The Bauhaus Myth: How a 14-Year School Became Design's Origin Story

The Bauhaus was a school in 3 German cities Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin that ran from 1919 to 1933, enrolling approximately 1,400 students in its 14-year existence. The design studio never trained an army of designers or mass-produced a single iconic object at scale. Moreover, for large swathes of its life, it was preoccupied with funding crises. It was also under political attack and embroiled in ideological infighting. Today, Bauhaus is considered the origin of modern design, and a heroic, unified persecuted movement which essentially invented the visual vocabulary of the twentieth century. The tale encompasses some facts, some fiction, and above all, is a construct of class, transatlantic migration, and Cold War politics. The starting point of any honest engagement with design history is an understanding of which parts are which.