Publications of the Bauhaus: Witnesses to the Modern

The Bauhaus brought its ideas and methods to the public like hardly any other school of the Modern. Now the books and journals published by the Bauhaus can finally be read again. In cooperation with the Bauhaus Archive / Museum of Design, Lars Müller Publishers is honouring the anniversary with facsimile editions of the Bauhaus journal and several volumes of the school’s books.

Documents of the Modern
The writings represent important historical sources that broaden the image of the Bauhaus and, in certain points, correct its reception. They clearly demonstrate what preoccupied the masters and students of the school and where they believed their own role lay. The very design of the publications reveals a significant attitude that confidently asserts itself and aims to convince the rest of the world. The graphics, typology and features of the book by Lars Müller Publishers take up those of the original publication presented by Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy. Nowadays, it is self-evident that digital technologies have been used for the facsimile production.

International architecture, painting, photography and film, Piet Mondrian’s design and a pedagogical sketchbook by Paul Klee: the publications elucidate the true diversity of the topics, theses and observations of the Bauhaus. Each respective discipline becomes part of a whole in which architecture and art are taken as a single unit - the concept of the synthesis of the arts is ever-present, while the various authors’ perspectives on this idea are heterogeneous and multifaceted.

Voice of the Avant-Garde
The purpose of the journal bauhaus, which appeared periodically from 1925 until 1931, was to communicate the school’s own ideas. In fact, the publication developed into a significant mouthpiece of the avant-garde. The topics were often self-referential: authors included masters of the school such as Vassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers and Mies van der Rohe. Starting in 1928, even advertisements were possible in the Bauhaus journal, although the publishers reserved the right to design them according to their own graphic guidelines. The Bauhaus was not known for compromise - but then this was also part of the striking attitudes of the avant-garde.

Background information on the publications of the Bauhaus will be presented in Hans Ibelings’ essay in Detail 6/2019.

Lars Müller (ed), Bauhaus Zeitschrift 1926-1931, facsimile, languages: German and English, with an essay by Astrid Bähr, 316 pages in paperback single issues, Zurich 2019.

The following Bauhaus books have been published in English by Lars Müller Publishers: Walter Gropius, International Architecture; Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook; Piet Mondrian, New Design; László Moholy-Nagy, Painting, Photography, Film, Zurich 2019.

The book »My Bauhaus / Mein Bauhaus« (Edition DETAIL) is available here, in our online shop.