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Nikolai Ladovsky (standing with a hat in his hand) on the early stage of work on Red Stadium designed by Vkhutemas students, 1924

 

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he traditional system of education, beginning with a survey of art history before proceeding to practical training, was rejected and replaced by a Renaissance system of individual studios, although this meant the loss of much that was scientifically sound.

 

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.”

“Acrobatics”, scene II, produced by Oskar Schlemmer, 1927

Photo by Erich Consemüller © Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

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Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1929

© Mondrian/Holtzman Trust 

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ropius worked with De Stijl, the Dutch creative group that includes Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, and
J. J. P. Oud, and the Bauhaus became strongly involved with ideas of neoplasticism, De Stijl’s theory of the equality of opposites: verticals and horizontals, vacancies and masses, black and white, seen as representing the opposition of natural forces.

A poster by Herbert Boyer with words Weimar, Ausstellung, Staatliches Bauhaus and exhibition dates

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Herbert Bayer, design rough for a poster. 1923, tempera and Indian ink over pencil on paper, 43.6×31.9 cm. Courtesy of the Bush-Reisigner Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, gift of Herbert Bayer.

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.

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Nikolai Ladovsky with the students of his workshop at the VKhUTEIN architectural department, late 1920s

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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.