Following on from the 2011 exhibition “Kibbutz and Bauhaus“, the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau is currently presenting a further exhibition devoted to the global reach of Bauhaus.

Or perhaps better put, a further exhibition devoted to exploring the extent of the global network to which Bauhaus and its students belonged.

This time the journey goes to India.

And whereas “Kibbutz and Bauhaus” was largely concerned with architecture and urban planning, “Bauhaus in Calcutta” is pure art.

In 1922 the Indian Society of Oriental Art staged an exhibition which presented works by Bauhaus artists such as Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Johannes Itten alongside pieces by leading figures in the Indian avant-garde movement including Shanta Devi, Nandalal Bose and Gaganendranath Tagore.

As much as an art exhibition the 1922 show was also a dialogue between two emerging avant-garde movements; two emerging avant-garde movements which although with very different backgrounds and motivations were linked by numerous common principles.

Consequently, although Bauhaus in Calcutta does present ca. 160 works of art it is much more about the background to the Calcutta exhibition than the exhibition itself.

Bauhaus in Calcutta opens by explaining the origins of the Indian art movements associated with the Indian Society of Art and the Bengal School, before moving on to explore the role played by what the curators refer to as the “World Cities” – Berlin, London, Vienna and Calcutta – in propagating the intellectual and cultural networks that enabled such an exhibition to be staged in addition to looking at similarities and differences between the situations in Germany and India in the early part of the 20th century.

Having explained the background, the exhibition moves on to present works by selected Indian and “Bauhaus” artists; although – and in contrast to what we initially thought – not all of the works on display in Dessau were shown in Calcutta.

Rather the exhibition is a “representative reconstruction” of the 1922 exhibition: that is some original works that were shown in India, some “reference pieces” by artists who were presented and reproductions of works from the original exhibition.

Although it would obviously be nice to have had solely works from 1922 on display, given the 90 years that have passed since the Calcutta exhibition and the relatively poor level of original documentation it is to be expected that the curators couldn’t find and/or borrow the original works.

As such their “representative reconstruction” is a perfectly valid alternative and provides a wonderful illustration of what exhibition visitors in 1922 would have experienced. Or at least we trust it does….

What Bauhaus in Calcutta doesn’t do is reflect in any great depth on the long-term consequences of the 1922 exhibition and in particular in how far the Indian art community was influenced by exposure the German guests.

Or vice versa.

However, given the 90 years that have passed since the Calcutta exhibition and the relatively poor level of original documentation…

India, or perhaps better put the Indian sub-continent, did of course, eventually, get to grips with the consequences of Bauhaus: Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn being two of the most prominent modernists to leave their mark on the region, but also in 1958 Charles and Ray Eames wrote their “India Report” for the Indian Government which ultimately led to the establishment of the Indian National Institute of Design.

In how far these later developments can be linked to the contacts and experiences made in 1922, is still open to debate.

And in our opinion, a nice idea for a follow-up exhibition.

“Bauhaus in Calcutta. A Meeting of the Cosmopolitan Avant-garde” can be viewed at the Bauhaus Stiftung Dessau until June 30th 2013.

In addition to the exhibition there is also an extensive accompanying programme of talks, concerts and workshops.

Full details can be found at: www.bauhaus-dessau.de

Until June 23rd 2013 the Klassik Stiftung Weimar are presenting the exhibition “Henry van de Velde. Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit”

Conceived to celebrate Henry van de Velde’s 150th anniversary “Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit” is, according to the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, the first exhibition to fully explore van de Velde’s complete creativity from his earliest artistic endeavours over his applied arts and furniture design work and onto his architecture, interior design and teaching.

The legend Henry van de Velde is well known and quickly explained: He came from Belgium, was Director of the Kunstgewerbe School in Weimar, in 1915 he suggested Walter Gropius as his successor. Gropius founded Bauhaus.

That there must be a lot more to the man is clear. Just how much more is explained in the course of “Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit”

Klassik Stiftung Weimar: Henry van de Velde. Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit

The first thing to say about the exhibition is that it is extensive. Very extensive.

Presenting some 700 objects over 1400 sqm on two floors of the Neues Museum Weimar, “Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit” isn’t an exhibition you can rush round in your lunch break. It takes time. And deserves that time.

The exhibition opens with Henry van de Velde’s artistic training in Antwerp and Brussels before moving quickly through the early years of his career and the subsequent progression away from art and towards applied arts, furniture design and architecture. The second part of the exhibition looks at, amongst other themes, his relationship with the expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and his time after Weimar, for all his attempts to repeat his Weimar success with the La Cambre College of Media and Design in Brussels.

Everything that you would expect to find is there; pottery, silversmithery, paintings, furniture, architecture….

And a few unexpected highlights including a model of the steamer “Prince Baudouin” for which van de Velde designed the interior, a number of early van de Velde paintings à la van Gogh and examples of the genial desks and chairs he created for Ghent University library.

The result is to provide a wide, if neccessarily shallow, overview of Henry van de Velde and his canon. Necessarily shallow as even given the space available, covering each topic in any great depth is an impossibility.

However what the organisers have achieved is highly commendable and a real joy to explore.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar: Henry van de Velde. Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit

In the various press notes and catalogues the curators make regular reference to the exhibition setting Henry van de Velde in the context of his age through comparisons with contemporaries. If we’re honest we didn’t experience that. We suspect because the exhibition concept simply doesn’t inspire you to explore it as such.

And therein lies, for us, the one great disappointment with the exhibition.

The layout.

To call it dull would be to do a great disservice to spending a wet Sunday alone in a remote hut without electricity, reading material or radio and confined to bed with a bad back.

We really had expected a little more imagination.

It is after all a major Henry van de Velde exhibition. In Weimar.

For all the presentation on the first floor is regrettable and while things unquestionably pick up on the ground floor: the question is if the average visitor’s interest can be held that long.

The exhibits themselves are on the whole interesting, the texts informative and easy to read. And while it is helpful if you bring a little advance knowledge with you, one genuinely learns.

It would just have been nice if someone had spent a couple of minutes thinking about the context in which the objects are presented. A chair on a low-pedestal against an off-white wall is not inspiring.

And quite why the organisers felt the need to hide the Ionic pillars on the lower floor defies us. Especially as they are only half-hidden. One gets a sense of what could be. An infuriating sense.
Henry van de Velde had nothing against Ionic pillars. Use them, exploit them and let the exhibition breath.

In the exhibition press release the organisers speak of how Henry van de Velde remained true to his maxim that “… the design of an object is the more accomplished, the more exactly the design correlates with its purpose”

The word “object” can be readily exchanged with “exhibition”

In his introduction to the accompanying programme, exhibition curator Thomas Föhl defines the first aim of the exhibition as providing visitors with an “… interesting experience that is as sensory as it is enthralling”

And while the exhibition is without question interesting. No one can call it enthralling. Far less sensory.

And so, and to paraphrase Henry van de Velde, having partially missed its purpose, Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit isn’t as accomplished as it could, or indeed should, be.

Sadly.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar: Henry van de Velde. Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit

Although Henry van de Velde wasn’t single-handedly responsible for laying the golden path to European modernism, he did play one of the more important roles and has more than earned his place in history and the respect of future generations.

The joy of “Henry van de Velde. Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit” is that it doesn’t really touch directly upon that aspect. Henry van de Velde’s contribution to the development of Modernism is visible, but doesn’t dominate. Rather the exhibition moves alongside those developments that created the van de Velde legend to present a portrait of an artist, designer and architect in the context of his creativity rather than his influence.

As such it offers a fleeting insight into a creative talent for whom the term Gesamtkunstwerk can be applied to the man as much as to his approach to his work.

Consequently, and despite the shortcomings in the presentation, is to be recommended.

“Henry van de Velde. Leidenschaft, Funktion und Schönheit” can be viewed until June 23rd 2013 at the Neues Museum, Weimarplatz 5, 99423 Weimar.

Full details can be found at: www.klassik-stiftung.de

In addition, from March 29th until 12th May the Bauhaus University Weimar is presenting an exhibition of all Henry van de Velde’s buildings. Organised and curated by the architecture students “Der Architekt Henry van de Velde” employs 3D computer models to recreate the exteriors and interiors of van de Velde’s canon.

Full details, and the free exhibition App, can be found at www.uni-weimar.de/projekte/vandevelde/ausstellung/

With over 100 members of the public getting in touch and 59 fake Wilhelm Wagenfeld WG 24 lamps being exchanged for licensed originals, Bremen based manufacturer Tecnolumen have declared themselves very satisfied with their recent “No Fake” promotion.

Not least because they sense an increased and increasing awareness amongst consumers as to the problems associated with unlicensed copies; especially in association with Bauhaus era products

Among the more interesting points made by the company in their post promotion press release is that the majority of those who got in touch said they had unwittingly bought a fake.

Without wanting to accuse anyone of lying, if you know a lamp would normally cost around Euro 400, and then you buy one for Euro 99.

Don’t tell us you didn’t smell anything fishy.

And certainly all those who admitted knowingly buying a copy told Tecnolumen they did so because the copy was cheaper.

Which for us tends to point towards an industry that needs to do more to explain why the products cost what they cost.

In the past we’ve written about the quality and safety issues than can arise when you invest in cheap copies. But what’s often less understood among consumers is that much contemporary and designer furniture isn’t mass produced in factories employing thousands of workers chained to conveyor belts.

It’s often produced in small, specialist workshops.

Last year, for example, we spoke to one European manufacturer who told us that if a product sells less than 20 pieces per year it is taken out of their collection.

Twenty. A year. That is not an operation that is optimised towards large scale 24 hour production.

Or on our recent visit to the Müller Möbelwerkstatt factory in Augsburg we met a small team producing each unit to order by hand. That’s the quality and guarantee you are paying for.

In the past designer furniture manufacturers have often staged media friendly events involving crushing pirated copies of their products, or have invested thousands sending out press releases explaining that they have won a court decision that protects their rights.

The effect of such actions can however only be limited. As those who come into contact with them still don’t understand why they should buy the more expensive licensed originals

Why not instead concentrate on preventing the purchase of copies in the first place through being more open and transparent about where and how the products are produced.
And so why they cost what they cost.

In doing so you don’t destroy the magic behind the product, rather increase the value of the product through association with quality, qualified production.

OK one should at the same also appeal for a more open debate about the level of licensing fees paid for designs over 50 years old in comparison to those paid for new works, but we appreciate that for reasons of “commercial sensitivity” such is unlikely. If in our opinion desirable.

Such an approach wouldn’t completely solve the problems as we still have the appalling lifestyle magazines and their depiction of quality as something visual: It looks like something high quality if must be something high quality. A situation that fires the plagiarism industry.

But it would be start in a positive, new direction……

WG 24 by Wilhelm Wagenfeld through Tecnolumen

Older readers will be well aware of the high esteem in which we hold the Bauhaus educated designer Marianne Brandt.

And of the fact that every time we write about her we invariably end up offending half of Saxony.

So. Deep breath. Fingers crossed. Here goes…..

In 2013 the Chemnitz Art Society Villa Arte will be hosting the 5th International Marianne Brandt Contest.

A triannual celebration of international contemporary design the 5th edition of the competition not only continues the search for objects and photographs that represent the “Poetry of the Functional” but also promises a one day Marianne Brandt symposium.

Which we think is an excellent idea.

Marianne Brandt Contest 2010: Marlen Pelny performs a Marianne Brandt poem under the artist's watchful eye.

One of our highlights of 2012 was the exhibition “Bauhaus. Art as Life” at the Barbican in London.

Not just because the flight to “The Island” meant the chance to enjoy a couple of genuinely decent beers on the way home, but also because of the new dimension to many of the Bauhaus proragonist’s outputs it presented.

Including of course Marriane Brandt.

In our interview with the curator Lydia Yee she flagged up Brandt’s collages as being among those rarely seen objects that had helped her better understand Bauhaus and its legacy.

We can only concur. But not just the collages. The exhibition was awash with rarely seen perspectives on Brandt’s work.

Design being what it is it is all too easy for a designer to be reduced to one or two “trademark” objects while the rest of their life’s work is simply ignored.

Yes Marianne Brandt’s tea service is excellent. But is one project. Exploring the rest of her work you discover aspects of her character and philosophy that you simply cannot extrapolate from a tea service.

“Bauhaus. Art as Life” presented that chance and while the International Marianne Brandt Contest is without question an excellent platform for keeping the life and work of Marianne Brandt in the public eye, a little more explanation of who she was, what she did and why she is so important wouldn’t go amiss. And would ensure that she remained relevant for young designers. We hope the symposium can achieve that.

A selection of lamp designs by Marianne Brandt at "Bauhaus. Art as Life"

In addition to the regular Product Design and Photography categories, the 2013 International Marianne Brandt Contest includes the special category “Cradle to Cradle” for Sustainable Design.

Which makes our hearts sink a little. Or to be honest, a lot.

For us “Sustainable Design” awards are a bit like 3D films – a passing bandwagon that everyone suddenly feels that they need to jump on. Regardless if they know the final destination or not.

Why not just make sustainability a criteria for winning the prize?

Job done.

Looking back at the 2010 International Marianne Brandt Contest many of the entries were sustainable. Very sustainable even. And it is to be expected that many 2013 entries will also be. Intelligent contemporary designers working outwith the confines of commercial contracts invariably consider resources, life-cycles, energy supply and recycling/disposal when developing their projects.

Making “Sustainable Design” an extra category doesn’t help advance any dialogue about sustainability in design, rather it keeps it as a “feature” in the public’s view. However if design is to be truly sustainable we all – designers, consumers, “lifestyle bloggers”, manufacturers, politicians – have to understand stability as part of design’s remit.

Regardless, we’re just happy to have the International Marianne Brandt Contest back.

We’ve missed it. Honest.

The 2010 International Marianne Brandt Contest famously introduced us to two projects that still excite and fascinate us – Mechthild by Christoph Schmidt and Damensattel by Caspar Huckfeldt – and we fully expect the 2013 edition to be just as stimulating, invigorating, innovating and challenging.

Entries for the 2013 International Marianne Brandt Contest cannot be submitted until May 2013 and so you’ve got time to develop a killer project.

The competition is open to all designers, regardless of how professional. The only proviso is that you must be under 40: which of course sadly rules out most residents of Chemnitz.

So close. Sooooo close.

More details on the 2013 International Marianne Brandt Contest can be found at http://marianne-brandt-wettbewerb.de

International Marianne Brandt Contest 2013

There are a thousand good reasons to avoid travelling through Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport.

And a couple of very good reasons.

The public transport connections, for example, between Israel’s only relevant international airport and Israel’s only relevant metropolises are so arduous and poorly co-ordinated it makes one long for the days of The Crusades, when reaching Jaffa or Jerusalem from Europe involved little more taxing than travelling for eight weeks by horse and sailing ship.

And then having explored the country and found it to be an open, friendly, tolerant, welcoming nation, on attempting to depart Israel one is, albeit in cowardly silence, accused of having only travelled to the country to source explosives which you now plan to detonate on your flight home. And are treated with the according lack of respect.

However, by far the best reason to avoid flying at least out of Ben Gurion Airport Tel Aviv comes after the marathon “Where have you hidden the bomb?” rubdown.

Having made it through security before old age and/or boredom kills you, you arrive in a shopping oasis. A shopping oasis strewn with the cheapest Le Corbusier LC2 copies we believe we have ever seen.

Le Corbusier LC2 copies at Ben Gurion Airport Tel Aviv.

That “Bauhaus Tel Aviv” isn’t, is slowly being understood. But then the architects responsible never pretended it was. Popular convention has resulted in the sobriquet.

And while the overwhelming majority of architects who built The White City may not have been Bauhaus alumni per se, they were of an age and time when the teachings of Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and co were very much en vogue. Plus as we know, at the same time as Tel Aviv was being built numerous Bauhaus graduates were busy building the Kibbutzim. It would somehow be perverse if there had been no interaction, no attempt to channel the brave new ideas.

There was, therefore, no copying or faking going on… just a lot of interpreting current trends from afar.

And they did a fantastic job of it and have created a varied, interesting and functional urban environment.

The furniture is a different story.

The chairs in Ben Gurion Airport are copies of someone else’s work. Bad, poor quality copies that give the impression that neither designer nor producer have the faintest idea as to what they are doing.

And so whereas the buildings in downtown Tel Aviv reinforce the positive elements of the generic “Bauhaus” style. The chairs in the airport devalue Le Corbusier’s canon and his contribution to 20th century design.

That the state controlled Israel Airports Authority have chosen such chairs for Ben Gurion Airport is not just reprehensible, it’s also highly regrettable.

When we were speaking to British design professionals ahead of the London Olympics several expressed their satisfaction at how the authorities in the UK were incorporating British designers into major infrastructure projects and thus giving British design a platform. One of the most regularly quoted projects was Heathrow Airport.

Airports are obviously gateways; it’s not an analogy you need you have studied semantics to understand. People from foreign lands pass through airports. As a general rule twice. In quick succession.

One can therefore use them as a platform for presenting all that is good, challenging, interesting, exciting, stereotypical, modern, profitable, vibrant, different in your country.

Or, in the case of Ben Gurion Airport Tel Aviv, show your complete contempt for creative talent.

Israel may not have the greatest depth of design talent, but what it has is excellent. From the likes of Ron Arad (Tel Aviv, 1951) over Arik Levy (Tel Aviv, 1963) or Jair Straschnow (Rehovot, 1965) and on to the ever reliable flow of high-quality graduates from internationally recognised institutions such as the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem, including the London based design studio Raw Edges (Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay, both Tel Aviv 1976), Israeli designers have made and continue to make an important contribution to the evolution of global design. And of course since 2010 the Design Museum Holon has provided a national focus point for contemporary design.

Ten kms away Ben Gurion Airport invest in very cheap, very poor copies of internationally recognised design classics.

Inexplicably.

And so maybe, in retrospect, when all is said and done, it is perhaps not such a bad thing that security takes so long, otherwise we’d all have to endure the farce even longer.

From afar they may make a good impression... but don't get too close.

Ever since DMY Berlin inaugurated their “Three from Ten” Awards in 2009 the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin has honoured the nominees and prize winners with an autumn exhibition.

2012 is no different and the exhibition “DMY Awards and Jury Selection 2012″ can be viewed in Berlin until mid-October.

It is of course only logical that the Bauhaus Archiv should take an interest in largely experimental and conceptual design projects.

For although today heavily stained with cliché and tainted by the passing of time, the Bauhaus was largely an experimental and conceptual institution that challenged students to think in new ways and so discover new answers.

And so in hosting the DMY Awards exhibition the Bauhaus Archiv is simply remaining true to the tradition they aim to maintain through the more “regular” historical, muséal, exhibitions.

Bauhaus Archiv Berlin: DMY Awards and Jury Selection 2012

As an exhibition “DMY Awards and Jury Selection 2012″ is pretty self-explanatory. It doesn’t tell a story. It doesn’t explore anything. It doesn’t challenge.

It presents 10 projects that do all those things.

Back in June Andrea Brena promised us a new “Knitted Army” piece for the Bauhaus Archiv exhibition. And he hasn’t disappointed. Taking the results of a little arm knitting and combining it with a metal frame he has turned an otherwise abstract piece into a chair.
And so taken the project up a level.

The other projects are pretty much as you were. Which is fine. Not least because most of them were largely “complete”
But also because in the more relaxed and unhurried surroundings of the Bauhaus Archiv one has time to reflect a little longer and question a little deeper than one did in Tempelhof.

We, for example, still don’t really see the long term aim of Jólan van der Wiel’s Gravity Stool project. In the Bauhaus Archiv exhibition we have the space to consider it.
And indeed at a workshop on October 11th to discuss it with Jólan.

Gravity Stool by Jólan van der Wiel.

Elsewhere Mobile Gastfreundschaft by chmara.rosinke and Future Travels by Hanemaai are still challenging our sedentary nature, Agri-Expo Yunlin are still promoting bamboo and Rockwell Group are still getting kids to do the work and build their own play parks with their Imagination Playground.

But then all ten projects have something to say and a reason to explore them.

“DMY Awards and Jury Selection 2012″ can be viewed at the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin until October 15th.

If your in the German capital we’d recommend you do.

Full details, including information on the extensive accompanying programme can be found at www.bauhaus.de

Andrea Brena's new "Knitted Army Chair"

Return by Sa’ Bella Design/Sally Lin. Part of Farmer's Creativity

Bauhaus Archiv Berlin: DMY Awards and Jury Selection 2012

Irritating as they are, forgers are rarely daft.

You only very occasionally find one purveying, for example, fake Billy Ray Cyrus albums. Or fake Greek State Bonds.

They prefer to stick to things they are certain they can sell with ease.

Which is why Bauhaus furniture is so highly regarded by professional forging gangs.

Not only is everyone familiar with the important pieces, but it all looks so simple. Who can tell the difference?

However, aside from the potential safety issues, a copy never lives up to the construction quality of the original nor bestows that ineffable extra value a quality produced object brings to a space.

And so most people realise far too late that the price that seemed too good to be true. Was.

One of the most commonly copied Bauhaus era products is the WG 24, one of the so-called Bauhaus Lamps by Wilhelm Wagenfeld.  A piece that fits perfectly into the categories “instantly recognisable” and “much sought-after”

And so as part of a campaign to highlight the problem of fake furniture design classics, the Bremen based producer, and sole licence holder and so sole authorised producer of the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Bauhaus Lamps, Tecnolumen are offering to exchange your unauthorised WG 24 copy for the real thing.

A chance, as it were, for all victims of unscrupulous dealers to finally get the product they thought they were purchasing.

The promotion runs from September 15th 2012 until November 15th 2012, is however only open to private individuals resident in Germany. And is limited to the first 100 applicants

Full details on “No Fake”, including the somewhat detailed terms and conditions can be found at www.no-fake.info

WG 24 by Wilhelm Wagenfeld

When we mentioned it last year it was just intended as a cheap pun. But slowly we can see a lot of sense in changing the name of the annual end of year exhibition at the Bauhaus University Weimar to Autumnery.

For as with Summaery 2011, Summaery 2012 wasn’t.

And although we had the feeling that this years show was less extensive than last years, we still found plenty to distract us from the unseasonal weather.

Among the highlights for us were the results of the classes “Falter” which challenged students to create products through folding, bending, arching etc, not processes that necessarily always create good products but the results presented certainly reinforced the value of such processes in product design and “ex und hopp” which looked at increasing the lifecyles of products. The highpoint in “ex und hopp” was probably Juusto by Josephine Peterknecht a device for turning “old” milk into cheese and which we’d really like to see in action as, and despite reading the brochure, we still don’t really get it. But love the concept.

Juusto from Josephine Peterknecht

Regular readers will be aware that there is one room in the Weimar campus complex that always contains a presentation that mildly disappoints us.
Was would now be the correct verb form.

Having taken the hint from our constant whinging, that particular room wasn’t open this year; and so the mildly disappointing show was forced to move across the courtyard.

For us the “Hygiene – Händewaschen hilft, nützt aber nichts!” class looking at improving hospital hygiene missed the point a little. Now we know the students had specialist assistance from Jena Uni Hospital and we don’t want to pick a fight with microbiologists…..

…..although that said, there is one member of the (smow)blog team who almost got into a brawl once over the generic name of the bacteria that causes the bubonic plague. And so, in that tradition.
We can well believe that those bacteria which cause infections are mainly transported by the hands. But the hands aren’t the cause. They are the mechanical transportation.

Classic product design in the sense of objects to make disinfecting your hands easier is therefore no long term solution – except of course for the financial worries of the global disinfectant industry – as it doesn’t tackle any problem. Reducing bacterial spread is a process design issue, and while there were admittedly a couple of nice attempts at influencing staff behaviour for the better, for us too much of the exhibition focused on making sure medical staff always had a ready supply of disinfectant. Which we felt was a shame because it is an area where designers have a lot to offer.

Although that said reducing infection is ultimately a medical question, a question of how hospitals work and if hospitals shouldn’t use less drugs and perform less operations. And indeed admit fewer patients.
As a society we medicine too much, and in terms of remaining fit and healthy, less is, as any design student should know, more.

Elsewhere the 2012 Diploma show contained one and half, possibly one and two half really good projects, the rest just not really floating our boat, but more on that later; the results of the class “Lernen Kochen und Essen” exploring how to improve and optimise the experience and pedagogic value of school meals produced a couple of outstanding responses; and the now traditional exhibition of workplace solutions contained an intoxicating mix of the sublime and ridiculous. But hey, that’s what such courses are all about, setting the students a brief and seeing what they make of and with it.

A special mention must also go to the band who played the Rolling.Stage.Solar on the early part of the Thursday evening. We’re not sure what they were called, they did however make one of the most gorgeous and infectious sounds we have heard in a very, very long time. Top notch!

Catching insects in front of the Van De Velde Building, Bauhaus University Weimar. Possibly.

The Bauhaus University Weimar’s principle focus is architecture and art, product design has an important but not central role in the institution. A situation which means that while the majority of what is on show is interesting, it’s not something we can really get excited about. Room upon room of architectural models and sketches are undoubtedly important, but not something we want to spend too long trying to decipher. Especially when we neither know nor particularly care about the context of the object/area involved.

However it is exactly this focus away from our principle focus that always makes a visit to Summaery fascinating, because we do find ourselves being forced to continually reappraise situations and are invariably led down new paths of thought. And that is why we always make the effort to go to Weimar.

That and the fact that it doesn’t matter what the weather is like during our visit, heading back to Leipzig we are always treated to the most fantastic sunsets. The sort of sunset that truly reaffirms your faith in the world and makes you feel you can take on anything the future may hold for you.

Summaery 2012 at Bauhaus University Weimar can be viewed until Sunday July 15th 2012.

Below a few impressions from Summaery 2012 at Bauhaus University Weimar.

Until October 31st 2012 Bauhaus Dessau is showing the exhibition “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture”

Presenting a wide-ranging look at Breuer’s furniture and architectural legacy “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture” is a product of the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein and is curated by the journalist/curator/lecturer Mathias Remmele.

At the exhibition opening we caught up with Mathias Remmele for a quick chat about Marcel Breuer, his work and his influences.

(smow)blog: From the exhibition it is clear that Marcel Breuer started working with wood and then later switched to steel tubing. Why the switch? Do we known what the motivation was?

Mathias Remmele: Its not possible to say with 100% certainty; however, from Breuer himself comes the story that he was cycling one day, looked down at his handlebars and that was in effect the Eureka moment. Personally however I’m not convinced that that is the complete story. There is also conjecture that it could have had its roots in the Junker aircraft factory that was also here in Dessau, had connections to Bauhaus and which used steel and iron tubing, for example, for aircraft seats. But as I say, we don’t know with 100% certainty.

(smow)blog: But what is certain is that once he started, there was no holding him back….

Mathias Remmele: Indeed, he spent the next 6 years working very intensely with steel tubing and more or less designed all types of furniture that can be sensibly created with the material: numerous chairs, stools, tables, desks, even a bed…

(smow)blog: And was it the case Breuer approach, for example, Thonet with ideas for new pieces, or did Thonet commission him to create specific objects? Where, in effect, came the impetus to create new pieces?

Mathias Remmele: Again, and as with so much involving Breuer, that’s not something that is explicitly documented. However I assume that in the beginning Breuer approached Thonet with his ideas, but then from a certain point Thonet would have started to look at what objects would be interesting for them.

(smow)blog: Walter Gropius is a constant feature in Marcel Breuer’s biography. How was their relationship, was it father/son or more a strict teacher/pupil?

Mathias Remmele: I’d say more father/son and certainly a lifelong friendship. Walter Gropius identified Marcel Breuer’s talent very early in Weimar and encouraged and advanced his work before promoting him to a Young Master and head of the furniture workshop at Dessau. But also beyond the time at Bauhaus they remained in close contact and Walter Gropius always tried to use his contacts and his influence to help Marcel Breuer.

(smow)blog: Walter Gropius was not the only important influence on Breuer’s work, but also de Stijl. Where and how did Marcel Breuer first come into contact with the work and personalities of de Stijl?

Mathias Remmele: Members of de Stijl movement made contact with Bauhaus in the early 1920s and subsequently came to Weimar and held a lecture at which Bauhaus protagonists, including Breuer, and de Stil members got to know each other and each others works. And that had a very strong influence on Marcel Breuer, as can be seen in some of his earlier wood pieces.

(smow)blog: To end, can one see Marcel Breuer as a Bauhäusler, or is he more someone who was associated with the school, but never really absorbed the ideological, philosophical side of the whole thing?

Mathias Remmele: I think that one can see him without question as a Bauhäusler. The school greatly influenced him, and is associated with some very positive periods of his life. And after Bauhaus he remained in contact not just with Gropius but also with other individuals, for example Paul Klee who he greatly admired both painter and as a person. For me Marcel Breuer is simply the most important and most and interesting Bauhaus student!

The heavily "de Stijl" influenced Lattenstuhl by Marcel Breuer (1924). As seen at Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture, Bauhaus Dessau

A selection of steel tube chairs by Marcel Breuer. As seen at Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture, Bauhaus Dessau

Much as Gerrit Rietveld‘s career is publicly reduced down to the Rood-blauwe stoel, so too is it all to easy to imagine Marcel Breuer spent his days doing nothing more than creating chairs and tables from bent steel tubing.

Indeed start typing the name “Marcel Breuer” into google and the all-knowing, all-seeing algorithm will only offer you “Marcel Breuer Chair”, “Marcel Breuer Wassily Chair” and “Marcel Breuer Biography” as searches.

That the public impression of Marcel Breuer should be so monotone is all the more surprising given that the Breuer biography is without question one of the better known Bauhaus biographies. He is one of the few Bauhäusler about whom a TV quiz show would consider posing a question.

The exhibition “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture” currently on show at Bauhaus Dessau not only introduces the visitor to less well known, less well publicly explored, areas of his work, but presents one or the other rarely seen or barely known object from Marcel Breuer’s oeuvre. But for all makes very clear that important as his steel tube work was for 20th century European design, for Breuer himself it was an early and short lived phase of his creativity.

Doing what it says on the tin, “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture” is split into two sections. One looking at his design work, the other looking at his… you get the idea.

The B3 Club Chair (Wassily Chair) by Marcel Breuer @ Bauhaus Dessau

The design section of the exhibition is arranged chronologically and so starts with Breuer’s initial wood pieces, including the unmistakably de Stijl influenced – and appropriately coloured – Lattenstuhl, and an epic, almost steampunk, dressing table and chair combination he created in 1923 for the Haus am Horn in Weimar.

In the mid-1920s Marcel Breuer then started his ground-breaking experimentation with steel tubing, and naturally the genre is well represented in the exhibition, be it the “Wassily” B3 Club Chair in its various forms, Breuer’s numerous and varied collaborations with Thonet or his cantilever chair designs. What is particularly interesting to see is the construction variations Breuer experimented with in his furniture. For example his B 35 chair for Thonet is shown in a welded and a screwed version; the one obviously being suited to flat pack delivery and a modular furniture family. The other is more aesthetically pleasing.

However, whereas the steel tubing is without question his best known, and most important, epoch, for us the plywood section is by far the more interesting.

On the one hand because it was a material he was more or less forced to work with – the company Isokon having little interest in steel tube furniture and wanting instead the commercially more relevant wood – yet was a material with which he was able to produce some truly wonderful furniture; with the organic form language standing very much in contrast with what the majority of us associate with the name Marcel Breuer. Admittedly one has limited options with moulded plywood, but what Marcel Breuer achieved is truly a joy to behold.

But also because it shows that Breuer had an understanding of the commercial furniture industry that few of his contemporaries could match. His 1936 stacking chair being a particularly powerful example.

Examples of Marcel Breuer's moulded plywood work with Isokon. In the foreground the stacking chair

In contrast to the chronological design section, the architecture section is thematically divided into “Spaces”, “Houses” and what the curators refer to as “Volumes” – monolithic, almost brutalist, constructions that seem determined to justify and enforce their right to exist through their presence alone.

Each of the sections is explained through models, photos and sketches of representative buildings.

The most interesting display for us is that devoted to the BAMBOS project.

As a thousand Japanese tourist a day can tell you, one of the most important features of Bauhaus Dessau is the Meisterhäuser – a row of villas built specially for the Bauhaus Masters.

Albeit built much to the annoyance of the “Young Masters” such as Breuer, Josef Albers or Herbert Bayer, who found it “antisocial” that while the Masters were given shiny new villas, the Young Masters – who at the time were doing the lion’s share of the teaching – weren’t.

In an act that stands in magnificent juxtaposition to the happy party people Bauhaus currently on show at the Barbican Art Gallery, the Young Masters rebelled against the plan and proposed their own series of experimental, prefabricated houses known colloquially as BAMBOS after those Young Masters for whom they were intended: Breuer, Albers, Meyer, Bayer, Meyer-Ottens and Schmidt.

Initially the plan was rejected, but with Breuer threatening to leave Dessau, Walter Gropius eventually conceded to the project. However, as with so much associated with Bauhaus, fate meant the project was never realised and much of the original documentation has long since vanished.

Consequently the presentation of BAMBOS is limited to a short text and a model of the BAMBOS House Type 1.

That said, the inclusion of BAMBOS is important as it acknowledges that Bauhaus wasn’t a train speeding towards an agreed destination along a unified ideological track, but rather a collection of individuals with opinions that they were prepared to defend. Even if that meant derailing the train.

In a similar vein we feel the exhibition would and could benefit from a little more information on the disquiet caused when Marcel Breuer started selling his steel tube furniture through his own “Standard-Möbel” label, without first clarifying that with the rest of Bauhaus. Or indeed on many of the other moments when Breuer and Bauhaus clashed. Despite the success it unquestionably brought all parties, the relationship wasn’t all sunshine and cocktails.

Regardless of this, for us, omission “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture” presents a wonderful, very accessible, overview of the man, his legacy and his place in the story of 20th century design and architecture. One truly gets a feeling for the progression that occurred throughout his career.

But more importantly, and as with “Gerrit Rietveld – The Revolution of Space“, one understands that the public persona is only the introduction to a more complex and creative character. If you like, the invitation to explore further.

Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture is the perfect chance to do just that and can be viewed at Bauhaus Dessau until October 31st 2012.

A model "BAMBOS House Type 1"

Bauhaus Dessau: Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture

The Aula at Bauhaus Dessau, featuring seating designed by Marcel Breuer