Bauhaus Essay

Darren Fennessy Student Number: 02202425

The Bauhaus: Hannes Meyer Hannes Meyer was born in Switzerland in 1889 and died in 1954. He is noted for being head of the Bauhaus from 1928 to 1930 after taking over the position from Walter Gropius. Meyer’s area of expertise was in architecture and he preferred that all architectural work was done in teams, rather than just one individual taking all the honours for the work. This was a very Communist ideology and Meyer’s leaning to the left would later prove to be his own downfall in the Bauhaus. During his tenure at the Bauhaus School, Meyer greatly brought all of his Communist views to the fore in his teachings. Many students there, became Communist activists at the time and this worried the then local government of Dessau, where the Bauhaus was now located. Meyer’s extreme Marxist/Communist views led to him eventually being fired from his position of head. His dismissal rather affirmed the thoughts held by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer and Herbert Bayer, all of whom resigned when Meyer was initially made head in 1928. Walter Gropius always believed that Meyer’s communist leanings were a grave error in judgement on his part. After Meyer left the Bauhaus under a dark cloud, in what was a very politically shaky time in Europe, his work was almost forgotten and his credibility was shattered. This was helped along in part by Gropius who wanted to put Meyer’s legacy behind the school. Therefore today, the work of people like Gropius and Mies is more remembered than that of Hannes Meyer. Meyer was thought to be “anti-art” and many thought his appointment would mean the end for the Bauhaus School in Germany. And although Hannes Meyer was disliked by many of his colleagues due to his outwardly Communist views; it was during his time as head, that the school became its most profitable. He believed in mass production to make things more affordable to the less well off in society, which meant that more people would and did buy what the Bauhaus had to offer.

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Darren Fennessy Student Number: 02202425 Before his appointment as head, Meyer was made director of architectural tuition in 1927. This is where many of his philosophical views on architecture were first made into rules for his students to strictly follow. His work characterised three basic rules, which he believed should always be pursued. Firstly, he taught that all architecture should be based on scientific information available. This was in congruence with the belief that any aesthetic change to buildings must have a very real and practical use once put in place. Secondly, obligatory building needs take precedence over any “artistic expression”. Thirdly was that the architecture courses being run in the Bauhaus School must only be based on the very “best architectural practices”. It was Meyer who also introduced draftsmanship, design construction, planning, urban planning and the art of photography to the curriculum when he first began at the Bauhaus. Architecture not only meant designing and building buildings, it meant the “design of life’s processes” too. Buildings were not just constructed and left to be dwelled in or worked in by people, the possible behaviour of future residents of an estate or house were all studied in scientific detail as well. His students would spend a range of years working on one project together in teams of “vertical brigades”, which included everything from design, right up to the final phases of construction and erection of all key components. A good example of this kind of work can be found in the work of the balcony access houses in Dessau and the Labour Union Schools in Bernau, near to Berlin. To this end, Meyer became known as a “radical functionalist” by his colleagues and peers alike, when it came to his architectural design. The aesthetics of his buildings did not concern him in the least. If it was not practical in the “modern industrial age”, then it should not be part of his work. Meyer was of the opinion that his work should be able to evolve with the systematic advancement of technologies of his time and way into the future. When all of the other designers, artists and architects of the Bauhaus finally had to leave Germany due to the oppression of the Nazi party, most of them located themselves in America. All who went there continued their work for companies or in universities as

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Darren Fennessy Student Number: 02202425 professors in faculties of architecture, art, design and various other disciplines. It had become impossible for the Bauhaus to remain open when once the Nazi party came to power and it was eventually closed by then in 1933, just three years after Meyers’ tenure as head of the school ended. Meyer, however, did not locate himself in America like most of his colleagues. He instead went to work in the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (U.S.S.R), Switzerland and then to work for the Mexican government. He finally returned back to his home country of Switzerland in 1948.

Hannes Meyer’s Work The Design House of the Federal School of German Trade Unions is thought to be Meyer’s most important undertaking during his time at the Bauhaus. This series of buildings are located in Bernau, near to Berlin in what was the once East Germany. The corridors of the Trade Unions’ buildings are made entirely from glass that connect different buildings together. This kind of construction was unknown at this time and gave his work a futuristic look and feel. Everything in the entire building was also designed and constructed in the Bauhaus workshops. All work carried out in Bernau to complete the Federal School of German Trade Unions was first fully researched by Meyer and his team of students working on the project, all of whom were from the Bauhaus. Each and every detail was first considered before any work was carried out. Only then was their work rendered into the kind of architecture that Meyer loved, that which is practical for the use of the occupants. Despite all the work that went into creating the impressive building, it still had the appearance of a place that had been constructed on a very economical budget. Meyer wanted to give the building an appeal to the “working class” of that time and he achieved it very well in this project.

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Darren Fennessy Student Number: 02202425 The four Laubenganghäuser loggia (terraced) apartment buildings designed by Meyer were intended to be lived in by working class people also. They were built in Dessua and were the epitome of functionalist design and construction, which was so admired by Meyer and his followers. He clung to his belief that all architecture should have form and function, therefore nothing in the work was put there without a clear reasoning behind it. He took an almost minimalist approach to the Laubenganghäuser loggia (terraced) apartments. They were all created with only two or two and a half rooms, which would be very small, yet very affordable to the working class people for renting out. Each apartment was designed to be accessible by the use of an open air exterior corridor, a new idea in the time of Meyer, which was practical and far cheaper to construct than an enclosed corridor. Lower construction costs would be a factor in keeping the apartments affordable to the kind of people Meyer had in mind as future occupants. This was thought to be a development that was finally in the spirit of what the new Bauhaus stood for. Resident would have been able to lease for the extremely low rent of 37.50 Marks per month. This gave, as well as the two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom with all the modern conveniences available in 1930 Germany. The architecture favoured by Meyer was devoid of any innate ornamentation and he valued the scientific functionality as a replacement for aesthetic looks. Many of the “feudal buildings” that were over-powering and intimidating to the ordinary people were also more expensive and inaccessible to anyone in an ordinary job, earning ordinary wages. Meyer set out to narrow down the socio-economic gap that existed, which he knew was growing ever larger in the industrial and technological age. Not unlike in today’s world, the ever increasing margin between the rich and the poorer people in society was a growing concern. Meyer wanted his work bridge a gap in affordability and used his time at the Bauhaus to try and achieve this goal. Space as opposed to the mass of the buildings were always the order of the day. Therefore many right-angles were used in place of rounded facades, which required more artistic expression.

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Darren Fennessy Student Number: 02202425

References •

Bauhaus Archive Museum of Design, Year Unknown, Building Studies with Hannes Meyer 1927-30 [online]. Available from: http://www.baushaus.de/eglish/bauhaus1919/architektur/architektur_meyer.htm [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Year Unknown, Architecture at the Bauhaus [online]. Available from: http://www.bauhausdessau.de/en/history.asp?p=architect [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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Zimmerman, C., Year Unknown, Comrades and Citizens: Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Hilberseimer and K. Michael Hays [online]. Available from: http://www.brickhaus.com/amoore/magazine/Comrade.html [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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Lilleystone, A., 2003, Bauhaus School 1919-1933 [online]. Available from: http://www.cs.umb.edu/~alilley/bauhaus.html [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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Lilleystone, A., 2003, Bauhaus School 1919-1933 Hannes Meyer [online]. Available from: http://www.cs.umb.edu/~alilley/baumeyer.html [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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The Getty, Unknown Year, Historical Note [online]. Available from: http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/finding_aids/bauhdsgn_m4.ht ml [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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Pearson Education, 2003, Meyer, Hannes [online]. Available from: http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0832968.html [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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Darren Fennessy Student Number: 02202425 •

Vassar College, Year Unknown, The Role of Architecture in the Bauhaus School (1919 to 1933) [online]. Available from: http://german.vassar.edu/Berlin_1998/Rose/Arc_3.html [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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Vassar College, Year Unknown, Bauhaus Architecture [online]. Available from: http://german.vassar.edu/Berlin_1998/Rose/Arc_4.html [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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Columbia University Press, 2003, Hannes Meyer, Architecture, Biographies [online]. Available from: http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/M/MeyerHa.html [Accessed 11 January 2004].

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