Bauhaus Twenty-21: An Ongoing Legacy

Scarcely any other movement in architecture and design had such a lasting impact as the Bauhaus; indeed, for many it is synonymous with classic modernism. On the occasion of the institution’s 90th birthday this book traces the themes and the aesthetics of Bauhaus for our time. It shows twelve of the most important works of Bauhaus architecture from 1923-1930 and juxtaposes them with contemporary projects. The sensitive and careful photography by Gordon Watkinson delineate formal and conceptual connections between the classic and the new buildings and thus demonstrate the strong influence that the Bauhaus still exerts today.

In this sense, the "House am Horn" in Weimar by Georg Muche and Adolf Meyer from 1923 corresponds with "House of the Present" in Munich by Allmann Sattler Wappner Architects (2005). House Tugendhat in Brno by Mies van der Rohe, a masterpiece of modern architecture, challenged traditional concepts of housing—just as the experimental House R 128 in Stuttgart by Werner Sobek (2001) did. And the German Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona from 1929 turns out to be a source of inspiration for the Skywood House in Denham, UK, by Graham Phillips some 70 years later.

Scarcely any other movement in architecture and design had such a lasting impact as the Bauhaus; indeed, for many it is synonymous with classic modernism. On the occasion of the institution’s 90th birthday this book traces the themes and the aesthetics of Bauhaus for our time. It shows twelve of the most important works of Bauhaus architecture from 1923-1930 and juxtaposes them with contemporary projects. The sensitive and careful photography by Gordon Watkinson delineate formal and conceptual connections between the classic and the new buildings and thus demonstrate the strong influence that the Bauhaus still exerts today.

In this sense, the "House am Horn" in Weimar by Georg Muche and Adolf Meyer from 1923 corresponds with "House of the Present" in Munich by Allmann Sattler Wappner Architects (2005). House Tugendhat in Brno by Mies van der Rohe, a masterpiece of modern architecture, challenged traditional concepts of housing—just as the experimental House R 128 in Stuttgart by Werner Sobek (2001) did. And the German Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona from 1929 turns out to be a source of inspiration for the Skywood House in Denham, UK, by Graham Phillips some 70 years later.

Gordon Watkinson is a photographer based in New York with a focus on architecture and design.

Michael Siebenbrodt, Director of the Bauhaus-Museum in Weimar. He is author of Bauhaus-Museum: Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar, a survey of art and art schools in Weimar between 1900 and 1930. From 1985-1988 he was the head of both the museum and the experimental theatre at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation/Design Center.

Prof. Dr. Falk Jaeger, architecture historian, free lance critic, editor and curator in Berlin.

Mr. Jaeger worked 1983-88 for the Institute of History of Architecture at the Technical University of Berlin. 1993-2000 he was Chair of Architectural Theory at the Technical University of Dresden. 2001-2002, editor-in-chief of the German architectural magazine Bauzeitung. He is the author of a large number of publications on architecture and teaches architectural criticism at various universities.

Peter Cachola Schmal is an architect and the director of the German Museum for Architecture in Frankfurt.