History is replete with examples of fervent creativity arising out of chaos. The inception of the Bauhaus movement, shortly after the end of the Great War, can be added to that long list. Out of the ashes of unparalleled destruction and mayhem came something new: a complete rethinking about how art and design should interact with our lives and society. Central to that was a merging of disciplines and crafts that had become severed.
It was the idea of Walter Gropius, a Berlin-born architect who founded the movement and steered it through its critical infancy. With 2019 marking the centenary of the Bauhaus movement, BBC offers Bauhaus 100 — a laudatory introduction to this transformative epoch.
The visionary Gropius, with a force of talented avant-garde artists behind him, started something revolutionary; indeed, something which has never stopped influencing nearly every sphere of art and design. Despite the movement’s formal lifespan of only 14 years, its ideas have spread through each successive decade and into nearly the world over.
Where Bauhaus 100 really scores points is in laying out the timeline of this hotbed of artistic fermentation. It was a movement that began in Wiemar, moved to Dessau, and ended in Berlin. Myriad forces were behind this wild, constantly turning path — many of them external — and, kudos to the creators, all of it is explained in clear, coherent fashion.
Where the documentary drops the ball, however, is with its lack of attention given to the details of precisely what Bauhaus achieves with its design philosophy.
Many will recognize — even if vaguely — the Dessau building designed by Gropius himself. But as for other examples of Bauhaus in practice, we see (let alone are introduced to) surprisingly few concrete examples. After all, this was a movement that sought to influence virtually every sphere of life, every nook and cranny of design: from kitchen cabinets and tea pots, to chairs and desks, to large apartment buildings, and everything in between.
Yet we don’t really experience it. Nor, for that matter, do we even learn that much about the actual strengths of Bauhaus design; that is to say, about what makes it superior to previous design philosophies, and why its manifesto (and not others) should be the way of the future.
BBC’s documentary is good at illuminating the history of the Bauhaus movement, but rather poor at telling the nitty gritty of its design merits.
This is a pity. The Bauhaus movement, as viewers learn from just the first few minutes of the film, is embedded in a considerable amount of politics. (And a lot of hot buttons issues in general.) And while the documentary’s rather laudatory presentation of the movement is fine — especially considering the occasion of its centenary — to really make a case for the Bauahus movement requires more than what’s presented in the film. Bauhaus 100 captures the spirit, energy, and general ideas brought forth by some of its most brilliant practitioners — but not a whole lot more.
That said, as influential as the Bauhaus movement has been, there are still many who are unaware of what it is, or how it got started. This film will help that.
Spectatio 