The Bauhaus Movement and the School that started it all (INFOGRAPHIC), Courtesy of aram
Inspired by the English Arts and Crafts Movement in a society released from confining censorship after the conclusion of the First World War, the Bauhaus movement spawned a blending of an artistic with a crafting approach to creating objects, architecture and commercial design, a powerful form of applied visual thinking put to real-world use.
The movement, started by Walter Gropius in 1919, flew forward into modernism and can still be felt in design that both delights and is readily adopted nearly a century later.
From Google’s visually non-distracting search engine to Apple’s clean and sleek devices, there is no end in sight to the application of the guiding principles of:
- Absence of ornamentation
- Craftsmanship and mass production united
- Less is more
That’s not to say that we don’t appreciate other qualities in fashion, fine arts, music and nature that may be more complex, expressive or unconstrained. But hands down, most urban-centric, technology-driven culture displays strong visual roots in Bauhaus thinking.
As a natural extension of these principles, couldn’t we also say that Bauhaus inspired Agile and Lean principles to some degree?
With the growth of affordable 3D printing and design tools that cross between analog and digital, there’s no doubt that Gropius’ desire that Bauhaus “encompass all artistic media with no separations” will continue to spread.
This infographic was designed to focus primarily on the timeline of events in the history of the movement from its foundation in 1919 until Nazi censorship shut down the School in 1933.
The infographic itself strongly reflects Bauhaus period aesthetics, in choice of colors, repeated iconography, typeface and overall design. Though some of it may feel dated by the constraint, a simple change in typeface or stronger colors might update it, and yet it will still hold true enough to Bauhaus to be worth saying it reflects the ethos.
Fittingly, the infographic is presented by aram, a UK-based furniture and design company, which has staked its claim as a leader in “modern” furniture design for 50 years.
