This series covers individual titles from the 14-volume Bauhausbücher collection from Lars Müller Publishers. More information on the books discussed and overall project can be found at the end of the article.
International Architecture, the initial title in the Bauhausbücher series, serves as a manifesto of sorts for editor Walter Gropius. Its general subject asserts the primacy of architecture over the other disciplines covered by the Bauhaus, and the specific structures he chooses are unerringly contemporary—some so new they are unbuilt, existing only as sketches or models. Gropius’ introduction leaves no room for ambiguity about his commitment to contemporaneity and a twentieth-century “living” architecture, disparaging the remnants of the 19th century which in his words:
[…] saw the art of building sink into a sentimental, aesthetically decorative conception that pursued the external use of motifs, ornaments and profiles, drawn mostly from past cultures and covering the built structure without any essential inner relationship to it. The building was thus degraded to a support carrying external, dead forms of ornamentation instead of being a living organism.
The brief essay focuses on “International” as an indicator of commonality rather than difference, a movement “arising from international contacts and technology, extending beyond the natural borders to which peoples and individuals remain bound”, with the ultimate goal being the creation of buildings that “reject anything that can be discarded and that conceals their absolute form.”
The photographs and sketches that make up most of the book form a strong visual argument for the ideas set forth in the introduction, from the industrial monumentality of proto-modernist Peter Behrens to the lighter geometric forms of Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Scale is less important than form: between soaring skyscrapers are single-family homes, including Gropius’ own Dessau houses as well as domestic-scale entries from Le Corbusier and others. Less important, too, is whether the building exists as a building or merely a model; rather than making the book feel unfinished, the numerous architects represented only by illustrations lend it a sense of urgency and dynamism, laying out a bold vision for the city of the twentieth century.
International Architecture
Walter Gropius, Ed.
Lars Müller Publishers
Hardcover, 108 pages, CHF 45.00
About the series:
The Bauhausbücher (Bauhaus Books) from Lars Müller Publishers are modern editions of books originally published from 1925-1930 by Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy, which served as both documentation and platform for the ideas behind the Bauhaus school. Originally planned as an ambitious 54-book collection, the series faced financial challenges, and after the editors’ departure from the Bauhaus, it was discontinued. Despite its reduced scope, the 14 volumes that were published stand as major works of design, architecture, and art theory by artists and thinkers whose work would define the following century, including Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian. The modern editions recreate the design, typography, and images of the originals with English translations, while correcting typographical and printing errors.
