2010年11月 1日

10/15 From Bauhaus to C.A.P.'s House

In 1981, Tom Wolfe wrote his critique of modern architecture "From Bauhaus to Our House". There he assailed the modernist movement in architecture with the same terms that he had previously used in his assault on modern art (See "The Painted Word"). Here he attacked Mies van der Rodhe, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius (the founder of the Bauhaus school in Germany), arguing that modernist architecture's lack of ornamentation and its rationalism rendered it beyond the appreciation of even its users.

Wolfe was critical of what he saw as a singular fidelity to theory in modern architecture. He characterized the architecture as a political philosophy that was incompatible with American values (a position which now, as then, seems particularly narrow). The practice of architecture in his view, like the art world, was driven by a small group of critics and writers whose opinions were shaping the environment and producing buildings that nobody liked. In Wolfe's view, the practice of architecture was overtaken by nothing more idealistic than the desire to be the most avant-garde.

Wolfe would have us believe that the misguided effort of modern architecture which found its roots in the Bauhaus, was a foreign practice, devoid of the kind of aesthetic that warmed the heart by bringing us in from the cold and giving comfort by the hearth. Clearly, he would have benefited from all that Sabina Hartmann had to say.

Ms. Hartmann is the photo archivist at the Bauhaus Museum in Berlin (she is also the sister of C.A.P artist Veronika Dobbers). On October 15th, she presented a most interesting and very well attended talk on the "Festivals at the Bauhaus". In the flurry of activity surrounding the visit and exhibition of the German artists Edith Pundt and Herwig Gillerke, Ms. Hartmann's talk was still further testament to the wealth shared by cities in the kind of cultural exchanges represented by the Flip Side Project and visits by distinguished scholars. Beneath the glare of the data projector and the warm glow of a reading lamp, Ms Hartmann, assisted by the always capable translation of Nobuhisa Shimoda, gave us a picture of the Bauhaus and, by extension, the modernist movement that I, for one, had never seen before.

What Ms. Hartmann presented was literally a picture or, more precisely, pictures of the parties organized by the students and faculty at Bauhaus during each of its incarnations (Weimar, Dessau , and Berlin). These were snapshots largely taken on the occasion of various parties. What was wonderful about these snaps was that these photos were the work of some of the century's great artists including the likes of Lyonel Feininger. From these rare photos, we came to see and understand the Bauhaus as a social and political institution. In addition, we saw more clearly the large-scale political struggle at the Bauhaus and its attempts to manage relations with an increasingly conservative environment. Sabina Hartman's portrait of the Bauhaus was deeply informative and very touching. I think Tom Wolf would have been surprised. 

Paul Venet 01Y3日記
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