Bauhaus, Before, and Beyond: German Design from Gründerzeit to Ulm School
Decades before the opening of the Bauhaus School in 1919, German design
asserted its remarkable power and presence, endowing everyday things with a
unique agency within the social, cultural, and political landscape of modern
Germany. This course surveys the development of German design, domestic
architecture, and interiors from the Gründerzeit,
or “Founders’ Time” after Germany’s 1871 unification, through the closing of
the Ulm School of Design in 1968. It emphasizes the active role that design
played during this tumultuous and transformative period in German cultural
politics, focusing particularly on the critical discourse and pedagogical
theory that developed around objects and environments of everyday use. While
the course positions the Bauhaus as a pivotal point in the history of design,
it encourages students to expand their vision of German design and its theory
by looking “before” to institutions such as the Debschitz School in Munich, and
“beyond” to the Ulm School of Design. Moving from Jugendstil, to the German
Werkbund, to Weimar culture, to Postwar design in capitalist West and communist
East Germany, we will consider how visions of regionalism, nationalism, and a
collective “past” informed the development of modern German design, and,
finally, how the pivotal German concept of Sachlichkeit—objectivity,
matter-of-factness, or “thingliness”—inflected each new incarnation of German
modernism. In addition to a fieldtrip to MoMA’s lately reinstalled design
collection, the course will feature guest lectures on special topics, including
the significance of modern German print culture and the role of color in modern
German architecture, by experts in the field. 3 credits.