Bauhaus Festival

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Poster for the 1921 kite festival in Weimar by Oskar Schlemmer

The Bauhaus festivals it was hard events at the State Bauhaus . The members of the Bauhaus celebrated it during the existence of the institution between 1920 and 1933, first in Weimar and later in Dessau several times a year for different occasions. The festivities were part of school life at the Bauhaus.

Celebration preparations

In Weimar, the Bauhaus festivals were rather spontaneous. In Dessau they were carefully and long-term prepared and each had a specific motto for the costumes and interior design. For the implementation, scripts and concepts for the design were created with the participation of many Bauhaus workshops. This included, among other things, the design and manufacture of invitations and tickets. These are the most popular prints from the Bauhaus. The model was based on the artist's postcards, popular since the turn of the century . While the cards in Weimar were only printed in small editions and mostly colored by hand, in Dessau there was targeted advertising for the festivities for larger editions.

The rooms were also designed with decorations. The participants made their own costumes, each based on the theme of the festival. During the preparations, every student could try out their artistic skills.

description

Artists' festivals were already a tradition at the Grand Ducal Saxon Art School in Weimar as a forerunner of the Bauhaus. In the early days of the Bauhaus, the director Walter Gropius first introduced Bauhaus evenings with readings and music performances. The first lantern festival took place on June 21, 1920 on the 60th birthday of the Weimar poet Johannes Schlaf . It was then celebrated on Walter Gropius' birthday on May 18.

The most important festivals during the year were the lantern festival, the lantern festival at the summer solstice , the autumn kite festival and Christmas . But other occasions were also taken up, such as birthdays , Mardi Gras , the birth of a child, or nightly parades through the park on the Ilm . According to Walter Gropius' ideas, such celebrations served to "build up a cheerful ceremony". Experimental and artistic work at the Bauhaus was presented at the lavishly organized events.

In the Weimar period of the Bauhaus, the celebrations were often spontaneous and an expression of joie de vivre , despite the poverty of the students. They came together in the restaurant "Zum Ilmschlößchen", where the Bauhaus band played. There were lantern evenings in the garden, sketch performances and improvised puppet theater by Felix Klee . During the Bauhaus in Dessau, the festivals took on an increasingly professional character and became a “cultural event”. Oskar Schlemmer often spent weeks preparing for its implementation and involved almost all of the Bauhaus workshops. In Dessau, the festivals with their stagings, performances and costumes became so popular that guests from Berlin and Leipzig arrived. The Bauhaus stage premiered many pieces at the festivities. The highlight of the Bauhaus festivities is the “Metallic Festival” on February 9, 1929. The guests entered the festival rooms via a slide covered with tinplate. The decorations were made of shiny metal and the walls were lined with tinplate.

Due to the political situation with the rise of National Socialism , the festivals declined from 1929. The carnival festival of 1931 took place almost completely closed to the public. The last two festivals took place in the Bauhaus Berlin on February 18 and 25, 1933 as a carnival ball. Shortly thereafter, on April 11, 1933, the premises of the Bauhaus were searched and sealed by the police.

meaning

The Bauhaus festivals were among the highlights of Bauhaus life and had a formative character on the students. Thanks to the extensive preparations for the festivities, the events promoted the creativity of the students, their organizational skills and teamwork. In addition, they were a means of community building and offered the opportunity for exchange between the masters and students, but also with the residents of Weimar and Dessau.

List of festivals

Dates of the Bauhaus festivals and celebrations (selection)
year date Fixed designation place
1919 June 5th Social evening (introductory party) Weimar, Hall of the Citizens' Association, Kuthstr. 11
1921 Kite festival Weimar
1922 Kite festival Weimar
1922 June 21st Lantern and solstice festival Weimar
1923 August 19th Lantern Festival Weimar
1924 June Fancy dress party Weimar, Ilmschlösschen
1925 15. January Court ball Weimar
1925 March 28th and 29th Kehrausfest, last dance Weimar, Ilmschlösschen
1925 December 4th New Objectivity Hall
1926 March, 20th The white festival Dessau
1926 March 21st topping out ceremony Dessau
1926 December 4th Inauguration party with Bauhaus dances Dessau
1927 November 11th Eleven elves Dessau
1927 December 4th Keyword fixed Dessau
1928 March 24th Farewell evening for Walter Gropius Dessau
1928 March 31 Beard Nose Hearts Festival Berlin
1928 April 13th Bauhaus Festival Berlin
1928 19. December Christmas party Dessau
1929 February 9 Metallic festival, bell, bell and bell festival Dessau
1929 November 9th Farewell party for Oskar Schlemmer Dessau
1930 1st March Dance carousel Dessau
1931 October 21 Pre-course festival Dessau
1931 November 7th Schminkfinkenfest (preliminary course festival) Dessau
1931 December 17th Christmas party Dessau
1932 February 8 Shrovetide Dessau
1932 May 3rd Pre-course festival Dessau
1932 9th of December Pre-course festival Dessau
1933 February 18th and 25th Mardi Gras Berlin

reception

In 1983 the tradition of the Bauhaus festivals was resumed under the name Bauhaus-Treff and held annually until 1989. In 1997, with the entry of the Dessau Bauhaus on the UNESCO World Heritage List , the festivities were resumed; until 2012 they operated under the name of Farbfest . At the annual event, experimental installations, performances, music, dance and room installations are shown in downtown Dessau.

In 2005 the exhibition “The Bauhaus Celebrates” took place in Barcelona , which dealt with the theme of the earlier Bauhaus festivals using almost 100 photos and 50 collages, sketches and drawings.

literature

  • Folke Dietzsch (ed.): Spiritual - cultural life in: The students at the Bauhaus , Weimar 1990, pp. 121–122
  • Magdalena Droste: Fest - Arbeit - Spiel in: bauhaus 1919–1933 , Cologne, 2019, pp. 50–57

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Folke Dietzsch (ed.): The students at the Bauhaus , festivals and celebrations (selection), Annex 59, Weimar 1990, p. 335