the new bauhaus
AMERICAN SCHOOL of DESIGN
1905 Prairie Avenue
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Founded by the
ASSOCIATION of
ARTS and INDUSTRIES
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ASSOCIATION of
ARTS and INDUSTRIES
OFFICIERS
PRESIDENT E.H. Powell, President Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
VICE-PRESIDENT Glenn G. Hayes, Director Chicago Wholesale Market Council
TREASURER Frank Milhening, Secretary and Treasurer J. Milhening, Inc.
SECRETARY &
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Norma K. Stahle, Assistant Director of “The New Bauhaus”
DIRECTORS
Sewell Avery, President United States Gypsum Company also President Montgomery Ward & Company
Henry K. Holsman, Holsman & Holsman, Architects
William A. Kittredge, Director of Design and Typography R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company
Walter J. Kohler, Chairman of the Board Kohler Company, Kohler, Wis.
John H. Krafft, Assistant to President Borg-Warner Corporation
Walter P. Paepcke, President Container Corporation
C. L. Rice, Vice-President and Works Manager Western Electric Company
Mme. Alla Ripley, Costume Designer
Paul Schulze, President Paul Schulze Biscuit Company
L. L. Valentine, Retired. Formerly President Valentine & Seaver Furniture Germany
Mrs. George Woodruff, Sculptor
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THE ASSOCIATION OF ARTS AND INDUSTRIES, ILLINOIS
was founded in Chicago, 1922 with the main objective of establishing a School of Design (not for profit).
After long years of experiment it has been found that a successful art education can be built up only through a training that faces reality: that the machine, the new scientific and technical devices must be incorporated in any new teaching program. Such a school has the practical task of serving its graduates and the community by equipping its students for well trained designers, and reintegrating the artist into the daily work of the nation.
In 1936 Marshall Field III generously presented his residence at 1905 Prairie Avenue to the Association of Arts and Industries for the purpose of housing a practical training school of design. The house has been thoroughly remodeled and the school is already opened.
The Association announces with pleasure that
Dr. Walter Gropius
Professor of Architecture at Harvard University,
will act as adviser in all school matters.
Professor Gropius was the founder of the world famous art university, the Bauhaus, in Dessau. He first proclaimed the closest cooperation of Art science and technique for the new art education. The influence of the Bauhaus is already a matter of history. It was acknowledged internationally to be the outstanding educational institution in design and architecture.
The Board of Directors of the Association of Arts and Industries has the honor to announce that
L. Moholy-Nagy
formerly Professor of the Bauhaus,
painter and designer of international reputation has been appointed to direct the new school.
Because of Dr. Gropius’ confidence that Professor Moholy-Nagy and his faculty will continue and extend the best Bauhaus tradition he has granted permission that the School of Design be called
the new Bauhaus
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We know that art itself cannot be taught, only the way to it. We have in the past given the function of art a formal importance, which segregates it form our daily existence, whereas art is always present where healthy and unaffected people live. Our task is therefore, to contrive a new system of education which, along with a specialized training in science and technique leads to a thorough awareness of fundamental human needs and a universal outlook. Thus, our concern is to develop a new type of designer, able to face all kinds of requirements, not because he is a prodigy but because he has the right method of approach. We wish to make him conscious of his own creative power, not afraid of new facts, working independently of recipes.
Upon this premise we have built our program.
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EDUCATICAL
PROGRAM
AIMS
The New Bauhaus requires first of all students of talent: the training will be for creative designers for hand and machine made products; also for exhibition, stage, display, commercial arts, typography and photography; for sculptors, painters, and architects.
ORGANIZATION
The education of the student is carried on in theoretical and practical courses and in the workshops of the school. The school year is divided into two semesters, the first extending from the end of September to the middle of February and the second from the middle of February until the end of June. Each student must spend two semesters (a school year) in the preliminary courses and least six semesters (three school years) in a special workshop. After the successful completion of this training he will obtain his Bauhaus diploma and he may, by continuing four semesters (two years) in the architectural department receive the architect’s degree.
PRELIMINARY COURSE
The preliminary curriculum offers a test of the student’s abilities. It helps shorten the road to self-experience. It embodies briefly the essential components of the training given in the specialized workshops of The New Bauhaus. It gives him ample opportunity to make a careful choice of his own field of specialization later.
The preliminary curriculum is divided into three parts:
(A) The basic design shopwork.
(B) Analytical and constructive drawing.
(C) Scientific subjects.
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SECOND
THIRD and
FOURTH YEARS
After passing the examination in the preliminary courses the student enters one of the specialized workshops:
(1) Wood, metal, plastics.
(2) Textile (weaving, dyeing, and fashion).
(3) Color (murals, decorating, wallpaper).
(4) Light, photography, film, typography, commercial arts.
(5) Glass, clay, stone (sculpture).
(6) Display, exhibition, theatre (stage).
FIFTH and
SIXTH Years
(7) Architecture.
EXAMINATION
THE
FIRST YEAR
After the first half year of the preliminary course the first examination will be held in the form of a students’ exhibition.
After the second half year a similar exhibition will be held as the final examination in the preliminary course.
THE SECOND
THIRD and
FOURTH YEARS
Workshop, tools and machines, bookkeeping and estimating, drawing, scientific subjects and elementary lectures in architecture (constructions, and statics) with final examination for a diploma.
THE FIFTH and
SIXTH Years
Architecture, landscape architecture, town planning, and scientific subjects. Educational problems: kindergarten, grade, high schools and colleges. Social services: hospitals, recreation, leisure and hobby organization with additional thesis for the Bauhaus Degree in architecture.
The New Bauhaus reserves the right to make necessary alterations in this program.
THE OBLIGATORY
PRELIMINARY COURSE
(A)
Basic Design Shopwork
In the basic workshop the student learns the constructive handling of materials; wood, plywood, paper, plastics, rubber, cork, leather, textiles, metal, glass, clay, plasticine, plaster, and stone;
(a) their tactile values;
(b) structure;
(c) texture;
(d) surface effect and the use of their values
(e) in plane,
(f) in volume,
(g) and in space. Henceforth the student becomes (1) volume- (2) space- and (3) kinetic-conscious.
(h) He learns: the subjective and objective qualities, the scientific testing of materials;
(i) existence of the fourth dimension (time).
(j) As he experiments he builds, with small motors or other devices, toys, moving sculptures, spatial constructions, etc.
(k) and develops his sense for proportion, and penetrates this work with the different
(B)
Analytical Drawing
(l) visual representation. He sketches in black and white and in color. Standard nature forms will be analyzed and this analytical method leads the student to the
(m) elementary forms, later to the construction of these forms in relationship to each other
(n) with the aim of free composition.
(C)
Scientific Subjects
The following scientific courses complement shopwork and drawing:
1. Geometry
2. Physics
3. Chemistry
4. Mathematics
5. Economics (statistics, and marketing)
6. Anatomy
7. Comparative history of art.
Supplementary
In addition to these, the curriculum includes brief surveys of
(a) Biotechnique – the system of conscious inventions (e.g. Edison)
(b) Psychotechnique (ability testing)
(c) Biology
(d) Psychology
(e) Philosophy
(f) Literature (poetry and drama)
(g) Music
(h) Economical Geography;
(i) Guest lectures on other subjects;
(j) Lettering, writing (construction of letters, and printing types);
(k) Light (as an instrument of visual notes, using light as a new medium of expression); photography, film;
(l) Sport, gymnastics, hiking, recreation, and leisure;
(m) Visits of factories, newly constructed buildings, museums, exhibitions, theatres, etc.
(n) Exhibitions (some assembled by the students, some by the faculty or others).
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ENTRANCE
REQUIREMENTS
(a) High school graduation or its equivalent
(b) Example of own work (e. g. drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, designs, models, etc.)
(c) Application blank requires a brief history of the student, a statement of his or her particular interests and reasons for coming to “The New Bauhaus”.
(d) Two references required. If applicant is at present or was formerly employed, references from employers preferred.
The New Bauhaus cannot definitely accept a student for the special workshop training until examination at the end of the first year.
APPLICATION
BLANK
Applicants are advised to fill the application blanks promptly. Only a limited number of students can be accepted.
FEES
Tuition: $150.00 a semester (one-half year), payable to the cashier before the beginning of semester.
Registration: 5.00 a semester
Locker: 2.50 a semester
Material: 10.00 for the basic workshop
SCHOLARSHIP
Talented students without funds may apply for scholarships to the Secretary of the school.
LEAVE AND
DISMISSAL
No refunds are given to students who leave school before completion of a term.
Inefficiency, lack of interest or disregard of rules are legitimate reasons for dismissal.
SUPPLEMENTARY
SERVICE
Library, sample (material) room, industry catalogues, pictures (reproductions and originals) are available for use by the students.
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THE FACULTY
The realization of such a large scale program as the New Bauhaus wishes to fulfill depends entirely upon the selection of the right teachers. Thus we choose to admit to our faculty only the best available teachers, not only on the ground of their specialized knowledge, but also because of their human qualities and their artistic ability – particularly in respect to their internationally valued creative contribution to our time. Our faculty is organized on the basics of a common comprehension of our immediate and most urgent problems. The teachers are able to give the students a clear and unmistakable world picture, not through a fictitious or forced agreement, but through the common conception of their life work. This helps us to maintain a high standard in all our teaching and avoids misunderstandings among the pupils who are easily disturbed if confronted with diverging opinions of their teachers.
Modelling:
Alexander Archipenko
Technician Basic Design Workshop:
Hin Bredendieck
Music and Building Musical Instruments:
David Dushkin
Drawing and Light Studio:
George Kepes
Lecturer Basic Design Workshop
L. Moholy-Nagy
Instructor in Photographic Studio:
Henry Holmes Smith
Guest Lecturers:
Physical Sciences:
Carl Eckart,
Associate Professor of Physics, University of Chicago
Biological Sciences:
Ralph W. Gerard,
Associate Professor of Physiology, University of Chicago
Intellectual Integration:
Charles W. Morris,
Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago
The Meaning of Culture:
Howard Vincent O’Brien
Advisor:
Dr. Walter Gropius
Assistant Director:
Norma K. Stahle
George Nelson (“Pencil Points”) writes about Walter Gropius:
Born in 1883 to a Prussian family whose members included architects and builders, Gropius’ choice of a profession was determined almost from birth. In 1906 he built his first buildings, houses for workmen on his uncle’s estate in Pomerania. For the next two years he traveled, working for a time in a pottery plant in Spain. His real education may be said to have begun in the office of Peter Behrens.
It was here that he acquired the conviction that modern construction must be expressed in architecture and that this expression would result in unprecedented forms. This idea, in 1909, represented the first stirrings of consciousness of a new architecture in the making. By that time he had already produced two works which unmistakably revealed the quality of his thinking. The first was the well-known Fagus factory, the second was the Hall of the Machinery at the Werkbund Exposition.
It was after the war that Gropius entered on the most fruitful phase of his career. In Weimar, Henry Van de Velde, Director of the Grand Ducal Art School, was preparing to retire and he invited Gropius to take his place. Gropius accepted. His first act as director was the completely revise the curriculum and amalgamate the school with a local academy of fine arts, creating what became known as the Weimar Bauhaus. The Bauhaus gained world-wide fame after it moved to Dessau.
The philosophy behind the creation of the Bauhaus is of interest here because it is the philosophy of Gropius. When he became the director of the school he felt that there was a crying need for a type of training which would enable the student to gain a broad, unified view of art as something more than a collection of elaborately pigeonholed activities. The present separation of the arts and the specialized training with emphasizes this is vicious, in his opinion. Art was once a spontaneous manifestation, an integral part of the life of a people. It was when the academies came in that the decay of popular art began, leading to the present disrepute of the artist. The artist under the influence of the schools had been moving farther from reality and had no point of contact with a developing industrial civilization. It was to develop a new type of designer familiar at the same time with the basic laws of design and with practical requirements of machine production that the Bauhaus was founded. “A modern architectonic art, all-embracing in its scope” – this was the goal of Gropius. It was one of the healthy art ideas to appear in a long time.
He had created the Bauhaus and it was a success. German industry had begun to mass-produce Bauhaus models and to seek the school’s collaboration in the design of new ones. Bauhaus students were teaching at home and abroad and occupying prominent positions in industrial concerns.
Through the Bauhaus he has had the greatest influence of any living artist, with the possible exception of Le Corbusier. He has made contributions of an importance that only succeeding generations will fully appreciate.
Books by L. Moholy-Nagy:
“Moholy-Nagy” Horizont Monographie, published by Ma (Vienna 1921)
“Buch Neuer Kunstler,” with Kassak by Ma (Vienna 1922)
“Malerei – Photographie – Film,” published by Albert Langen (Munich 1925)
“Malerei – Photographie” (Moscow 1929)
“Vom Material zur Architektur,” published by Albert Langen (Munich 1929)
“From Material to Architecture” (Tokyo 1930)
“The New Vision,” (New York 1931)
“60 Photos by L. Moholy-Nagy,” published by Klinkhardt & Biermann (Berlin 1930)
“L. Moholy-Nagy,” published by Telehor (Brno 1936)
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Films by L. Moholy-Nagy:
Dynamik der Groszstadt (1921 manuskript)
Berliner Stilleben (1926)
Marseille Vieux Port (1929)
Once a Chicken always a chicken (1925-1930 manuskript)
Light display: black and white and grey (1930)
Sound ABC (1932)
Architecturecongress Athen (1933)
Lobster (1935)
The New Architecture at the London Zoo (1936)
Moholy-Nagy has applied his esthetic discoveries to the practical problems of life. His exhibitions, typographical work, publicity layouts, light displays and stage sets (“The Tales of Hoffman,” 1929; “Madame Butterfly,” 1931; and Piscator’s “Kaufmann von Berlin,” 1931) amply substantiate this claim. Under his leadership the metallurgical workshop of the Bauhaus developed the modern lightning fixtures, household gadgets, etc. as we know them today. He engaged in practically all types of publicity work, most recently in London with the Imperial Airways and London Transport Board. His experiments in film and photography have been the basis for the special effects in the film of H. G. Wells’ “Things to Come,” from which the title pages of this catalog originated. In his book “Malerei, Photographie, Film” (Bauhaus-Bucher No. 8, Munich, 1925) Moholy-Nagy developed many stimulating suggestions, and defined the whole province of creative work in light-sensitive media, from ordinary to camera-less photography (which enables the concrete shapes of objects to be disintegrated into graduations of light and shade). He developed photo-montage, invented typophoto and abstract light-displaya. His painting is the vital thread linking all his manifolf activities; thus it is interesting to read how
Walter Gropius recently opened his exhibition in the London Gallery:
L. Moholy-Nagy was one of my most active colleagues in the building-up of the Bauhaus and much that it accomplished stands to his credit. He constantly developed new ideas, which proved as fruitful to the college as to his own development. It would, however, be a mistake to imagine that the manifold activities of Moholy in the spheres of photography, the theatre, the film, typography and advertising art must be have diminished and disseminated the powers of Moholy the painter; on the contrary, all his successful efforts in these spheres were merely indirect but necessary by-paths on the road to his conquest of a new conception of space in painting. This I consider to be his great contribution to leadership in art. Moholy recognized very soon that we can only comprehend space by means of light. His whole work is a mighty battle to prepare the way for a new vision, in that he attempts to extend the boundaries of painting and to increase the intensity of light in the picture by the use of new technical means. Moholy has observed and registered light with the eye of the camera and the film camera, from the perspective of the frog and the bird, has tried to master impressions of space and has thus developed in his paintings a new conception of space. To use his own words, a creation in space means to him “an interweaving of parts of space which are anchored invisible, but clearly traceable relations, and in the fluctuating play of forces.” This does indeed describe his pictorial creations. The best than an artist has to say in his pictures is that which cannot be explained in words. His work is always understood only by those who can receive its message, without prejudice. He who seeks a story in a picture will not find it here, but the exact beauty of form, color and transparency in these pictures is a hint of the new vision which Moholy has to give us, in common with but a few other artists of our day.
INFORMATION
School doors open at 8:30 A.M. Classes meet from 9:00 to 12:00 A.M. and from 1:00 to 5:00 P.M., five days a week.
In case of illness or absence for any other cause notice should be given to the secretary of the school.
Smoking in the school is prohibited.
The students are responsible for cleaning of the workshops and of the machines and tools. In the case of damage to tools or equipment, the individual causing same will be held responsible for costs; if individual not known the class will be held responsible.
All work executed by the students in the school is the property of the school. If the school has no interest in retaining it the student can buy it for the material and additional general cost.
Appointments may be made through the Secretary for consultation periods with the director.
No visitors are admitted to the school classes and workshops without permission.
For the time being The New Bauhaus has no dormitories. Consequently the school cannot supervise the life of the students outside of the school. It is hoped that only students sufficiently matured to be responsible for themselves will enroll. An accredited list of rooms and boarding houses will be available at the office of the Secretary.
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Charles W. Morris, Associate Professor of Philosophy, The University of Chicago:
The intent of the New Bauhaus to bring its students into direct and constant contact with current scientific thought is of great educational significance. For if the artist is really to function in the modern world, he must feel himself a part of it, and to have this sense of social integration he must command the instruments and materials of that world. It is true that such integration cannot be achieved solely by intellectual understanding, but it certainly cannot be achieved without such understanding. Man is a thinking being whatever else he may be, and no integration is humanly complete which does not include his mind.
And so the New Bauhaus shows deep wisdom in using contemporary science and philosophy in its educational task of reintegrating the artist into the common life. In this atmosphere the artificial separation of artist and scientist cannot thrive, nor the false fear that the development of one activity thwarts and endangers the development of the other. It is the same man who seeks knowledge and a significant life, and it is the same world that is known and found significant. Art as the presentation of the significant and science as the quest for reliable knowledge are mutually supporting. Each supplies material for the other and each humanly enriches the other. Students trained in this atmosphere, while yet retaining the orientation of the artist and artisan, should incorporate into themselves something mentality of the scientist, and the familiarity of the technician with the resources which that mentality has helped to make available for the service of life. Presumably no future Keats will arise from the New Bauhaus to drink a toast to the confusion of Newton for having destroyed the beauty of the rainbow!
Science and a philosophy oriented around science have much to contribute to a realistically conceived art education in the contemporary world. It is true that most arts not use the
medium of words as their own medium. But the artist has been known to talk, and about art, and often very violently! His verbal language is often a patchwork of expressions from literature and literary philosophy. We need desperately a simplified and purified language in which to talk about art (and indeed about all values) in the same simple and direct way in which we talk about the world in scientific terms. For the purposes of intellectual understanding art must be talked about in the language of scientific philosophy and not in the language of art. The program of the New Bauhaus, with its stress upon the esthetical and intellectual elements, should lead to a clearer understanding of the nature of art and its relation to other human activities.
But science has a second contribution to make: it can give new resources for the fulfillment of the artist-designer’s task. Only in the most fragmentary way has the fruitful tapping of these resources by the arts begun. It is difficult to envisage the full possibilities of the systematic collaboration of artist and scientist to which the new program points.
Moholy-Nagy knew of the interest of Rudolf Carnap and myself in the unity of science movement. He once remarked to us that his interest went a stage farther: his concern was with the unity of life. It was his belief that all the cultural phalanxes at any time moved abreast, though often ignorant of their common cultural front. Certain it is that all the integration and interpenetration of the characteristic human activities of the artist, scientist, and technologist is a crying need of our time. The problem is a general problem of all education which aims to be of vital contemporary significance. But it is also a problem of art education, and we can only be grateful that the New Bauhaus has set about to blaze the trail.
Calendar
1938
February 7 Monday Registration for second semester
February 8 Tuesday Second semester begins
February 22 Tuesday Washington’s Birthday, holiday
April 14 Thursday to April 19, Tuesday Easter holidays
April 20 Wednesday Reopening
May 30 Monday Memorial day holiday
June 20 Monday to June 22, Wednesday Preparation for Exhibition of Preliminary courses
June 23 Thursday Examination
June 25 Saturday Summer vacation begins
Sept. 20 Tuesday to Sept. 23, Friday Registration from 9:00 to 5:00
Sept. 26 Monday First semester begins
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“The new vision,” which will be reprinted shortly, contains the lectures given by Professor L. Moholy-Nagy in the Preliminary Courses of the Bauhaus. It includes numerous reproductions of examples of contemporary modern art, as well as work done by his pupils.
Gropius and Moholy-Nagy published fourteen “Bauhaus Books” dealing with the problems and work of our time, and they will continue this series, to be known as the “New Bauhaus Books”.
Designed by Moholy-Nagy . Printed at The Darnell Press, Chicago