The Bauhaus!
It's best known for its striking modernist architecture,
attention-grabbing typography and stylish form-meets-function design.
But beneath all this was a pioneering art school
that revolutionised the way we teach art -
placing collaboration, experimentation with materials
and the flouting of art convention at centre stage.
The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 by architect Walter Gropius.
But today, we're bringing its guiding principles
to a new generation.
In a unique experiment,
we'll be bringing the radical ideas of the Bauhaus to life here
at Central Saint Martins in London
in...a Bauhaus takeover!
Over the course of a week, six Central Saint Martins graduates
across fine art, fashion, graphic design and architecture
will be taken back to basics to discover if the school's
ground-breaking approach to training artists still holds its power
100 years on.
It feels like I'm at a crazy boot camp!
I don't know what's coming next.
Each day, the students will be challenged to create
a new work of art, design or performance
sticking strictly to rules inspired by the artists who taught
at the Bauhaus,
from Oskar Schlemmer, the cutting-edge costume designer,
to Wassily Kandinsky, one of the early pioneers of abstract art.
The Bauhaus tore up the old rules of art and design
and placed radical new ones in their place.
Yes!
Setting the rules for our students will be key figures from
today's worlds of art and design.
Leaping and wild stamping of feet are absolutely essential.
Now, in my experience,
art school students don't like sticking to the rules,
so it'll be interesting to see how they cope with that!
Let the Bauhaus begin!
Welcome to our Bauhaus experiment.
Each day, you're going to be challenged to create something new.
And in each case, you must stick to the strict Bauhaus rules.
There are no tests, no grades and no winners,
but all the classes are compulsory.
Oh! And you'll be staging a Bauhaus party on Saturday,
so you might want to invite some people along to that.
Now, what does the Bauhaus conjure up for you?
Very minimal design.
I know there were some really great typographers involved.
I really don't know anything, so I'm kind of excited. Well, you're going to find out.
OK, get some nice warm clothes on, because
your Bauhaus experience begins on the roof!
Swiss painter and teacher Johannes Itten was invited
by Walter Gropius to lead a preliminary course
for the new students, the very first of its kind.
He was shaven-headed, strictly vegetarian
and people approached him only in whispers.
Itten believed that, to become successful artists,
students must gain a greater sense of self-awareness...
Thank you.
..and artist Ian Whittlesea has studied the mysterious set
of exercises that were designed to achieve this.
Welcome.
I'm here to help you discover your own true talents and temperament.
The key to all of the exercises are the breath.
And simply breathe slowly in...
MUSIC: Aerodynamik by Kraftwerk
..and slowly out.
Retain the breath...
..and bend slowly forwards.
Following the horrors of the First World War,
the Bauhaus sought to create a new humanity,
and Itten's exercises brought together body, mind and spirit.
I think it's like what they do in Japanese industry.
And it works there. It gets everyone kind of together.
Breath in, three circles.
It makes you realise that the day's about to begin.
And out.
The three circles.
Take your fist and touch the ground.
That's actually not a bad dance.
And down.
If you practice this regularly, you should be able to generate light
from within your own body.
As you breathe in, raise your arms, keep your wrists loose
and hands dangling.
What's supposed to happen now is they create light
and it comes out of their body.
And it's said that if you enter a dark room,
you will see a glow on the end of your fingers.
So, now, we should be prepared for work.
Your body should be full of energy,
your mind should be fresh
and your spirit should be lifted.
It made me feel like I'm very grounded
and aware of my surroundings.
It was bizarrely meditative.
I became really aware of my body.
Like, I noticed my hands were, like, slightly different sizes.
They are different sizes! It's really freaking me out!
LAUGHTER
Johannes Itten was part of a spiritual cult called Mazdaznan,
which was deeply influential amongst students.
About half of the first group of Bauhaus students converted
with Itten to Mazdaznan.
So they followed a special diet and they shaved their heads.
What Itten ultimately believed was that art was a way
towards humanity evolving to a total state of spirituality.
Erm...
Go for it, Itten!
Even the Bauhaus Canteen was subject to Itten's Mazdaznan takeover.
So, whether they liked or not, students were forced to eat
a rather potent garlic mush.
Everybody had to eat garlic mush.
People always said that you could smell them coming.
It smells great, though! It does! THEY LAUGH
I don't think I could have this every single day.
Compared to what I ate as a student, this isn't too bad.
You really like it!
Give me the recipe! THEY LAUGH
The Bauhaus was a commune in those early years.
All of the students would have been eating the same thing.
I'd no idea that the Bauhaus was so spiritual and mystical.
It's almost like you're going to an art school -
and then you get there and you find out it's a monastery. Yeah.
Eventually, he came to see himself more as a religious figure
than an artist.
And the original Mazdaznan thought somehow became translated
into eugenics and race evolution.
And they had their own workshop in Switzerland, called Aryana.
So there's a sinister side to it all as well?
How do you feel about it?
It's totally not what I expected. I didn't know...
No, nothing at all! ..this sort of darker side to things.
I don't know how I quite feel about the whole thing at the moment.
Itten's abhorrent views on race were not widely shared at the Bauhaus.
He was brought to the school not as a spiritual leader,
but as a radical teacher.
Itten believed artists should learn their craft
not by copying old masters, but by starting from the beginning again
and rediscovering the most basic of materials.
Your task for today is to create an artwork that expresses
contrast of materials.
So you should think of rough and smooth,
light and dark, blunt and sharp.
All of your materials need to come from on the ground,
or from in the bins.
I've had a quick look in there.
There's a lot of rough and smooth, there's sharp, blunt.
The whole lot's in there.
Are you going after the chair? Yeah. Ah, fuck!
Oh, my God, garlic!
There's no better place to find materials than the bin!
This is the saddest party ever! I know! They're rock-hard.
I've been in this very skip quite a few times.
So you've done all this rummaging around?
It started off at the Bauhaus and then ended up
in every art school as the first thing you ever do.
This is a tap
and a pool of some kind of white mulch that's come out of it...
It's kind of like a condom filled with something.
OK, that's it. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, load up.
We'll ship it all out and get it up into the studio,
and make some fine art.
Itten's reinvention of art education didn't end at the rubbish tip.
I've got here a blindfold for each of you.
And I'd like you to put the blindfold on each other
and feel some of your materials.
Itten believed that artists must engage all of their senses
to understand the true nature of materials.
It's light, but I'm feeling the sides, which I wouldn't have normally done.
It's still got some sort of life in there. I can smell what's in...
HE SNIFFS ..the inside.
Itten wrote, "The students had to explore this series of textures
"with their fingertips.
"In a short time, their sense of touch improved
"to an astonishing degree."
Slow down your breathing and think back to when we were on the roof.
And maybe, in that way, we'll get to a deeper understanding
of what it is.
Does that make any difference?
Not really. THEY LAUGH
Right, right.
Now, think about how the contrast between materials
reveals the essence of them.
You have an hour-and-a-half.
Now, you can begin.
Right!
Time to take my senses on a tour of the room.
I have some essences to discover.
HE GROANS
It's that thing there. It's horrible!
Oh, will you squeeze it?
HE GROANS I used to...
When I was a kid, I used to have nightmares like that.
It was like rough and smooth, I used to dream in... Yeah.
..in awful nightmares. And it's right there.
That's weird, that, innit? Sort of some sort of way.
Cos you're touching something firm, and it's jelly-like.
Yeah, exactly! But I kind of like this just by itself.
But do you know what? I can't stop touching that. No!
It's kind of fun, isn't it? Yeah, it really is!
What's the overall purpose, then, of today's exercise?
I think, at heart, it's to allow the students
to discover a sense of play with things.
This activity allows them to engage with a huge number of materials
really quickly,
to discover which materials they have an inclination towards.
I'm looking at how the different objects and materials
can work together, to balance each other out
and form a sculpture just by themselves.
Is that just balanced on there? Mm-hm. Yeah. Very fragile.
I didn't want to use any tools.
So, I'm kind of finding out about these grooves and things
that you wouldn't normally pay attention to.
The glass on top of the pumice... Yeah.
So what I'm looking at is how to identify the contrast
in materials, but through sound.
It's a new kind of piano, is it?
You're absolutely right! So you can trigger... May I?
Yeah, go for it, go for it!
PIECES CHIME
That's great! It's... HE LAUGHS
It's very impressive. Thank you very much.
It doesn't sound that great.
But you've got the touch, you've got the horror of...of that.
You've got everything going there.
And what have we got here?
Got a bit of a beast.
I'm trying to completely destroy the shape of the original chair.
What my idea is, is that you'd touch this and try to break this,
whether you use your face, your elbows, your hands... You what?
Face? But rubber's quite soft and it protects things,
so I was kind of thinking, "Well, what if it does the opposite? What if it kind of hurts you?" Yeah.
So you'd kind of like bash it with your face,
pop it with your mouth,
kind of roll around in it...
..while blindfolded.
As the Bauhaus students carried out these exercises,
Itten was struck by their response.
"They were overcome by a creative fever," he said,
"and rediscovered their entire environment."
It resulted in fantastic creations which were, at the time,
entirely novel.
OK, everyone, time's up.
We'll quickly look at them all together,
and then each of you can talk a bit about how it was to make it.
I wanted to have these clouds that you kind of want to go to
but then play with the desire of getting to the clouds,
and so I put the broken glass on there.
This is probably the one that looks most like
what they made at the Bauhaus.
And I've not cut, chopped or changed any of the objects.
They're all exactly how I found them.
Itten would say that it naturally balances,
because you've found the...
Yeah. ..the innate tension within the materials.
Do you want to see a demonstration? Go on.
THEY LAUGH
One of the things I like most about it is that
there's so little evident work. Yeah.
That's something that we can all take from this.
My piece was totally overworked - and slightly over-the-top -
but I quite like that.
Itten was interested in allowing people to reveal themselves.
As long as it represents you and your thought now,
then it is successful.
I will be very honest - at the beginning, I kind of thought,
"I don't get how any of this is helping. I don't find it..."
But now, sitting here, I'm going, "Oh, I see it now!"
I've been, like, re-learning and re-examining what I'm doing.
Everybody who's ever been to art school
begins by doing a foundation course.
All of those foundation courses are still based largely
on the structure that Itten brought to them.
What appears to be a very extreme form of mysticism
is still bound up with how we teach our artists today.
When Itten departed after four years at the school,
many of his more extreme Mazdaznan practises left with him.
But vegetarianism, daily exercise and experimentation with materials
remained at the centre of life at the school.
And the Bauhaus remained a deeply spiritual place -
in part through the influence of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.
Kandinsky had painted one of the first abstract artworks,
and he believed in a spiritual connection between shape and colour.
Artist David Batchelor has returned to the theme of colour and geometry
frequently in his own work,
which you might have seen illuminating London's Southbank.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the artist, David Batchelor!
APPLAUSE
We're going to start with something really simple, which is a survey,
a little test I'm going to get you all to do.
The test involves taking three shapes -
a triangle, a circle and a square - and three colours -
red, yellow and blue -
and giving each shape one of those colours.
But not arbitrarily - you've got to feel the relationship, OK?
Let's go and do it.
# I'm just mad about Saffron
# Saffron's mad about me... #
OK, ladies and gentlemen, you may turn over your papers.
# I'm just mad about Saffron... #
Very neat.
But is it right?
In 1923, Wassily Kandinsky circulated this questionnaire
within the Bauhaus and beyond.
He hoped the results would establish a universal correspondence
between form and colour.
# They call me mellow yellow
# Quite rightly... #
The triangle...
Ah, dammit!
..is yellow.
The circle...
..is blue. And -
I hope I've got this right -
the square is red.
Kandinsky felt that there was an intrinsic, deep, interior reason
why these shapes and these colours HAD to belong together.
And if you were a real artist,
you could intuitively grasp those essential relationships.
So we now have to find out whether you are real artists!
First one...
Close, but no cigar.
Second one.
Oh... Oh, this one works!
Actually, it is, yeah! Whose is this?
Me!
No, this corresponds precisely to Kandinsky's formula.
I just knew that I wanted to put yellow with the triangle,
cos I always feel like yellow's quite an unsettling colour.
You said here, "Yellow's a warning sign."
Yeah. And the warning sign... Do you drive?
No, I can't drive. Good. THEY LAUGH
There was only one other person who got it right, and that...
..is me. THEY LAUGH
So, the task we're going to set you today involves making something,
anything, that employs the three primary colours
and these three basic shapes.
Kandinsky believed that if you get these relationships right,
the whole work will have an inner harmony.
I want you to make your work with this feeling of harmony about it.
While art students of the past had been taught to paint
landscapes and portraits, Kandinsky encouraged his students to explore
the creative forces of colours and shapes.
Blue had a depth, which was emphasised in a circle
and even evoked the taste of fresh figs.
I want all the colours and the shapes to harmonise together
and kind of evolve, in and out of each other.
Kandinsky fundamentally believed that certain colours
and certain forms and certain musical tones and certain moods
all had these almost magical correspondences to each other.
Itten was kind of quasi-religious,
and so was Kandinsky, and it seems to be like a recurring thing
in the Bauhaus.
It all sounds pretty wacky today, but immediately after World War I
you've got a world which appears to be falling apart.
And they're trying to stick it back together again - in a new way.
The artist becomes this figure who can somehow lead to the world
on their spiritual quest.
So, come up and join me here in my heavens.
Are you guys going to keep within these...?
The colours that he told us, what the rules were?
I'm not going to stick to what was set. You're not sticking to those colours, yeah?
No, I mean, there's a reason why all mine were wrong,
cos I don't agree with it, so...
I'm doing what I did in the questionnaire,
not what Kandinsky did,
because I trust myself more than Kandinsky -
which is probably a rookie error.
I'm not sure if I agree with the colours.
You rebel!
But I'm quite enjoying the rigidity.
Well, David, what do you think?
A lot of them have disregarded all of Kandinsky's rules.
Well, frankly, I'm delighted.
What are they going to get out of today?
If you can radically limit, you know, the shape and the form
and colour that you can work with,
it gives you something to push against.
Kandinsky believed that students should start
from the simplest forms and work up from there.
It's a bit weird for me cos I never work with, like, straight lines
and these primary colours.
You could take the circle or the triangle...
..and then destroy them. Mm! You could slice them up.
It feels like I'm back at primary school or something.
And I haven't discovered mixing yet.
What I'm going to make is a lantern.
And the lantern's going to be called My Bau-House.
Are you going to paint it? Yeah, I'll paint it.
And then the clay will hopefully air-dry with the paint on it.
Takes a while for it to air-dry, you know.
Fingers crossed!
So, I was thinking of making a kind of garment all cut out of triangles.
Yeah. So that's an iron-on foil.
Do you know how it works?
LAUGHS: No. It just happens... Not a clue!
There's some ambitious designs here, but the clock is ticking.
Will they crack under pressure?
Collapse under the weight of expectation?
Fall at the final hurdle?
I've not actually used this before.
OK, nothing happened! SHE LAUGHS
I really don't like working with primary colours,
so that's why I'm a bit stressed at this task!
So, the good news is, the walls are done. Ay!
The bad news is, it's not drying as quick as I thought it would.
Ah! Yeah!
Oh. No.
I'm making a full alphabet.
I've got to M - and I've got less than an hour left.
We usually put a fixer on it.
OK, I think I got the wrong idea of what this foil actually does!
SHE LAUGHS
Students, you have 45 minutes left...
WHISPERS: Shit! ..so make good use of it.
My foiling didn't work. I've had to Spray Mount them all.
I'm trying to think of household items that I can deconstruct
in a simple way.
What is this? A seesaw?
It's a shoe. Is it?
It's a shoe, yeah!
Oh, don't ask about that one. THEY LAUGH
Is that the saucy one? Yeah.
"Sex aid"?
I mean, if that's a sex aid, then surely the teapot could be as well.
Depends on what you're into.
Well...I'd probably go for the teapot.
I can see that it's the alphabet. Mm-hm.
But I'm not entirely sure if I'll finish... Is that A?
..all 26 by the end of this time.
Can you...? Can it be a shortened alphabet? No.
At the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition, Kandinsky's correspondence theory
could be seen everywhere -
from a mural design to a child's cradle.
All right, people. Time's up.
Finish your artworks and bring them over here for display.
It's still... It's still wet.
I can't pick it up.
You're going to have to!
Otherwise, you're disqualified - from life!
I think you've been extraordinarily resourceful with very limited range
of stuff to work with, and I think that's the point.
This was my kind of failure.
And I became really interested in the kind of off-cuts,
so this is now a do-it-yourself Kandinsky.
Even though it sounds quite strict - what the Bauhaus was up to
with these rules - I think there actually was plenty of room
for improvisation.
And I think, often, with art, the bits that are left over
have a sort of life and a charm to them that the art doesn't have.
Who did these small bits of felt?
Those would be me.
I quite like the way you got the...
The sewn line provides a different kind of linear element.
These actually look very much like little Bauhaus experiments. Yes!
What have you got - six, 12, 15 different designs?
What, for example, is this one?
It's a sofa.
Obviously.
This one? That is a teapot.
This one's interesting. What's that?
Oh, God, you're making me say it!
You said they're all going to be sort of household, domestic things?
Yeah, they are! They are.
So where would you find that? Erm...
In a couple's bedroom. Uh-huh. Yeah.
What's it...? Is it a butt-plug?
THEY LAUGH
It's a butt-plug!
After completing a successful work, Bauhaus students would sometimes
mark the occasion with a candlelit celebration.
I think it would be interesting to still spend more time on this
and think about harmonising and balancing these colours and forms.
I think it made a difference yesterday, starting with
the breathing exercises, and it was very calming.
And then, today, we started with a test.
It's like, "Do you think you know about colour? You don't."
THEY LAUGH
I really liked today, just having the rules -
and either make them or break them.
I got on with it much better than I did yesterday.
Kandinsky transformed students' understanding of what it meant
to be an artist.
But the school's founder, Walter Gropius,
had radical ideas of his own.
An architect by trade, he encouraged students
to direct their artistic gaze to the practical world around them -
rethinking the modern home in keeping with
the spirit of the times.
The Bauhaus forged relationships with leaders of industry
across the country, and today will be no different.
Ladies and gentlemen, today, please welcome
Kate Butler, the head of product design at Habitat!
APPLAUSE
This chair that you can see is one of the most iconic designs
of the Bauhaus.
Marcel Breuer took the inspiration from the handles of a bicycle.
He just stripped it right back to its purest, simplest form.
It sort of floats in these geometric, simple shapes.
It does look like it could have been made yesterday.
I can see Dominic sitting in that.
You're looking good in that. It's actually really comfortable.
It's almost a little bit intimidating, the chair,
because it's kind of perfect.
I can't... I don't see how I could improve it in any way.
Breuer's Wassily Chair was revered for its continuous line design.
And his tubular steel furniture completely reimagined
the modern home.
For today's task, you are going to create
a functional item for the home.
Form must follow function,
and you will only be able to use basic techniques to create it.
I can't do simplicity.
I always just go overboard. THEY LAUGH
You're going to be working in the metal workshop,
and you're going to be paired up for this.
So, use each other.
There was a view at the Bauhaus that women couldn't think in 3-D,
so...
..see what you make of that!
Can you...? Can you think in 3-D?
Well, we've got to prove that wrong.
Let's go and prove them wrong!
After their first year, everyone entered specialist workshops.
But student Marianne Brandt wrote,
"The general opinion was that the metal workshop
"was no place for a woman."
We're going to start with sketching your ideas on paper.
You have one hour.
Which ones are our favourite?
Yeah, T-bone cafetiere I really like.
The function is to mainly just make a nice cup of coffee.
In my head, it would normally be like function follows form,
because I don't normally make things that have a function.
In a departure from the past,
the Bauhaus gave equal weight to craft as it did fine art.
Students were encouraged to create everyday objects that would serve
the needs of the modern individual.
When I'm sat at the table, at home, eating my dinner with my family,
I always feel bad for my dog. He's, like, left out on the floor.
So we thought we could build, like, a dog highchair.
But then... So your dog's eating with you at the table? Yeah!
So he's kind of on our level.
Do the rest of the family agree with this?
I doubt it.
It could have, like, a detachable cage,
depending on how much you trust your dog.
We're thinking about the needs of millennials today.
So what is it? It's a portable birdbath...
Slash feeder, slash perch.
You can put this on your bird sill so you can encourage nature to come.
Yeah, we... But what if you get, like, a kind of brutal pigeon
that's going to land down? It's going to kick it over, innit?
Yeah, it might do. Maybe...
Maybe you get some hooks and hook it over your bird sill.
Right, everyone. Time is up.
Let's start with the function.
So we wanted to look at millennial urbanites
who are moving from flat to flat all the time... Yeah.
You know, your traditional birdbath is this massive stone kind of thing,
and you need a garden. The idea is a good one.
You know, adapt to what modern life is like.
It's just that you don't want it to get fussy.
We've created a highchair for dogs.
It's got two frames, which would kind of create the height,
and then we've got one sheet of metal, which will include the ladder
and the seat and the eating plate.
The ladder? Yeah!
So, practically speaking, how is the dog going to get up the ladder?
Climb up!
We have got a cafetiere.
You have no plunger mechanism... Yeah.
..so it wouldn't actually work.
We just haven't figured out, in terms of actually working...
Actually making it work. Yeah.
Luckily, Ricky's on hand.
Alongside their artist teachers, Bauhaus students were trained
in manual skills by specialist technicians
known as masters of craft.
It's actually quite difficult to make a cutting like this.
You'll get a weak point there. Yeah.
Might need to think about an external handle.
We haven't got that long, so chop chop!
In the early days of the Bauhaus, Gropius complained that the students
were lacking a sense of craft.
He said, "Apprentices? Journeymen?
"At present, these terms are a joke!"
That's actually...terrible.
THEY LAUGH
I think... Just really bad!
We're a bit behind.
We've had to re-measure everything.
Being in the all-female team...
We've got a lot of responsibility on our shoulders.
Walter Gropius wrote, "Whether a container,
"a chair or a house, it must perform its function in a practical way
"and be durable, inexpensive and beautiful."
Do you think our students are on to anything in there?
There was stuff to work out.
The cafetiere, I don't think that they've reconciled
what it actually is -
what does the mechanism look like? How's it going to pour?
The function might be compromised.
But through failing and struggling and adapting,
it, hopefully, will have improved.
How's it going over here, then? Huh? Huh?
It's going well.
When that's full of coffee, it's going to be pretty weighty.
That's true. Could you say this is a model,
but twice the size, just so...
LAUGHS: Yeah. We've scaled it up. Yeah, we've scaled it up.
Collaboration was one of the founding principles of the Bauhaus,
but will today's pairings prove fruitful, or will the students
be left with no bananas?
Nice cut! SHE LAUGHS
Oh, it went down the back!
It's kind of quite... Skewed a bit there. ..curved.
Yeah, put loads on.
Trying to fashion some sort of handle on it.
Oh, it's the old handle problem! Yes. It's the handle problem.
Wow! That's all I've got to say about this.
We've got a dog now.
It's looking good.
We're trying to make the nest.
Oh, look, it's working!
OK, everyone, time's up.
Put down your glue guns and pop rivets.
Kate's going to be here any second now to judge your work
in a designer-ish way.
So, bring it all over. Let's lay it out.
The cafetiere, the bird feeder,
the dog table...walking device.
I don't know how easy a dog could climb up this.
It might be a bit slippery.
But, actually, I can see that continuous line spirit
of the Wassily Chair.
It has to be celebrated cos it's a very original idea. Yeah.
I think the proportions are wrong... Yeah.
..cos it is huge and it's sort of mass catering-style cafetiere.
Let's think of it as a coffee pot bringing art and design
to a building site.
And a lot of builders, they were very thirsty.
Wow! There's also the bath...
Oh, you've done the Breuer! Inside. Yeah.
And the storage place for the birdfeed.
And what about the base?
Actually, we kind of wanted to have that continuous line.
It looks very neat and sharp, and kind of quite pure. Yeah.
So it seems it's the women what won it.
Female students may have been discouraged
from entering the metal workshop, but Marianne Brandt rebelled -
producing some of the Bauhaus's most enduring designs.
I was a bit nervous this morning when Kate mentioned about
the girls in the Bauhaus.
And then when Kate liked it at the end, I was just like, "Ah, yes!"
I think it really helped me to see how you can fuse, like,
fine art with product design.
Working with Lizzy today - a fine artist -
like, I've not done that before.
So I think that was, like, the most different,
but, I think, the best part.
I didn't do that much collaboration with my foundation,
so I think it's nice being able to work with someone.
I think it worked really well, and I kind of wish we'd have had
more opportunities like that at university.
Bauhaus is the cornerstone of contemporary design.
We use the principles every day.
From lighting to wallpaper
to chess sets, the work produced by the Bauhaus
was unrecognisable from that of art academies before it.
But sculptor Gerhard Marx warned,
"Production must never be allowed to become the goal in itself.
"Otherwise, the Bauhaus will become just another factory."
The appointment of Hungarian artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy ensured that,
far from a factory, the school became a hive of experimentation.
He encouraged students to seek out fresh perspectives
through new media, like photography.
Please welcome Constanza Isaza Martinez.
Constanza is at the forefront
of today's experimental photography scene.
For today's task, you must create a photograph that explores
the theme of light and shadow.
The only catch is, you can't use a camera.
Yes! What?
I have no idea what to expect.
But I bet you take loads of photographs on your phone.
I know nothing about the old techniques.
All you've got is some chemicals and a piece of paper. Yep.
Moholy-Nagy breathed new life into cameraless photography
with what he dubbed the "photogram".
It involved simply placing objects on light-sensitive paper
and exposing them to light.
What we're going to be doing here is the kind of
planning and design phase. What you see here, when it's black,
it's going to be white in your print.
How's that? THEY LAUGH
Does it work? You can even see eyelashes.
I remember doing this in the '80s, when photocopiers first appeared.
With your face?
No, with my arse. LAUGHS: That's what I thought!
What did Moholy-Nagy bring to the photogram?
Well, Moholy-Nagy was really interested
in the abstract possibilities of the medium and in a new way of seeing,
and just a way of using the medium that really pushed the limits
of what people had thought photography was capable of.
For Moholy-Nagy, the preparation was key.
He said, "The choice of object, segment, light and shadow
"are highly creative, artistic decisions."
Is that the salt? Yeah.
I'll be honest, I'm a bit bored, cos I just want to go up there and play.
I don't like this sense of planning,
which is a bit anti-Bauhaus, in a way.
I'm really looking forward to being in the darkroom,
cos, at the moment, I've just been taking those photos on my phone.
Yeah, I've never been in one, so I don't even know.
Remember that your paper is not sensitive to red light,
so a piece of this would be the same as having a black sheet on top.
At the Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy worked in makeshift dark rooms
with his wife, Lucia.
Today, the students will be assisted in the dark room by Melanie King
from the London Alternative Photography Collective.
What on Earth's happening here?
So I want to look at the movement of my hand.
Ready? One, two, three.
As Amar exposes his image,
everything he blocks out to light will be white.
Well-timed! Great!
My heart was beating.
Now for the developing stage.
What will emerge?
Wow, look! Oh, wow! Getting a long exposure.
That's worked really well.
You spent all of last night practicing
turning your hand over in five seconds.
OK. One, two, three.
Oh, wow! Ooh!
I'm going to be a bit...weird, and chew the paper.
Goodness! You forgot to put the kitchen sink on.
Wispy! Mm!
It's like when you push your face deep into a hedge.
I'm going to make my own tribute to Moholy-Nagy,
who reinvented the self-portrait with his photograms.
But I've moved on since the 1980s.
This time, I'm going to use my face!
Wow!
It does look a bit like smoke...
..and balls, doesn't it?
I think it looks like a black cat in a wig. Yeah!
OK, I'm going to leave you to do your second one.
I look forward to seeing the results.
They're going to be the eyes, hopefully.
Gloves as hair.
Fabulous.
Moholy-Nagy was trying to get a very deep connection
with his materials and a really deep understanding of how they worked
and how they reacted to certain things.
Oh, my God!
Half of it white. Yeah, why is half of it white?
It might be the red cellophane.
I just think that this is very relevant, artistically,
because people are really striving for that hands-on way
of making images.
Ooh!
Hello!
Let's see if we can guess who did which.
Erm...Dominic?
No!
Amar.
Nailed it, yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
Cos it's that flash-style hand.
That one. Who did that?
Me!
It went a bit wrong, though.
So, yeah, what happened there? Cos I had the cellophane,
which I thought was clear.
But it turned out it was orange, but you can't see it in the darkroom,
and it completely blocked the light.
Is this supposed to look like a face?
Yeah! Yeah. THEY LAUGH
It's very playful, isn't it? I just wanted to have fun with it.
You've been really, really experimental in your approach,
and really creative, I think,
in your choice of object and your compositions.
It's really made me...
..look at the materials.
Like, the beauty that is kind of found in this, like,
cellophane or clingfilm -
these everyday materials, like, we just never think about.
You know, this has made me realise how powerful light can be -
to create something so beautiful,
something so inspired in just a short amount of time.
So that's been, like, the most eye-opening thing, I think, for me.
Moholy-Nagy manipulated his distinctive photograms
to create strikingly modern images
in the emerging field of graphic design.
To experiment in this new medium,
a printing and advertising workshop was set up at the school.
At its helm was Austrian designer Herbert Bayer,
a former student who designed the famous geometric lettering
on the Bauhaus building.
His work has had a huge impact on graphic designer Neville Brody,
best known for his bold designs for The Face magazine.
Neville Brody!
Thank you, Jim.
Tomorrow evening, you're going to have a costume party.
And the theme is going to be metal.
The challenge today is to create a poster to promote this.
The poster has to be communicating the subject really clearly.
And it has to be attention-seeking.
So, I'm sure you guys are going to be well up for all of that.
There's only...
There's only two rules -
you can't mix upper case and lower case.
And you have to include an element which is part of a new language,
which you're going to invent.
This, out of all the days, is the most on home turf for me.
Is your brain whirring?
No, it's really, really blank! Is it? This is so...
You've got no ideas? This is so unusual to me.
Don't worry, and just be crazily imaginative.
I've got an example here of Herbert Bayer typography.
I mean, it's quite amazing, really, how modern this looks.
I really don't like that. It just makes... You don't like it?
It makes it hard to read.
But it communicates the theme accurately,
which is a kind of crazy costume party.
So, you've got about an hour and a half for this,
for the sketching.
I'm looking at weapons.
So I've stabbed...
..the word. It's quite aggressive.
I quite like the idea of having the scientific element of metal.
That reads through the periodic table. Yeah.
Oh, my God! The periodic table totally goes against our rule...
..of upper case and lower case.
Cos it's all one capital and one lower?
Oh, yeah. Damn! I can work on a Bauhaus symbol. Yeah.
The symbol can kind of be something that all represents...
Oh, that's representing us? ..our entire... Yeah. ..project.
What's that?
"KLLLAD". The "KLLLAD" is just all our initials put together.
At the Bauhaus, fonts and symbols where continually reinvented
and experimented with, breaking the established rules of typography.
Anything jump out?
This jumps out.
Yeah, I think that's too much. Maybe that's me.
Yeah, but you have this readability obsession!
But sometimes it needs to be literal.
But for a crazy costume party?
What I liked about this
was that there is a new language element, here.
It's like a rewind button. Yeah. That's like a rewind. Yeah.
Yeah. But it's turning it into a letterform as well,
which Bauhaus would have loved.
There's one thing missing for me, which is a kind of human element.
This does feel a little bit like it's going to be a car repair party.
Yeah.
The Bauhaus created designs for journals, posters and invites,
promoting the artistic activity of the school.
And they were often experimental in nature.
It was all about attention-seeking, attention-grabbing.
Being direct, being appealing.
And they built a lot of the principles
that we now know as advertising.
I think they really helped us step out of the decorative,
illustrative style of the Victorians
and step into a modern Europe.
The Bauhaus used a printing process known as letterpress...
Hello!
..and guiding our students through the technique
is Helen Ingham, their master of craft for the day.
That would work, actually. That it be nice, wouldn't it, that?
Yeah. Yeah, you could cut that!
Shall we get on and do it? Yeah, let's start laying it out.
Herbert Bayer said "I'm only going to use sans-serif type."
The serif is a little dangling point, isn't it?
The serif is the bit that sticks out. A bit of fancy?
Bayer said, you know, "This is just decoration.
"Don't need it, get rid of it."
And I don't need upper case and lower case.
So he just kept reducing and reducing.
I don't know what Neville's going to think of it
and, frankly, I feel quite pressured.
He is very much looked up to in the type
and graphic design world.
Having him here...
..is no joke. It's quite nerve-racking.
We want to do a kind of collage of human and the metal tools.
We could go to Ricky and just ask him... Oh, yeah!
..for just like a load of fun stuff.
Ricky, we're going to have a rifle through your... Bits and bobs!
Absolutely!
I've got a hat!
Love it!
Bauhaus students made use of cutting-edge advertising techniques,
designed to catch the viewer's eye.
They frequently cut together images from multiple sources,
in a process known as photomontage.
Put your arms at funny angles, OK.
Or do I look like I just jumped off a building? I don't know!
Cool. Should we put some chains on your hand?
The chains just make it look sexual.
They do. Yeah, I think it got a bit weird.
Sometimes, the letters will push outside of the boundaries,
even if it's only by a fraction or a hairline.
That could really throw off the whole composition.
I thought the four would fit perfectly in this space,
but it's ever so slightly too wide.
It's sort of maths meets Tetris, in a lot of ways.
One of Bayer's students wrote,
"A joy in experimentation developed, heedless of every extreme."
Right, the moment of truth.
Ah. Nice!
OK...
Oh, can you put your hand in there? Yeah!
Oh... That's interesting.
Yeah, I like that, and I also like those bits together.
Get your face on there.
Oh, my... That's worked quite well, hasn't it? Yeah!
I want the beginning and the end letters to be sort of symbols.
Cos that's like a rewind button, that's like a play button.
So it kind of works... Oh, yeah! Check you out! ..in that sense.
I know, right? Yeah!
Trace it off, flip the tracing paper over... Yeah.
..put some chalk on the back of the tracing paper,
and then we can transfer it.
Great, fabulous.
Thank you very much!
What I like about this sort of process is that it goes back
to that very analogue way of working.
And in my own practice, I'm very, very digital.
If I were set this brief, I would just go straight to the computer.
There is no way I'd...
..bother in letterpressing...
..because that just takes time.
I'd like to keep it as analogue as possible.
Just going to put the last few bits of lead on.
And then we should be done!
Hello! Hey!
We have the central image.
A bit more of a minimal one.
It's gonna be difficult to print, I'll tell you that.
The Bauhaus were one of the first institutions
to pull together typography and photography in to one place,
and set, basically, the pattern for commercial design
for the next 100 years.
I think that's really nice.
Ooh...
I think that's the best one yet!
Yes! That's lovely. Oh, that's good, isn't it?
Yeah, that's really nice. Is everyone pleased with it? Yeah.
Yeah. I'm happy with that.
Have you changed your mind since this morning?
No, but... But I do like that.
That's all right, then. You just won't admit it, will you?
That's it. There we are, look, that's me!
You've got KLLLAD on your face.
That's really punk!
Right, I'm going to go and get Neville now.
Choose your favourite three and lay them out.
Wow! Which do you think?
It's pretty stunning.
You've got your kind of new invented forms going on.
Which is brilliant.
It's definitely attention-seeking.
This one feels a bit more metallic.
But this is the sort of one I'd want as a poster.
So, for me, that's the winner.
So, well done, guys! I think that's brilliant.
And very much in the kind of Bauhaus style of creating through making.
Thank you! Thank you very much.
See you later! See you later! And enjoy the party!
Today, I think it's been quite difficult.
Because this way of working is very, like, technical, and slow paced.
I work fast and produce a lot of kind of bad work. And...
I always enjoy any time that I spend in letterpress,
but I still learned a lot today.
I realise you guys did the photo collage,
but that's something completely alien to me.
I'm normally very rigid, grids, I work in quite a structured way.
Would you take this further in your practice,
in terms of collaborating with... Yeah!
..fine artists, and just seeing what they produce
and trying to work together? I'd love to, yeah!
Because I think your two brains work in a completely different way to me,
but they still produce work that I really like! Yeah!
The Bauhaus taught students
that creativity didn't stem from the individual alone.
Collaboration between courses was actively encouraged.
And what better way to do this than a party?
From a kite festival to a Chinese lantern party,
and even a beard, nose and heart party,
the Bauhaus went big on fun.
And leading them all was Oskar Schlemmer,
the German artist, costume designer, and choreographer
who ran the Bauhaus theatre group.
Schlemmer has had a big influence
on acclaimed fashion designer Holly Fulton,
known for her Bauhaus-inspired prints.
Welcome to the final day of The Bauhaus Experiment.
The metal party is going to be held in here today.
And to explain more about that, please welcome Holly Fulton!
Good morning! Your task today is to stage a costume ball
based on the theme of metal.
And you must also dress this gallery space
at Saint Martins for the occasion.
I would encourage you to think big.
This is about creating dynamic, interesting shapes.
Masters and students will also take part in the Bauhaus dance.
In pairs, but without touching.
And leaping and wild stamping of feet are absolutely essential!
This is a real opportunity to let your imagination run riot.
I can't wait! It's a time to go crazy - I like this!
So, your guests are going be arriving at four o'clock.
But I'd get a move on, if I was you.
A metal party was held at the Bauhaus in February 1929,
with costumes and room decoration fashioned out of everyday objects.
This is some of the delights that we've assembled
for you to work with today.
A lot of foil - you're going to need that!
We've got thermal blankets.
I'm excited about this!
Yeah! It's the star piece.
I feel like we need a concept.
I was thinking about, like, magnetic fields?
And linking that.
Oh, my God, yeah, yeah, because, like,
some of us will repel and some of us will attract!
Think of it is a very sensory experience. Yeah.
Sensory or sensual? Well, could be both!
We need more stuff.
Follow me!
That should work.
Oh, my God, those streamers!
Oh! Oh, my God! That's really...
Oh, my God, this is perfect! Yeah?
I think we should get at least one shower head.
Oh, my God!
I'm making a little accessory
that I might utilise myself at the party.
It's a whole-body chain!
Oh, my God, yeah!
Oh, my God, mirror!
And it's only three quid - let's get loads!
Let's just get them all.
Thank you very much! Thank you, you too. Bye!
Hey! Welcome back!
These are amazing.
I'm loving this mirror!
People can see the Bauhaus as quite a kind of serious,
almost quite austere in its aesthetic. But the parties
in particular show that there was this real playful side,
and I think it was really just an opportunity
for the students and the masters across all the different disciplines
to come together and use it as a sort of playground for creativity.
I actually enjoy working with Amir
because I think what he brings
and what I have just complements each other really well.
I'm quite a literal thinker, quite rational,
and Dom, like, brings the flavour to it.
There was probably a healthy competition
to come up with something that was totally their own each time.
I've got a little crown! Oh, my God! That's so good!
They need to pick up the pace.
Might have to get a...
..a metal whip out!
That sounds like a Bauhaus party!
OK, people, come on! You've got less than two hours.
I think this really needs to start looking like it's a party area.
What do we think? I think that's definitely...a winning look.
Oskar Schlemmer's abstract costume designs
were ground-breaking in their originality. And at the parties,
his outlandish ideas were turned into reality by the students.
It's fucking good! Go on, try it! What, put it on?
That's pretty good! That's pretty good!
Hey, what about if that goes on the top of it?
That's brilliant!
You've got, like, a hugely long head!
At the Bauhaus metal party, Oskar Schlemmer recalls,
"A child's slide, covered in white sheet metal
"led one past immeasurable gleaming silver balls,
"lined up and sparkling under spotlights,
"right into the heart of the party."
Oh, it's moving on at quite a pace, isn't it?
Oh, oh!
CHIMES
Yes! Who needs a band?
This is great, isn't it?
It's like, what's that game, bowls? That old man game?
Oh!
Jim!
I just put that back.
Have you thought about the dance at all, yet? Yeah.
We're doing, like, opposites attract.
Whatever A does, B does the opposite. B does the opposite, yeah.
And then they swap. Do you think this is a good signal, then,
for the next person to take the lead?
I think that's a really good signal.
Everybody's been going through these sets of rules this week.
And, like...
..we've not broken them that much.
We've kind of danced around the perimeters of rules,
and I guess that's what we'll be doing here. When do the guests come?
In like 25 minutes.
How...? 25 minutes.
Oh, my God. Shall we get changed?
Yeah, let's get dressed. Let's do it.
I'm going to attempt to make a metallic cyclops horse...
..that may wander into the party at some point.
So what I'll need to do is cut a hole in it, about there.
Head through there.
These are the legs.
How's it look? Oh, my God!
Does it work? You're like a deformed Dalek!
Is it? That's so weird. It's quite disturbing.
It's quite difficult to control.
Me eye's gone.
Have you got me eye?
Anyone?
OK, people, are you ready?
Yeah! Yes, you're ready!
Is that a baby in there?
A womblike feature. Yes!
Good. Now, look.
Wearing the helmet that I designed. That is quite Bauhaus,
that, actually, isn't it? Yeah!
Lizzie. Yes? That's just frightening.
It's like a very disturbed relative of Neptune.
I honestly have never been more excited.
Pulled it out the bag again! Come on, party people.
Party time!
Schlemmer remembers,
"The Bauhaus band had dressed festively
"in coquettish silver top hats
"and it launched into the music with great elan, rhythm and verve.
"Guests were served lovely cakes with a bit of glitter."
Nut free and vegan!
It's amazing! I love the decorations.
What do you think she looks like?
Cleaning apparatus...
I was thinking, like, goddess. OK!
If you look into here...
..you can see your future.
Oh, my God, no!
It broke!
It's all falling apart.
OK, everybody! Prepare for the Bauhaus dance!
OK, opposites.
But how am I going to mirror Holly's moves
if I can't see through me helmet?
The Bauhaus may have brought in strict principles of art and design
but, crucially, it gives students the freedom
to experiment with new ideas.
Bringing together young people across every creative field,
it invented the art school as we know it.
And this collaborative spirit
came together most of all in the parties,
where the legacy of the Bauhaus is very much alive here today.
Has everyone gone?
They've all gone!
We left you all by yourself!
You danced so hard! I'm actually so out of breath! I'm absolutely...
You wouldn't believe how much heat generates inside this!
I think every dance ever should be like this - it's so freeing!
I thought that was a strong performance!
It encapsulated the spirit of what they've done today
and the spirit of the Bauhaus. We didn't do any leaping, though.
We'll let it slide, seeing as it's the last day.
I thought that was a superb end to an excellent week.
I hold my ball up to you all!
That dance could not be more different...
..than the meditative breathing on the first day!
Imagine, on Monday,
if we knew we'd have all looked like this together at the end.
I feel like I could do the whole week again. Right now.
I've never done so many projects as collaboratively
across so many different...
It's been intense. Yeah, it's been intense.
Imagine if you did this for three years!
I'd love it! It would completely change you as a person,
I think, doing this for longer than a week.
Well, well done, everyone. What a fabulous week.
Do you know what it is, as well?
I think everyone's kind of bonded and we've all got on
and we've enjoyed helping each other out and working on things,
which is what the Bauhaus was all about.
Let's finish off with a little dance.
SAXOPHONE TRILLS
Goodbye!
Goodbye, my friends!
Goodbye. Goodbye.
I think that should be the final frame of the film.