blog assignment 6: selected posts

from Oliver Evill:

The one and only Bauhaus

There is no doubt that The Bauhaus has been a major influence on design institutions all around the globe. Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar 1919, the Bauhaus combined crafts and the fine arts and was well known for the approach to design that it publicized and taught.  The ideology, philosophy and pedagogy behind the Bauhaus were revolutionary in its approach to teaching design. By Unifying both the arts and crafts the Bauhaus was able to redefine the aesthetics of design.

The pedagogy of the Bauhaus varied over time however; there are several relations to the first year design program at Victoria University. For example Johannes Ittens who taught at the Bauhaus always encouraged his students to develop their own style and interest through experimentation. We see the exact same encouragement by our teachers and tutors at Victoria especially in more hands-on papers like DSDN 141, where we explore and experiment with various materials. Johannes Ittens also taught the Vorkurs or ‘preliminary course’ that was basically the introduction to the ideas of the Bauhaus. During this course students would spend a semester together and learn the different ideologies of the Bauhaus. The Vorkurs is similar to first year design at Victoria, where students would have to take different compulsory design papers that not only taught the fundamentals of design but also give them a feel of the different specializations that Victoria has to offer in second year (industrial design, Media design and Culture and Context).

Another good example is Laszlo Moholy Nagy who had more of a technology based approach when it came to design. He emphasized how technology can improve design by producing more versatile materials as appose to more traditional materials. This ideology definitely reflects in papers like DSDN 104 Digital Creation and DSDN 142 Coding. Both these papers are heavily based on computers and programs that help aid designers but also help create design that were not possible in the past.

In conclusions there are several similarities and methods that were present at the Bauhaus, which can be seen throughout my first year at Victoria University.

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http://facesofdesign.com/event/bauhaus-conceptual-model

from Devon D'Aoust 

Technology & Progress: FYD and the Deutscher Werkbund

The Bauhaus, and Deutscher Werkbund (German Arts and Crafts Society) were proponents of architecture and design reform in Germany during the 1920s through to the 1930s. Bauhaus was especially significant to modernist design and architecture, and continues to be influential in design and architecture education today. Since it is so influential in design education, are there similarities between the methods and philosophy of Bauhaus and modernist design and the first year design (FYD) programme at Victoria University of Wellington?

The answer is: yes; very much so. One of the main aims of the Deutscher Werkbund was to "help form to recover its rights", essentially placing emphasis on good use of form and craft, and using form only when it is appropriate to the function. The FYD programme places a great deal of emphasis on craft, something that can be the difference between a high quality design and one of a low quality. Much emphasis has also been placed, not only on craft, but on the concept of designers as craftsmen. The idea of creating craftsmen is one shared with the Bauhaus, who believed that it was important to break down the barriers between artists and craftsmen, integrating the two. The FYD programme has, effectively, done just that this year, with a hands-on approach to design that emphasises creation, and the idea of 'making'.