Module 1 · 8 min
How It All Started
How the Bauhaus began, its big idea, and its promise of equality.
The Staatliches Bauhaus
Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany, in 1919, the Staatliches Bauhaus ("State Building House") became famous for an ambitious approach to design. It tried to unify the principles of mass production with individual artistic vision, and it strove to combine beauty with everyday function. A chair, a lamp, a teapot, a rug: all of it was meant to be well designed and made for ordinary life.
The big idea: Gesamtkunstwerk
Bauhaus was grounded in the idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk, a "comprehensive artwork" in which all the arts would eventually come together. Gropius set out this vision in the 1919 Bauhaus Manifesto, describing a craft guild uniting architecture, sculpture and painting into a single creative expression.
Training centred on a craft-based curriculum taught jointly by an artist (the "Form Master") and a master craftsman (the "Workshop Master"). The aim was to develop each student's creative "ambidexterity": sensitivity to art combined with real manual skill.
Interactive · Build a Gesamtkunstwerk
Click each circle to see what it brings. When all four are open, they merge.
0 of 4 opened.
"Regardless of age or sex"
At a time when women were barred from public art education in many places, Gropius announced that the Bauhaus would admit "any person of good repute, regardless of age or sex." Women had only recently won the vote in Germany (1918), and the promise was electrifying.
The response was huge. In the first intake, women applied in greater numbers than men, and women made up roughly half of the first student body (commonly cited figures: 84 women and 79 men).
Timeline 1919–1933
Interactive · Timeline 1919–1933
Gropius founds the Bauhaus in Weimar and publishes the Manifesto. Women apply in large numbers.
Check-in quiz
Quiz 1 · Question 1 of 3
In what year was the Bauhaus founded?
Finish the check-in quiz to unlock.
Next module →