Bauhaus and America : First Contacts, 1919-1936

by Margret Kentgens-Craig

• ISBN13: 9780262112376
• ISBN10: 026211237X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-10
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

The Bauhaus school was founded in Weimar in 1919 by the German architect Walter Gropius, moved to Dessau in 1925 and to Berlin in 1932, and was dissolved in 1933 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe under political duress. Although it existed for a mere fourteen years and boasted fewer than 1,300 students, its influence is felt throughout the world in numerous buildings, artworks, objects, concepts, and curricula. After the Bauhaus's closing in 1933, many of its protagonists moved to the United States, where their acceptance had to be cultivated. The key to understanding the American reception of the Bauhaus is to be found not in the eacute;migreacute; success stories or the famous 1938 Bauhaus exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, but in the course of America's early contact with the Bauhaus. In this book Margret Kentgens-Craig shows that the fame of the Bauhaus in America was the result not only of the inherent qualities of its concepts and products, but also of a unique congruence of cultural supply and demand, of a consistent flow of information, and of fine-tuned marketing. Thus the history of the American reception of the Bauhaus in the 1920s and 1930s foreshadows the patterns of fame-making that became typical of the post-World War II art world. The transfer of artistic, intellectual, and pedagogical concepts from one cultural context to another is a process of transformation and integration. In presenting a case study of this process, the book also provides fresh insights into the German-American cultural history of the period from 1919 to 1936.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	viii
Introduction	x
The Call For Rejuvenation in America
Political and Economic Empowerment	3	(1)
Power, Status, and Architecture	4	(9)
The Need for Housing	13	(5)
The Search for Modernity	18	(11)
Critique of Contemporary Architecture	29	(8)
The Dissemination of Bauhaus Ideas: Paths of Communication
Implicit Information	37	(9)
Explicit Information about the Bauhaus	46	(62)
The Image of the Bauhaus as Received in America
Founding	108	(1)
Phases of Existence	109	(8)
The Directors	117	(22)
The Faculty	139	(10)
Institutional Character	149	(21)
Controversies Surrounding Bauhaus Architecture
Aesthetic Objections	170	(4)
Politically Motivated Barriers	174	(9)
Acceptance and Support	183	(21)
Against the Odds: The Resolution of Contradictions
Suppression of the Weltanschauung and Social Utopian Aspects of the Bauhaus	204	(4)
Identification with Anti-Fascism	208	(2)
Potential for Americanization	210	(4)
Expectations of an American Renaissance	214	(2)
Supply and Demand	216	(8)
Open-mindedness and Acceptance	224	(9)
Appendix: Documents
The Arts Club of Chicago, Catalogue of the First Bauhaus
Exhibition in the United States, March 1931	233	(5)
United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, Walter Gropius File (Excerpts)	238	(3)
United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe File (Excerpts)	241	(5)
Bibliography	246	(28)
Index	274