Photo Gallery Bauhaus Is Back
The Bauhaus-Dessau Foundation has launched an architectural award aimed at encouraging architects to design good housing for the poor, such as this house designed by Modernist architect Le Corbusier.
Bauhaus-Dessau director Omar Akbar wants to draw attention to a problem that "no longer seems to interest today's architects: poverty."
The Bauhaus-Dessau. The Bauhuas was founded in 1919 by Walter Gropious in Weimar and eventually moved to Dessau. It was an art school and was considered a leading authority on design, architecture and urban planning.
The Bauhaus in the 1920s was committed to social housing. Walter Gropius attended an international conference on "minimum subsistence level housing" in Frankfurt in 1929. That same week, the Wall Street Crash hit, causing a worldwide economic depression.
The Modernist mantra was light, air and sunlight. The original vision was "peverted," Akbar says into the souless high-rise developments that blight many cities today.
The Bauhaus style. The Corbusier House in Berlin. Swiss Architect Le Corbusier designed the building for the Interbau57 exhibtion in Berlin.
The Bauhaus School in Dessau was recently restored and celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2006. In 1996 it was included on UNESCO World Heritage list.
Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius designed this housing project in Berlin. He and other architects were committed to good housing for the poor. Other 1920s Berlin housing projects are currently being considered for World Heritage status.
The Bauhaus also built more luxurious housing, such as this residential home for some of the teachers at the school in Dessau.
