Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

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The Bauhaus building in Dessau-Roßlau - headquarters of the foundation (2009)
Logo of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Former logo of the foundation

The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is a public law foundation based in the historic Bauhaus building in Dessau-Roßlau . It is a place for research, teaching and experimental design. The foundation in its current form was established in 1994 by the federal government , the state of Saxony-Anhalt and the city of Dessau and has around 60 employees.

History of the foundation

The historic Bauhaus Dessau was closed on September 30, 1932 following a decision by the Dessau City Council on the initiative of the NSDAP. The Bauhaus architecture itself was able to survive the Nazi era, the Second World War and the GDR period despite partial destruction. It was not until 1976, on the 50th anniversary of the Bauhaus building, that the GDR rediscovered the Bauhaus heritage. The GDR government had the house reconstructed in accordance with the monument and founded the "Scientific and Cultural Center" (WKZ). The WKZ then began, among other things, with the construction of the current collection of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and reactivated the Bauhaus stage . The workshop rooms hosted advanced training and design seminars for the GDR Building Academy, the Weimar University of Architecture and Construction and the Office for Industrial Design. In 1986 the GDR celebrated the reopening of the Bauhaus as a “Center for Design”, linked to the East German Ministry of Construction.

With German unification, it seemed completely open for a few years how things should go on in Dessau. On February 9, 1994, the federal government, the state of Saxony-Anhalt and the city of Dessau finally founded the “Bauhaus Dessau Foundation”. The new institution was included in the list of cultural lighthouses in the new federal states and was henceforth “nationally important”. The foundation was tasked with “preserving the legacy of the historic Bauhaus and making it accessible to the public and conveying it to the public” and “in view of the ideas and approaches of the historic Bauhaus to make contributions to the problems of shaping today's living environment”. In 1996 the Bauhaus sites in Weimar and Dessau were added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites . In Dessau, these include the Bauhaus building, the Masters' Houses and, since 2017, the five arcade houses in the Dessau-Törten estate.

management

From 1994 to 1998 Rolf Kuhn was director of the foundation, his successor Omar Akbar was in office until 2009. Since March 1, 2009, the management of the foundation has been in the hands of the Berlin architect and publicist Philipp Oswalt ; Deputy Director was Regina Bittner, who was also responsible for the Academy. In November 2013, the Board of Trustees decided to advertise the position of Director for 2014 again, as the trust of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees in Oswalt was disrupted. The ten-member scientific advisory board resigned in protest, Oswalt left the Bauhaus after five years on March 1, 2014. He was succeeded on August 1, 2014 by Berlin curator Claudia Perren , who had previously worked in architecture for eight years in the fields of design and history , Taught theory and curatorial practice in Sydney .

Mission, structure and activity

According to its statutes, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is an artistic and scientific institution with the task of keeping the ideas and topics of the Bauhaus Dessau alive and communicating them. Accordingly, in its research, exhibitions and programs, the foundation deals with the historical Bauhaus as well as with the current relevance of its topics and ideas, especially in the field of architecture, design and education, as well as art and the stage. The foundation is also committed to preserving the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau and researching their material heritage.

The Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, which have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Bauhaus since 1996, can also be viewed publicly, and this opportunity is used by around 100,000 visitors every year. Knowledge about the cultural heritage is conveyed during over 5,000 guided tours a year. In addition, scientists, architects, designers, artists and students come to the Bauhaus to research, work and be artistically active.

Since 2015, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation has been focusing on annual themes that are appropriately considered in exhibitions, research and teaching formats and in communication: collective (2015), movement (2016), substance (2017), standard (2018) and anniversary ( 2019).

The substantive work of the foundation is based on a total of three pillars:

Collection and archive

The collection of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is the second largest collection on the history of the historic Bauhaus with around 49,000 objects, particularly in relation to the Dessau phase between 1925 and 1932. Objects, graphics , sculptures , paintings, drawings, photos, furniture, teaching materials and Estates from Bauhaus members. As part of its collection, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation also maintains a building research archive in which historical components and materials, photos, documents, plans and reports from contemporary witnesses on the construction of the Bauhaus buildings and the construction processes are collected and researched.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus, the Bauhaus Museum Dessau , built in the city park of Dessau, is expected to open on September 8, 2019 , in which the collection will be on display for the first time.

The academy

The foundation's academy researches and works on Bauhaus pedagogy and runs programs in which students and young professionals from various design disciplines, such as B. Design and architecture, in the tradition of the historical Bauhaus, learn, research and create. In cooperation with the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, an international master's "COOP Design Research" is also offered.

Curatorial workshop

The curatorial workshop is the most important point for the fulfillment of the mediation mandate set out in the statutes. Accordingly, it prepares specialist and research knowledge on the subject of the Bauhaus and its ideas and deals with forms of communication. For this purpose, with a view to the opening of the Bauhaus Museum Dessau, the “Bauhaus Agents” program of the Federal Cultural Foundation is currently taking place, a cooperation between the Foundation and 15 partner schools in Dessau-Roßlau and Halle (Saale) with the aim of Development of new communication concepts that are particularly aimed at children and young people.

further activities

stage

The historic Bauhaus stage served as a pedagogical experimental set-up for experimenting with physical and spatial relationships to train designers. Nowadays, in this tradition, the stage is used by the foundation for a variety of artistic, creative and mostly interdisciplinary projects, and on the other hand it is used for various events such as the Bauhaus Festival, the Kurt Weill Festival, the Impulse Festival, and the music series zdf @ bauhaus and in a cooperation project with the Anhaltisches Theater .

Bauhaus Festival

Since 1997, the foundation has hosted the two-day Bauhaus Festival once a year, the origins of which go back to the historical Bauhaus festivals . Today's event sees itself as an art festival and essentially consists of the work of students from art, dance and design colleges.

The festival is always open to the public and has a different motto every year. Previous topics have included and will be “From Black to White” (2016), “Colorful! Material Illusion ”(2017) and“ yellow angled ”(2018).

Bauhaus Residence program

Since 2016, the Bauhaus Residence Program has offered young contemporary artists the opportunity to stay for up to three months, during which the invited live and work in the Masters' Houses. They deal artistically with the respective annual theme of the foundation (see mandate and structure) and present their results as part of the exhibition “Haus Gropius ׀׀ Contemporary”.

research

The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is also active in the field of research on the historical Bauhaus, publishes on the topic and works nationally and internationally with other scientific institutions.

controversy

In October 2018, the Bauhaus Foundation prohibited ZDF from a concert by the band Feine Sahne Fischfilet in Dessau by means of their domestic rights. The foundation justified its behavior by saying that it would not tolerate any political agitation on its premises, as this would harm the spirit of the Bauhaus. Previously, politicians from the ruling CDU and the AfD had spoken out against the concert, and right-wing groups had mobilized for counter-events. The Deputy Left parliamentary group leader Henriette Quade in Saxony-Anhalt said after the refusal of the foundation: "It's so bitter. The Nazis drove the Bauhaus out of Dessau. Now the Nazis are bullying against a concert by a left-wing band and the Bauhaus is reacting with an unloading of the Volume. On the side, the State Chancellery intervenes in freedom of the arts and the press. " The unloaded event should be recorded as part of the concert series zdf @ bauhaus in today's canteen of the Bauhaus in Dessau on November 6, 2018.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Foundation Act
  2. ↑ Bauhaus director Philipp Oswalt has to go . Süddeutsche.de. November 22, 2013. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
  3. ^ SZ Süddeutsche.de of November 22, 2013 Cultural Policy: Bauhaus Director Oswalt has to go - Advisory Board resigns . Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 22, 2013, accessed on August 7, 2020 .
  4. ^ Statutes of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. (PDF) March 29, 2005, accessed July 19, 2018 .
  5. ^ Collection and archive. Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, accessed on July 19, 2018 .
  6. ↑ COOP Design Research program. Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, accessed on July 19, 2018 (English).
  7. ↑ Bauhaus Agents program. Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, accessed on July 19, 2018 .
  8. ^ Mdr.de: Bauhaus prohibits ZDF concert of "Feine Sahne Fischfilet" | MDR.DE . ( mdr.de [accessed on October 18, 2018]).
  9. ↑ Timo Lehmann, Carola Padtberg: ZDF appearance in Dessau: CDU and AfD prevent concert of fine cream fish fillet . In: Spiegel Online . October 18, 2018 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 18, 2018]).
  10. ↑ ZDF has to cancel punk band: No cream fish fillet . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed October 18, 2018]).