Model of Worker’s Club, designed and build by Aleksandr Rodchenko and his students, at the exposition of applied and decorative arts in Paris, 1925

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or six years the Bauhaus shared a building with the more traditionalist Weimar Academy of Art in a delicate balancing act. But balance could not be sustained. The Academy eventually warred with Gropius. He fought back unsuccessfully, and was forced to move the school. The sad tale played out against a background of bohemian students and staid burghers.

 

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"Jump Over the Bauhaus”, c. 1927

Photo by T. Lux Feininger © Estate of T. Lux Feininger

Although Weimar was a model German city and home of enlightenment, where Goethe and Schiller once lived, it was also a medieval town of burghers uninterested in the avant-garde experiments of the Bauhaus. The conservative populace was shocked by the look and behavior of the students and teachers as well as the musical and theatrical performances. The school’s new location, Dessau, was more of an industrial city, and thus welcomed the institution with new buildings (designed by Gropius). Their modernity and functionality were intended to encourage and inspire students and teachers alike.

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Melnikov pavilion in Paris, 1925

 

 

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he year of the triumph of Vkhutemas students students and teachers at the exposition of applied and decorative arts in Paris. The Soviet pavilion designed by Melnikov, a teacher in the architecture department, earned the respect of Le Corbusier, who called it the only building in the entire show worth looking at. Aleksandr Rodchenko and his students also designed and built a model workers’ club for the show.

 

 

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Model of Worker’s Club, designed and build by Aleksandr Rodchenko and his students, at the exposition of applied and decorative arts in Paris, 1925

 

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Worker’s Club. Reconstruction

Courtesy of Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Isaak Rabinovich, a professor in the department of theatrical decoration, was responsible for the asymmetrical, understated hall of the Government Printing House while Rodchenko designed the show at the Grand Palais and created the cover for the Soviet catalog.

 

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Interior to the USSR pavilion in Paris, 1925