Readymag Stories: Bauhaus

SHM (Free State Art Studios), the predecessor of Vkhutemas, was created in the wake of the Russian revolution of 1917 to develop a new, “revolutionary” approach to artist training. Much of the impulse to create the studios came from students of two very different schools, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture and the Stroganov School of Applied Art, which merged to form GSHM. The restructuring was intended to dilute the perceived elitism of the Moscow School of Painting with an institution more in step with the spirit of the age. Students believed that the free studios, where every educational phase occurs under the guidance of the same instructor, better fostered the individuality of the student.

lthough the Bauhaus was founded by an architect who considered the merging of arts and crafts key to creating an architecture of the future, for years Gropius remained the sole architect on staff. In fact, architecture was not taught until 1927. The school’s methods developed gradually and intuitively, as Gropius recruited specialists in diverse fields whose views he found interesting – and often similar to his own. One of the school’s great early personalities was Johannes Itten, an advocate for artistic intuition, a cultic (Mazdaznanist) vegetarian, and highly sensitive, considerate teacher who designed the school’s signature introductory course. The Circle of Life describes the number and kinds of subjects studied:

It soon became clear that the previous academic system needed to be replaced by a confirmable method, not a guild process of on-the-job instruction. Nikolai Ladovsky, the architect, played a crucial role in this. He developed a psychoanalytic methodology whose primary emphasis was space, “not stone, as the basic material of architecture.” The school’s introductory course, required of all students, was based in no small measure on Ladovsky’s ideas. “Space” was supplemented by courses on “Color,” “Form,” and “Graphics.”

Wisely, the facet of neoplasticism which most interested the Bauhaus was its aesthetics –abstraction, minimalism, primary colors (red, blue, yellow), basic forms, straight lines – rather than its mysticism. Johannes Itten also emphasized the notion of oppositions (or, in his terminology, “contrasts”) though he argued them from a different perspective. At Gropius’ invitation, Lothar Schreyer began teaching at the Bauhaus, including a course on “Form.”

Schreyer founded the Bauhaus theater studio but his name was virtually erased from the annals of the school due to his Nazi sympathies. Nonetheless, theater became one of the school’s great strengths, especially under the direction of its next leader, Oskar Schlemmer. Like many Bauhaus teachers Schreyer was deeply influenced by Expressionism, which is evident in his theater work.

hile the Bauhaus remained a small, close-knit school, the staff and students at Vkhutemas were less of one mind. Avant-garde views flourished, especially amongst the school’s architecture faculty, as Ladovsky’s approach won more and more followers, achieving impressive results. Since architects must think spatially, Ladovsky advocated working on three-dimensional objects in actual space, not just on paper, and later rendering the detailed plans on blueprints.

This maquette method encouraged imagination and led to new approaches and the incorporation of unusual materials. This was the year, too, of an incident that threw light on the larger social-political context. During a visit from Lenin visited he inquired, “Perhaps there is even a Futurist among you?” only to be answered unhesitatingly: “Plenty.” Lenin left unhappy, apparently not enthused by the thought of artistic revolution. This was also the year of Wassily Kandinsky’s departure from the Soviet Union (never to return, it turned out). Although Kandinsky never taught at Vkhutemas he became a leading figure in INKhUK (the Institute of Art Culture), which worked closely with Vkhutemas.