The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is a Foundation (nonprofit organization) under public law. It is a centre of research, teaching and experimental design. The Foundation in its current form was founded by the German Federal Government, the state of Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...

 and the town Dessau

Dessau

Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:...

 in 1994. It is based in the historical Bauhaus Building in Dessau-Roßlau

Dessau-Roßlau

' is an independent city and urban district in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is situated at the confluence of the rivers Elbe and Mulde. The town was formed by merger of the independent city of Dessau with the town of Roßlau in the course of the Kreisreform Sachsen-Anhalt on 1 July 2007...

. The Foundation’s staff with about 60 employees includes architects, town planners, sociologists, cultural scientists, artists and art historians.

History of the Foundation

After closing and expulsion of the historical Bauhaus

Bauhaus

', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...

 in Dessau on 30 September 1932 a long time of 44 years had to pass, before the Bauhaus Building could be used again in its original sense. In 1976, 50 years after its construction, the GDR government had reconstructed the historical monument and founded a "Scientific and cultural Centre". Assembly of a Bauhaus collection of its own began and the Bauhaus stage was once again used for concerts and plays. In 1986 the GDR celebrated the reopening of the Bauhaus as a "Centre for Design", tied in the eastern Germany’s department of building.

After the German reunification

German reunification

German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

 it seemed to be completely unclear what the Bauhaus would evolve into during the following years. On 9 February 1994 the German Federal Government, the state of Saxony-Anhalt and the town Dessau finally founded the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. Today, the Bauhaus Building in Dessau-Roßlau is one of Germany's World Heritage Sites.

From 1994 until 1998 Prof. Dr. Rolf Kuhn was the Executive Director of the Foundation. His successor Prof. Dr. Omar Akbar was in charge until 2009. Since 1 March 2009 the architect and publicist Prof. Philipp Oswalt is the head of the Foundation; his deputy is Dr. Regina Bittner, who is also responsible fort he Foundation’s Academy.

Mission and structure

Today, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is based in the historic Bauhaus Building. As one of the cultural beacons in the new federal states, it is committed to conserving, researching into and passing on the Bauhaus legacy, while also finding solutions to the problems of designing today’s living environment. With its three sections – Collection, Workshop and Academy –, the Foundation addresses contemporary urban challenges, explores options for the future and develops stimuli for architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

, design

Design

Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

 and the performing arts

Performing arts

The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...

.

Collection and archive

In terms of content, the Foundation’s work is based on three mainstays. Dessau-Roßlau has the second-largest collection in the world – around 26,000 objects – relating to the history of the Bauhaus. Part of the Collection may be seen in the Permanent Exhibition, which is located in the basement of the Bauhaus Building.

Academy

The Academy is the mainstay of teaching. Since 1999, the International Bauhaus Kolleg has offered a one-year interdisciplinary module through the medium of English, where architects, urban designers and urban scientists from all over the world are taught.

Workshop

In the workshop, research and teaching are manifestly enmeshed, build on and complement each other in the different projects and project phases – just as craftsmen work hand in hand in a workshop until the final product is complete. Here, the current focus is on the International Building Exhibition IBA 2010, which is developing projects for 19 small and medium-sized cities in Saxony-Anhalt, in order to meet the challenges presented by population decline.

Further activities

The Foundation’s work is complemented by experimental stage productions, stage events and festivals, creating a lively and creative atmosphere. Exhibitions – both permanent and temporary – in the historical premises address the heritage and design problems of today. The Foundation has revitalised the legendary Bauhaus Stage with a rich programme of contemporary music and dance. In Dessau, tourists and experts in the field, journalists and researchers, learn about the Bauhaus in all its complexity: guided tours of the building itself, and of the other Bauhaus buildings, overnight accommodation in the historic dormitory, temporary exhibitions and a wide range of events on the Bauhaus Stage bring the Bauhaus’s legacy to life, in Dessau more than anywhere else.
Every year, the birthplace of Modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 attracts 100,000 visitors from around the world, who wish to discover the spirit of the influential School of Design for themselves. The permanent exhibition in the basement of the Bauhaus Building shows a selection of the 26,000 objects held in the second-largest Bauhaus collection in the world. who wish to discover the spirit of the influential School of Design for themselves. The Bauhaus Building and the Masters’ Houses – together with the Kornhaus by Carl Fieger, the former Employment office by Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....

, the Törten Estate and the other Bauhaus buildings in Dessau – are key works of the international modern architecture par excellence.

External links

• Official Website of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
• Friends of the Bauhaus
• Publications of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
• The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation today
• Web platform published by the three institutions which preserve the Bauhaus heritage in Germany (Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and Foundation of Weimar Classics)