The Bauhaus Interior Design

Much effort is put in to legitimising Interior Design (Havenhand 2004) and to put it on the same level as Architecture. Interior Design is trying to lose the label of Architecture’s “other” and replace it with ‘Architecture’s equal’. Rather, it is better for Interior Design to develop its own identity, one separate or distant from Architecture. It needs to discover its own potential and see what it is capable of, instead of following Architecture. Interior Design needs to accept its characteristics, being feminist and an “other” to Architecture.

The first decades of the 20th century in modernism was characterised by enormous social and political changes with a radically changing lifestyle. Technology, manufacturing, science and art was the driving force. The Bauhaus movement was one of the most influential modern design movements of the 20th century reaching its peak between the two world wars. It was founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar in Germany by architect Walter Gropius. Although the Bauhaus was founded by an architect, it did not actually have architecture department during its early years. Instead, Gropius wanted to focus on a study of art that would eventually encompass many different aspects of design, and tying them all together. The word Bauhaus

The Bauhaus was established in Weimar in 1919, with the architect Walter Gropius as its founder and first director (Harrison and Wood 1993, p. 338). The school was founded on Gropius’s principle of the importance of combining and unifying all the artistic and technical realms; a separation, which had been to the detriment of existing art schooling (Girard 2003, p. 6-­‐7). Gropius wanted to combine art and technology or “culture and civilisation” (Droste 2012, p. 15). The Bauhaus consisted of workshops with two distinct instructors, a “craft master” who was a

In Gehry’s house, he used big openings, unique wall surfaces and light conditions in a large room or visible framework, they all showing the postmodern style and making relationships between architecture and its origin. Gehry tried to “make a very tough sculptural

Interior design and architecture are essential, and often overlooked, aspects of everyday life. In modern society people rely on function, durability, and visual appeal when selecting designs for their homes, businesses, and places of leisure. The way that a space is designed influences such things as mood, which, in the case of a business, can impact the productivity of employees and either draw or repel customers. In residential design, the design becomes very personal and, to be considered a successful design, must properly reflect the home owner while at the same time offering some practicality that makes the space livable. An effective design, for any space, must solve some problem, be it function, flexibility, or some other criteria. Simply solving a problem would not please the customer, however, unless it offered some visual appeal. Creating function with style is the real job of any interior designer, and is essential in a content society.

The Bauhaus movement began shortly after the world war 1 in 1919 to re imagine the materialistic good to reflect how we perceive art works. It was a movement initiated by a German architect named Walter Groupius.The Bauhaus movement embraced and emphasized on the simplicity and the basis of a design. (Griffith 2007) The idea behind the movement was to design and manufacture beautiful and practical products using simple and economical techniques. The ideology of the school was not only to reflect society but improve it by combining simplistic beauty with productivity. (Naylor 1968) The Bauhaus implied form follows function which is created by a cross platform of functional craftsmanship in every field whilst experimenting and using different materials.

There have been many different styles of interior design over the past including types of architecture, patterns, colour choices and shapes of the past. Starting in 1152 we see Gothic style with rich dark colours, a sense of luxurious grandeur including characteristics such as stained glass windows, ornate fireplaces and intricate detailing. (pic 1)

There were many new types of architecture styles because of the current form of buildings around. People had wanted a change, so they decided to be different from others and built all kinds of different buildings. Architects had wanted to build sturdier buildings as well because there are more and more chances of something happening to your property. It is mainly because of the oil drilling, new weather conditions, and more people coming into the U.S. and many more children being born. There is a big threat to the urban society with more people in there, there are more chances of crime, like theft, arson, and many other things. Buildings had to be sturdier and were changed because of the new building codes issued from the state it's in, and the price changed drastically as well. “$41,300 the median price of (single-family) houses and $35,600 the average, only one out of five American families has the estimated $21,170 income to buy them” (Kay). Houses were not in demand as much as apartments because of their high-cost value. Not many people could afford to buy a house because of the struggles of finding a well paying-occupation (Kay). Many things had affected architecture, however, the price of buildings had affected the architecture the

Architecture had a great influence on graphic design from the 1900's to 1950's. Many art movements and artists influenced Graphic Design. Peter Behrens, El Lissitesky, Bauhaus, and Futurism all greatly impacted the Graphic Design concepts of today. Design was blended with architecture, especially in the Bauhaus school in Germany.

Barr submitted the concept of what was to become of the museum. It had to be organized as a multi-departmental structure each devoted for Architecture and Design, Photography, Film and Video, and they should stand side by side with traditional arts such as Painting and Sculpture. Architect Philip Johnson built on this idea. The multi-departmental structure seemed to best fit with the burgeoning International Style, a modernist architectural movement from which Philip Johnson belonged. In this architecture, buildings are designed with simple geometric lines and clean, precise surfaces and with minimum decoration. Walls are made almost entirely of glass, known as curtain walls—a signature Johnson was known for—that are used to give the building a light and airy appearance.

Although, most post-modernist architects had been associated with modern architects in terms of training during the twentieth century, they refused most their teachers ideas. In addition, today's architects cannot deny the modern architecture ways of designing any building. Their design, for instance, has many philosophical meaning such as constructional, environmental, sociological, commercial and metaphorical meaning.

A reflection of the International Style and the Bauhaus movement, Mid-Century architecture was typically used residentially in the hope of bringing Modernism into the post-war suburbs.

[The Bauhaus Reassessed] What unique about the Bauhaus is the fact that its ideologies epitomize changing concepts concerning the nature and purpose of design in the early twentieth century. The art inherited reinterpreted and then rejected the

“Design is for living”. The adage fashioned a widespread shift in design during the 1940s and 1950s. It revolutionized the form by creating an electrifying visual language that signaled a new age and a fresh start- two of the powerhouses were Charles and Ray Eames. The Eameses were a husband and wife team whose unique synergy led to a whole new expression in furniture and architecture. The couple advocated the principles of Modernism through the adaptation of innova¬tion from wartime technology .Their design style can be branded as “California Modernism,” a term that is often used interchangeably with “Mid-Century Modernism.” This distinct style embodied an approach to design that opposed the “social conscience” of the Bauhaus in order to embrace looser, warmer design which was both more expressive of local character and in touch with the realities of commerce and salesmanship. With the west-coast coming-of-age, economy shift from making goods to producing information and the global expansion of American culture; their lives and work embodied some of America’s defining movements. They contributed to architecture, film, industrial and graphic design. They were known as pioneers of affordable mass production and residential constructions. The evolution from furniture designers to cultural ambassadors validated their bents and overlaps with country’s interest and projected how design can enhance the lives and practical needs of ordinary people and not just the elite.

The Bauhaus school was founded in 1919 in Weimar by German architect Walter Gropius (1883 - 1969). In 1923, Walter Gropius introduced the agreement between “creative artists and the industrial world”. The Bauhaus is most famous for the idea of combining forms and functions. They combined both fine arts and design elements to create a curriculum that trained artists and designers to be capable of producing both functional and aesthetic work. One of the main goals was to bring design and technology together. During the Bauhaus period, Fine art and craft were combined together and aimed toward problem solving for an innovative, modern and industrial society. Nowadays, the Bauhaus legacy continues in modern designs, such as minimalism, or design brands like IKEA. In this essay, I will analyze Bauhaus’s influence on modern design, including architecture and furniture design by exploring different examples from different periods of time.