­pass­ing floor, facades, and ceil­ing. The con­trast­ing per­cep­tion of inte­ri­or and exte­ri­or was achieved here through the adap­ta­tion of the cur­tain wal­l’s col­or scheme (anthracite/​white). The con­trast between the exhi­bi­tion archi­tec­ture and the his­tor­i­cal fab­ric of the Gropius build­ing reached its peak and was intend­ed to con­vey to vis­i­tors the pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence of the avant-garde, the ​“shock of mod­ernism.” The scenog­ra­phy impres­sive­ly alters the exist­ing pro­por­tions of the last two rooms in the exhi­bi­tion cir­cuit. Divid­ing walls and par­ti­tions are dis­solved by means of a reflec­tive façade of black and light mir­rors. An unex­pect­ed hor­i­zon­tal­i­ty, the ele­gance of the wood­en sur­faces, but also the somber­ness of the impend­ing events, enter into a dar­ing sym­bio­sis to vivid­ly illus­trate to vis­i­tors the rather unknown era of the Bauhaus under Mies van der Rohe, and thus the Berlin phase until the Bauhaus’s clo­sure in 1933.