Bauhaus and the Design School Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Bauhaus and the Design School - Essay Example The Bauhaus school of design underwent three different phases of development In the wake of World War I and all troubles it revealed there was a need to tap into the more rational aspects of everyday life. The sentiment was seized upon by famed architect Walter Gropius who opened the school in Wiemar. Gropius in a way was forwarding the area where Germany would seek an advantage in production, that is by producing common place article with an artistic aesthetic and remaining competitive relative to other economies with more resources. Whether this was the intention of Gropius and the early architects of Bauhaus is not entirely clear but it is perhaps specious to separate the Zeitgeist of the time from the ideas of the innovators. The Bauhaus School went through three different phases in its early history influenced by the philosophical leanings of its directors. Gropius was followed as director by Hannes Meyer when the school moved to Dessau in 1928. Meyer more of a formal thinker re moved much of the aesthetic underpinnings of Gropius and became more concerned with the influence of science and its translation into a greater sense of function. This turned the pendulum toward the functional aspect of products and perhaps subverted the original aim of the school; however, the school in retrospect was to go through this cycle of thesis and antithesis between function and form throughout its history. Meyer was succeed by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe who once again reasserted the importance of aesthetics over function.