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‘Rethinking the world’: Bauhaus celebrates 100 years

From spiral staircases to curving chairs, the creative yet practical designs of Bauhaus are one of a kind. Next year, the Bauhaus will celebrate 100 years since its founding in Germany.

Published: 6 September 2018 16:08 CEST
Updated: 7 September 2018 11:35 CEST
'Rethinking the world': Bauhaus celebrates 100 years
Staircase in the main building of the Bauhaus University, Weimar. Photo: DPR

Founded by Berlin Architect Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus Art School continues to shape art, architecture and design all over the world. In the coming year, Germany will celebrate the centenary of the Bauhaus with the motto “Die Welt neu denken”: re-thinking the world.

Hundreds of events are already occurring throughout Germany and across the globe to pay homage to the revolutionary style of design.

The classic designs of the Bauhaus have long played a part in our everyday lives. Wagenfeld’s desk lamp, Brandt’s semi-spherical teapot and Mies's 'free-swigning' chair are amongst those regarded as the most significant.

The school was quickly branded as a breeding ground for modernity, and teachers such as Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky made the school in Thürigen a meeting place for the international avant-garde.

In 1925, the Bauhaus moved to Saxony-Anhalt in east Germany and the up-and-coming industrial city of Dessau. It re-located again in 1933, this time to Berlin. After this move, the political pressure of the Nazis and a drastic reduction of funds forced the Bauhaus to end, and many teachers fled abroad to continue their work. The organizers of the centenary events emphasize that despite its short 14-year existence, the Bauhaus has revolutionized design and artistic thinking worldwide.

The entrance to Berlin's Bauhaus-Archiv. Photo: DPA

“For us, the anniversary is a platform to convey the relevance of the Bauhaus ideas in the 21st century”, says Annemarie Jaeggi, the director of the Berlin's Bauhaus-Archiv, which has the world's largest Bauhaus history collection.

Between 500 and 600 events have been planned in Germany to celebrate. These events include exhibitions, readings, performances and round table discussions. A highlight of the planned events is the ‘Grand Tour Modernism’ programme, which takes visitors on a specially designed route to 100 iconic places of architectural history throughout Germany.

The featured sites include the UNESCO-protected Horseshoe Estate in Berlin, the Black Forest Hall in Karlsruhe and the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden.

“We do not want the anniversary to be about celebrating something historical. Instead we want it to show the traces that the Bauhaus has left to this day”, says Christian Bodach, head of the office of the Bauhaus Association in Weimar.

Ludwig Mies's 'free-swinging' chair in Stuttgart Stadtmuseum. Photo: DPA

The three Bauhaus institutions in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin will also play a central role in the anniversary year. In three major exhibitions they will present a comprehensive view of the Bauhaus legacy with the use of previously unseen treasures from their collections.

The year will also be marked by a large opening festival in Berlin with the patronage of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. From January 16-24th, 2019, the Academy of Arts will focus on the influence that the Bauhaus had on theatre, dance, film and music. Selected international artists will be invited to develop their visions for the 21st century as “radically contemporary”, just of those of the school’s founders once were.

The Kornhaus in Dessau, designed by Bauhaus architect Carl Fieger and opened in 1930. Photo: DPA

The exhibition and research project Bauhaus Imaginista has been running since this spring. In cooperation with the Goethe-Institut and well-known museums in Japan and China, Russia and Brazil, researchers and artists are discovering the movement’s global interconnections. India, the USA, Morocco and Nigeria are also taking part. The outcome of the project will be presented in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin in 2019.

However, the biggest birthday gift is the new buildings being built in the three Bauhaus cities. In the coming years, a total of more than 6500 square meters of new exhibition space will be created. The 52 million euros required for the project are coming from the budget of the Cultural Minister, Monika Grütters (CDU), in the hope that this is how the Bauhaus legacy will be preserved for future generations.

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ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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