This post is published as part of our blog series for the annual conference of the College Art Association, which is being held from February 13-16, 2019, in New York. We encourage you to share using the hashtag #CAA2019.
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus, the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH) is pleased to publish a special virtual issue drawing on the journal’s rich backlog. Founded in Weimar, Germany, in 1919, that institution’s faculty and student body included many of the key figures of 20th century art, architecture, and design, names like Gropius, Mies, Albers, Moholy-Nagy, Kandinsky, and Klee. Not only did the Bauhaus revise and redirect the form and content of design pedagogy, it effectively altered the look of 20th century architecture and industrial design worldwide.<
So, it was a great surprise, in preparing for this virtual issue, to find that in the course of its nearly 80 years, JSAH has not published a single full-length, peer-reviewed article concentrated on the Bauhaus or an aspect of it. To be clear, numerous essays mention the school, and many talk around it. One finds articles or notes pertaining to the earlier Werkbund, German architectural journals of the teens and 20s, Gropius’s letters to his young daughter, the diaspora of Bauhaus personnel following its closure by the Nazis in 1933, and the school’s place and impact within larger trajectories of architectural education in Europe and the United States. But there are no articles examining in sustained or focused fashion the school itself, its programs, or its members and their output during their time there. One can only speculate on the reasons for this. Perhaps the topic once seemed too contemporary for a historical journal; more recently, it may have appeared too obvious a subject, one already too well-documented to merit further consideration in JSAH. Or maybe the Bauhaus has simply seemed too broad a topic to JSAH authors and editors, one better suited to books than journal articles. Indeed, JSAH has over the years published several reviews of significant books, exhibitions, and films on the Bauhaus and its players.
Fortunately, for present purposes, these reviews—a selection of which is gathered here—and the subjects they treat offer a remarkable range of perspectives on the Bauhaus and its legacy. That they do so in compact, informative, and sometimes elegant form is a reminder that a good review—like much of what the Bauhaus made—is a useful thing that occasionally rises to the level of art. We are pleased to make these essays available for free for a limited time.
Table of Contents
Review: Before the Bauhaus: Architecture, Politics and the German State, 1890-1920 by John V. MacIuika; Werner Hegemann and the Search for Universal Urbanism by Christiane Crasemann Collins
Jill Pearlman
December 2006, Vol. 65 No. 4, (pp. 639-641) DOI: 10.2307/25068341
Review: Bauhaus Culture: From Weimar to the Cold War, edited by Kathleen James-Chakraborty
Suzanne Frank
March 2008, Vol. 67 No. 1, (pp. 140-142) DOI: 10.1525/jsah.2008.67.1.140
Review: Bauhaus 1919-1933: Da Kandinsky a Klee, da Gropius a Mies van der Rohe
Rosa Tamborrino
March 1998, Vol. 57 No. 1, (pp. 68-71) DOI: 10.2307/991406
Review: Das Bauhaus kommt aus Weimar by Ute Ackermann, Ulrike Bestgen, editors; Modell Bauhaus by Annemarie Jaeggi, Wolfgang Thöner, editors; Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity by Barry Bergdoll, Leah Dickerman, editors
Katherine M. Kuenzli
June 2011, Vol. 70 No. 2, (pp. 247-250) DOI: 10.1525/jsah.2011.70.2.247
Review: Bauhaus 1919––1933: Workshops for Modernity
Barbara Miller Lane
September 2010, Vol. 69 No. 3, (pp. 430-434) DOI: 10.1525/jsah.2010.69.3.430
Review: The Weissenhofsiedlung: Experimental Housing Built for the Deutscher Werkbund, Stuttgart, 1927 by Karin Kirsch, David Britt; Weissenhof 1927 and the Modern Movement in Architecture by Richard Pommer, Christian F. Otto
Wolf Tegethoff
June 1993, Vol. 52 No. 2, (pp. 242-244) DOI: 10.2307/990799
Review: Bauhaus-Moderne im Nationalsozialismus Zwischen Anbiederung und Verfolgung by Winfried Nerdinger
Mark Peach
June 1995, Vol. 54 No. 2, (pp. 261-262) DOI: 10.2307/990986
Review: Bauhaus Dream-house: Modernity and Globalization by Katerina Rüedi Ray
Kathleen James-Chakraborty
September 2012, Vol. 71 No. 3, (pp. 422-423) DOI: 10.1525/jsah.2012.71.3.422
Review: The Bauhaus and America: First Contacts 1919-1936 by Margret Kentgens-Craig
Jill Pearlman
December 2000, Vol. 59 No. 4, (pp. 542-544) DOI: 10.2307/991632
Review: Bauhaus in America by Judith Pearlman
Carol Burns
June 1996, Vol. 55 No. 2, (pp. 182-185) DOI: 10.2307/991120
