The Bauhaus was an art institute in Germany founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius, with the aim of unifying art and technology in the machine age. According to the Gropius Manifesto of 1919, “The ultimate goal of all art is the building.” The school believed in teaching a new way of seeing in which the character of a building was perceived as the totality of its parts. The key principle of the new architecture—“form follows function”—combined architecture and engineering, its principal mission a radical simplification that would provide an architecture for the masses. The core principles are that construction should be rational, functional, honest and simple in form and should embrace emerging technology.
In 1933, while Ludwig Mies van der Rohe headed the school, political pressure had caused the closing of the Bauhaus. After World War II many founding members emigrated to the Unites States, where faculty and architects joined prominent U.S. architecture schools. Their goal was to reinvent America’s post-war identity. Among the noted architects and designers who found teaching opportunities and opened practices were Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer who taught at Harvard and the Institute of Design, which was founded in Chicago by Laszlo Maholy-Nagy and became known as The New Bauhaus.
By Michele Kolb
http://www.princetonmagazine.com/princeton-bauhaus-modern/
Michele Kolb is an architect, licensed in both New Jersey and New York, a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), and a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP).
She has 30 years of professional experience working with some of the most prestigious designers and architects in the country. Her experience includes historic restoration and LEED-certified projects. She lives and practices in Princeton and New York City. Her father was the Swiss Bauhaus architect, Otto Kolb. Additional article research by Brian Poirier.