Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

THE BAUHAUS MOVEMENT The Bauhaus movement started just after the First World War and was inspirational in pulling together artists, designers, architects and many other thinkers under one creative roof. The moving spirit was Walter Gropius, who wrote in the school’s first manifesto, “The ultimate aim of all creative activity is the building”. This was a new way of thinking, as artists were traditionally separated from designers, architects and engineers. Gropius announced his intention of starting the Bauhaus as a shamelessly elitist ‘Republic of Intelligence’, and his first step was to enlist the right personalities. "It is vital for everyone that we recruit lively people. We must not start with mediocrity,” he said. Early influences Gropius was influenced by the example in Britain of William Morris, who had created the Arts & Crafts movement. This developed a school and a culture that revived medieval methods of working and manufacture. Morris’s hatred of the industrial revolution and resulting mass production drove him to redesign anything and everything, because it had to have an ‘organic’ feel to it and fit in with his chosen way of life. His utopian ideal failed to inspire th