Walter Gropius
“The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus” (1923)
The dominant spirit of our epoch is already recognizable although its form is not yet clearly
defined. The old dualistic world-concept which envisaged the ego in opposition to the universe is
rapidly losing ground. In its place is rising the idea of a universal unity in which all opposing forces
exist in a state of absolute balance. This dawning recognition of the essential oneness of all things
and their appearances endows creative effort with a fundamental inner meaning.
No longer can anything exist in isolation. We perceive every form as the embodiment of an idea,
every piece of work as a manifestation of our innermost selves. Only work which is the product of
inner compulsion can have spiritual meaning. Mechanized work is lifeless, proper only to the
lifeless machine. So long, however, as machine-economy remains an end in itself rather than a
means of freeing the intellect from the burden of mechanical labor, the individual will remain
enslaved and society will remain disordered. The solution depends on a change in the individual's
attitude toward his work, not on the betterment of his outward circumstances, and the acceptance of
this new principle is of decisive importance for new creative work.
The “academy”
The tool of the spirit of yesterday was the `academy.' It shut off the artist from the world of
industry and handicraft, and thus brought about his complete isolation from the community. In vital
epochs, on the other hand, the artist enriched all the arts and crafts of a community because he had
a part in its vocational life, and because he acquired through actual practice as much adeptness and
understanding as any other worker who began at the bottom and worked his way up. But lately the
artist has been misled by the fatal and arrogant fallacy, fostered by the state, that art is a profession
which can be mastered by study. Schooling alone can never produce art! Whether the finished
product is an exercise in ingenuity or a work of art depends on the talent of the individual who
creates it. This quality cannot be taught and cannot be learned. On the other hand, manual dexterity
and the thorough knowledge which is a necessary foundation for all creative effort, whether the
workman's or the artist's, can be taught and learned.
Isolation of the artist
Academic training, however, brought about the development of a great art-proletariat
destined to social misery. For this art-proletariat, lulled into a dream of genius and enmeshed in
artistic conceit, was being prepared for the `profession' of architecture, painting, sculpture or
graphic art, without being given the equipment of a real education - which alone could have assured
it of economic and esthetic independence. Its abilities, in the final analysis, were confined to a sort
of drawing-painting that had no relation to the realities of materials, techniques or economics. Lack
of all vital connection with the life of the community led inevitably to barren esthetic speculation.
The fundamental pedagogic mistake of the academy arose from its preoccupation with the idea of
the individual genius and its discounting the value of commendable achievement on a less exalted
level. Since the academy trained a myriad of minor talents in drawing and painting, of whom
scarcely one in a thousand became a genuine architect or painter, the great mass of these
individuals, fed upon false hopes and trained as one-sided academicians, was condemned to a life
of fruitless artistic activity. Unequipped to function successfully in the struggle for existence, they
found themselves numbered among the social drones, useless, by virtue of their schooling, in the
productive life of the nation.
With the development of the academies genuine folk art died away. What remained was a
drawing-room art detached from life. In the 19th century this dwindled to the production of individual
paintings totally divorced from any relation to an architectural entity. The second half of the 19th
century saw the beginning of a protest against the devitalizing influence of the academies. Ruskin and
Morris in England, van de Velde in Belgium, Olbrich, Behrens and others in Germany, and, finally, the
Deutsche Werkbund, all sought, and in the end discovered, the basis of a reunion between creative
artists and the industrial world. In Germany, arts and crafts (Kunstgewerbe) schools were founded for
the purpose of developing, in a new generation, talented individuals trained in industry and handicraft.
But the academy was too firmly established: practical training never advanced beyond dilettantism, and
draughted and rendered `design' remained in the foreground. The foundations of this attempt were laid
neither wide enough nor deep enough to avail much against the old l’art pour l’art [art for art’s sake]
attitude, so alien to, and so far removed from life. [ ... ]
Analysis of the designing process
The objective of all creative effort in the visual arts is to give form to space. ... But what is
space, how can it be understood and given a form?
... Although we may achieve an awareness of the infinite we can give form to space only with
finite means. We become aware of space through our undivided Ego, through the simultaneous activity
of soul, mind and body. A like concentration of all our forces is necessary to give it form. Through his
intuition, through his metaphysical powers, man discovers the immaterial space of inward vision and
inspiration. This conception of space demands realization in the material world, a realization which is
accomplished by the brain and the hands.
The brain conceives of mathematical space in terms of numbers and dimensions. . . . The hand
masters matter through the crafts, and with the help of tools and machinery.
Conception and visualization are always simultaneous. Only the individual's capacity to feel, to
know and to execute varies in degree and in speed. True creative work can be done only by the man
whose knowledge and mastery of the physical laws of statics, dynamics, optics, acoustics equip him to
give life and shape to his inner vision. In a work of art the laws of the physical world, the intellectual
world and the world of the spirit function and are expressed simultaneously.
The Bauhaus at Weimar
Every factor that must be considered in an educational system which is to produce actively
creative human beings is implicit in such an analysis of the creative process. At the `State Bauhaus at
Weimar' the attempt was made for the first time to incorporate all these factors in a consistent program.
[ ... ] The theoretical curriculum of an art academy combined with the practical curriculum of an
arts and crafts school was to constitute the basis of a comprehensive system for gifted students. Its
credo was: `The Bauhaus strives to coordinate all creative effort, to achieve, in a new architecture, the
unification of all training in art and design. The ultimate, if distant, goal of the Bauhaus is the collective
work of art - the Building - in which no barriers exist between the structural and the decorative arts.
The guiding principle of the Bauhaus was therefore the idea of creating a new unity through the
welding together of many `arts' and movements: a unity having its basis in Man himself and significant
onlv as a living organism.
Human achievement depends on the proper coordination of all the creative faculties. It is not
enough to school one or another of them separately: they must all be thoroughly trained at the same
time. The character and scope of the Bauhaus teachings derive from the realization of this.
The Curriculum
The course of instruction at the Bauhaus is divided into:
The Preliminary Course (Vorlehre)
Practical and theoretical studies are carried on simultaneously in order to release the
creative powers of the student, to help him grasp the physical nature of materials and the basic laws
of design. Concentration on any particular stylistic movement is studiously avoided. Observation
and representation - with the intention of showing the desired identity of Form and Content - define
the limits of the preliminary course. Its chief function is to liberate the individual by breaking down
conventional patterns of thought in order to make way for personal experiences and discoveries
which will enable him to see his own potentialities and limitations. For this reason collective work
is not essential in the preliminary course. Both subjective and objective observation will be
cultivated: both the system of abstract laws and the interpretation of objective matter.
Above all else, the discovery and proper valuation of the individual's means of expression
shall be sought out. The creative possibilities of individuals vary. One finds his elementary
expressions in rhythm, another in light and shade, a third in color, a fourth in materials, a fifth in
sound, a sixth in proportion, a seventh in volumes or abstract space, an eighth in the relations
between one and another, or between the two to a third or fourth.
All the work produced in the preliminary course is done under the influence of instructors.
It possesses artistic quality only in so far as any direct and logically developed expression of an
individual which serves to lay the foundations of creative discipline can be called art.
Instruction in form problems
Intellectual education runs parallel to manual training. The apprentice is acquainted with his
future stock-in-trade - the elements of form and color and the laws to which they are subject.
Instead of studying the arbitrary individualistic and stylized formulae current at the academies, he
is given the mental equipment with which to shape his own ideas of form. This training opens the
way for the creative powers of the individual, establishing a basis on which different individuals
can cooperate without losing their artistic independence. Collective architectural work becomes
possible