The Revolutionary Style that Changed the World
Ashwini Tandi


© Ashwini Tandi

© Ashwini Tandi

© Ashwini Tandi

© Ashwini Tandi
The Bauhaus Design was revolutionary. It was an art and design, which shaped modernism in all of Europe, and eventually the world. In 1919, German architect Walter Gropius founded Staatliches Bauhaus, a school dedicated to uniting all branches of the arts under one roof in Germany. The school eventually morphed into its own modern art movement, characterized by its unique approach to architecture and design.
Today, Bauhaus is renowned for both its unique aesthetic, that inventively combines the fine arts with arts and crafts, as well as its enduring influence on modern and contemporary art. Bauhaus is all about new techniques, new materials, new ways of construction and new attitude.
The school encouraged the embrace of modern technologies in order to succeed in a modern environment. The most basic tenet of the Bauhaus was ‘form follows function’. According to this idea, the school emphasized a strong understanding of basic design, especially the principles of composition, colour theory, and craftsmanship, in a wide array of discipline. ‘Form follows function’ is simple but elegant geometric shapes that were designed based on the intended function, or purpose of a building or an object. Though the functionality need not be boring as we can see from the Bauhaus buildings. Because of the Bauhaus belief in the oneness of the artist and the craftsman, their courses taught students to eliminate the ideas of the individual, and instead focus on the productivity of design.
Another quality of Bauhaus style is Simplicity and Effectiveness. There is no need for additional ornamenting and making things more ‘beautiful’. They are fine in the way they originally are.
In the school, they used available resources very smartly. Bauhaus ideology is characterised by the economic way of thinking. The representatives of the Bauhaus movement wanted to achieve a controlled finance, productive time-consuming projects, precise material use, and spare space.
They even emphasised on technology. Bauhaus workshops were used for developing prototypes of products for mass production. The artists embraced the new possibilities of modern technologies.
Almost 100 years after its inception, Bauhaus still remains a highly influential force in design and beyond. It epitomizes the tenets of German design to the entire world, and demonstrates what’s possible when designers combine minimalism and mass production. Its legacy is seen in everything from glorious typefaces and web designs, to buildings and essential design principles.
I think the movement helped to open the minds of amazing designs the world has never seen before, that can be functional and sometimes even timeless in its design.
The aim of my project is to design a building, taking into account the goals and characteristics of the Bauhaus movement from 1920s, and merge them into a modern, yet timeless design, suitable for the 21st century user. We broke away from the classical way of design, into a new world of endless possibilities.