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The year 2019 marks the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus, arguably the most influential school of art and design in the modern era. Commemorative activities will focus on its culture-historical significance, with scant attention being paid to a more fundamental question: the ramifications on legal and political thinking caused by the deep-seated transformation of the material world during the so-called age of extremes. Daniel Damler reveals the finely woven fabric of material and intellectual culture, using the example of New Objectivity to show how radical changes in the design and material vocabulary of objects generate new political and legal paradigms. It was contemporaries of the Bauhaus revolution who began to apply aesthetic maxims such as 'functionality' and 'clarity' to the state and political thought. Our present-day demands for the 'transparency' of governments and parliaments (without really knowing what we even mean by this) are very much a part of this tradition. After the watershed of 1914, the 'virtues' associated with glass, steel and functional forms served as a surrogate for the lost ideological consensus in the fragmented societies of modernity. Examining the works of prominent twentieth-century legal scholars, Damler discovers a remarkable intertwining of the material and the intellectual, while offering new insights into the proto-legal spaces of imagination of leading architects such as Le Corbusier and Bruno Taut. Bauhaus Laws offers an extraordinary and timeless look at the shadow empire of legal aesthetics. His plea to take seriously the internal dynamics of concepts and figures of thought borrowed from material culture is addressed to legal scholars, political scientists and anthropologists, as well as to architects and designers. It is also aimed at readers who believe in political self-determination and the autonomy of the legal system.

Curated by Professor Daniel Sturgis Artists: Juan Bolivar, David Diao, Liam Gillick, Maria Laet, Andrea Medjesi-Jones, Ad Minoliti, Sadie Murdoch, Judith Raum, Helen Robertson, Eva Sajovic, SAVVY Contemporary, Schroeter und Berger, Alexis Teplin, Ian Whittlesea Bauhaus: Utopia in Crisis explores how contemporary practitioners have been drawn to the social, utopian and transgressive aspects of Bauhaus history. The exhibition was first staged at Camberwell Space and was part of the UAL: OurHaus festival, which Professor Sturgis has convened to coincide with Bauhaus 100, the international celebration of the famous Bauhaus design school's centenary. The diverse collection of artworks presented in this exhibition will investigate the ways in which artists today are reframing the Bauhaus's modernist legacy as one which includes political and subjective resistance. As such, Bauhaus: Utopia in Crisis addresses how artistic legacies intersect with contemporary concerns through understanding that the Bauhaus was a complicated interweaving of different positions and personalities and never a truly unified project. Through archival research, the Berlin based artist Judith Raum will present a series of new films which examine the position and personalities of Bauhaus artists such as Lilly Reich, Otti Berger and Gunta Stölzl who, as women, were limited to expressing their creativity in the weaving workshop. The Anti Faschistische Aktion logo of Bauhaus student Max Gebhard and Max Keilson is represented by the Weimar based Schroeter und Berger in a politicised repositioning which aims to claim the logo as a classic piece of Bauhaus design through its contemporary international reach. The importance of the transgressive and performative aspect of Bauhaus pedagogy is referenced in the works of the London-based US painter Alexis Teplin who employs costumed characters to perform dialogues derived from fictions and historical modernist texts to animate her abstract compositions.

This article deals with the history of the Bauhaus Colloquium held every three years at the Bauhaus University of Weimar. Specifically, it discusses the context of the first two Colloquia of 1976 and 1979. Today, The International Bauhaus Colloquium held at the Bauhaus University of Weimar is the most renowned conference on the theory and history of architecture in the German-speaking realm. In the past decades the Colloquium has gained a reputation as a place where hot topics are discussed, such as the place of architecture in a world of global and diffused power (2009) or the close relationship between architecture and media (2007). Freedom of expression and critical exchange seems a natural given in such a context. However, the origins of the Colloquium are to be found in quite a different setting. The first Colloquium was organised in 1976, during the years of the GDR regime in Eastern Germany. It was an outcome of the debate by the side of scholars, architects and the Socialist Unity Party, what to do with the Bauhaus heritage. In this way, the history of the Bauhaus colloquia reflects the larger history of GDR cultural politics. It also reflects the intellectual history of architectural modernism in Communist countries as a theme about which we have limited knowledge today. Finally, as the colloquia were meeting points for the European Left involved in architectural modernist studies, it also exemplifies the history of left wing scholars in confrontation with the Left on the other side of the Wall. ; Acest articol se referă la istoria Colocviului Bauhaus, ţinut din trei în trei ani la Universitatea Bauhaus din Weimar. Articolul discută contextul primelor două colocvii, din 1976 şi 1979. Astăzi, Colocviul Internaţional Bauhaus găzduit de Universitatea din Weimar este cea mai importantă conferinţă de teoria şi istoria arhitecturii din zona de limbă germană. În ultimele decade, Colocviul a câştigat reputaţia unui loc unde sunt discutate subiecte fierbinţi, cum ar fi poziţia arhitecturii într-o lume a puterii globalizate şi difuze (2009) sau legătura intimă dintre arhitectură şi media (2007). Libertatea de expresie şi schimburile critice par a fi un dat natural într-un astfel de context. Însă originile Colocviului pot fi găsite într-un decor foarte diferit. Primul Colocviu a fost organizat în 1976, în timpul regimului socialist în Germania de Est. Colocviul a fost rezultatul dezbaterii dintre savanţi, arhitecţi şi Partidul Unităţii Socialiste în privinţa moştenirii Bauhaus-ului. În acest fel, istoria colocviilor Bauhaus reflectă istoria mai largă a politicilor culturale ale RDG, precum şi istoria intelectuală a modernismului arhitectural în ţările comuniste, o temă asupra căreia avem cunoştinţe limitate în prezent. În final, cum colocviile au fost momente de întâlnire ale Stângii europene implicată în studii de arhitectură modernă, ele ilustrează de asemenea istoria confruntării savanţilor stângişti occidentali cu Stânga de dincolo de zid.

Throughout his writings, Henri Lefebvre made sporadic observations on the German art, design, and architecture school Bauhaus. His commentary on the Bauhaus can be read in light of his wider criticism of Modernist architecture and its political project. Despite its revolutionary aspirations, the Bauhaus provided 'the architectural requirements of state capitalism'. This article argues that looking at Lefebvre's ambiguous reading of the Bauhaus unveils the more complex trajectory of his thinking on Modernist utopian impulses to change society through design. Alongside his criticism of the Bauhaus as tailor made for what Lefebvre calls the neocapitalist state, his work also includes more positive comments on the school. While Lefebvre rejects the reformist tendencies of the Bauhaus, he acknowledges that the school plays an important, historic role for advancing political change through architecture. As such, Lefebvre's criticism of the Bauhaus should be reconsidered in terms of offering a lesson in Modernism. Its attempt to create a new space to configure new social relations becomes an unfinished project; it is precisely the failure of Modernism to push this project beyond conformist and reformist agendas that needs to be considered. In conclusion, Lefebvre reads the utopian aspirations of the Bauhaus within and against their actual historical outcome. ; peerReviewed

Eine neue, kopflose Gewalt hat den Imperialismus vergangener Zeiten abgelöst. Die neue Weltordnung, das »Empire«, überschreitet alle Grenzen unserer althergebrachten politischen Begriffe – Staat und Gesellschaft, Krieg und Frieden, Kontrolle und Freiheit. Das dezentralisierte und deterritorialisierte Empire beherrscht uns, indem es durch die Medien, die Technik und durch soziale Praktiken unmittelbaren Einfluss auf uns Menschen nimmt. Architektur und Raumplanung haben sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten radikal gewandelt. Die alten, modernistischen Bestrebungen nach erschwinglichen Wohnungen und einer rationalen Organisation der Städte sind ebenso in den Hintergrund gerückt wie die postmodernen Obsessionen der Kommunikation, der Nutzerbeteiligung und des öffentlichen Raumes. Stattdessen stehen nun ästhetische und entschieden unpolitischere Belange im Vordergrund: Diskussionen zwischen einer kritischen und einer projektiven Praxis, zwischen Blobs und Kisten, zwischen Atmosphäre und Ornament. Doch das ist noch lange nicht das Ende der Geschichte, wie im vorliegenden Band deutlich wird. Die Beiträge des 11. Bauhaus-Kolloquiums umspannen einen Zeitraum, der von der Gründung des Bauhauses in Weimar bis zur globalen Architektur unserer Zeit reicht, und verfolgen dabei die Entwicklung des Empires zurück, um gleichzeitig nach Konsequenzen und Alternativen zu fragen, denen die Architektur sich heute gegenübergestellt sieht.

This paper revisits the history and legacy of the Bauhaus from the vantage point of contemporary art education. It explains how the design school was never a unified project, but rather a collection of disparate voices and opinions, and shows how ideas of community and subjectivity were at its centre. The author asks if these ideas, born out of early 19th century educational reform, and pressurised by the political turbulence of 1920s and 30s Germany may be the most useful influences for the Bauhaus impacting on Art and Design education today. The paper was prepared for the opening of the conference Bauhaus Utopia in Crisis, 24th October 2019, University of the Arts London, Camberwell College of Arts. The conference was part of the week-long OurHaus festival at the University that ran between 21-25th October 2019. The festival included the exhibition Utopia in Crisis, curated by Daniel Sturgis at Camberwell Space Gallery (16 September – 9 November 2019) touring to Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (2020).