From Bauhaus to your house to your mini house

Modern design in mini chairs is a good introduction to design. Most mini designers know about the Reac chairs. A good source for understanding the history of modern design is this book. It is published by the MIT Press and talks about the school that began in Germany and transplanted to Chicago.

It is important to realize the world these designs originated in. Today they are everywhere around us. The windows we look through, the patterns we take for granted, the utility of design we love in Ikea today. When they originated in Dessau Germany in the 1920's they were a new world of design

The luminaries of this field are well know, Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, then Mies van der Rohe,  Moholy-Nagy etc. Wikipedia any of these names and the story unfolds. It is interesting that beyond buildings and art works the Bauhaus students really started industrial design.  Look at this example of upholstery and drapery material by Gunta Stolzl from 1925-1928.(above)

And from the 1930 collection of Otti Berger 1928-1932 (first  picture, bottom of page)


"Originally the concern Rasch Brothers& Co., of Bramsche, developed these as the first Bauhaus wallpaper collection to be marketed in 1929. By 1930 there were more than 100 varieties of patterns and colorations. The Bauhaus wallpapers were distinguished by their fundamental avoidance of representational ornamentation and by their clear structure, which along with their coloration was the determing  factor for their effect".

Compare with William Morris prints of the preceeding decade, to fully appreciate the originality.   http://www.historicstyle.com/williammorris/wallpapers/index.html  the style that preceeded these innovations. Of course we love you too William Morris. You all led us to now. CM