Time — 1900–1920
The Deutscher Werkbund to the Bauhaus
Assignments for the Class
Readings & Assignments
The readings for the week include:
ASSIGNED READING: The Bauhaus Manifesto, Walter Gropius, Bauhaus (1919) (The Design Museum of Chicago)
ASSIGNED READING: Bauhaus Futures, Edited by Laura Forlano, Molly Wright Steenson and Mike Ananny, Chapter 1: Design Education Practice, Ramia Mazé, MIT Press (2019)
Assignments for the week are as follows:
HISTORICAL PRODUCT PORTFOLIO: Locate a relevant and impactful product from the period we are discussing (1900-1920). Discuss:
Why does the product exist and what needs were met?
Why is the product important?
Who did the product empower/disempower?
What behaviors did the product change or create?
METHODS TOOLKIT: Conduct a time study
Identify an everyday life task
List the steps associated with the steps
Time each step of the process
Surface any hidden challenges or interesting moments
Visualize the process
Goals for the Class
Students will be able to articulate why the design profession began with Peter Behrens. They will be able to describe the contrasts between craft and industrial design, and how the First World War impacted the formation of the Bauhaus. Students will understand and articulate how the school aspired to modern approaches to participation, yet failed. Students will be able to identify the essential educational structure of the Bauhaus program. Students will understand the drivers for design education and the design of products in the marketplace. The product portfolio will be continued.
Time
The theory of special relativity was published in 1905 by Albert Einstein. The relative nature of time is considered to have influenced Cubism — an artistic movement invented by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Scientific Management, a management theory promoted by Frederick Taylor based on time, intended to improve productivity. These influences, along with the Ford assembly line and Fordism, new ways of approaching art, design, and business. The automobile began to supplant the train and bicycle as modes of transportation. Without the infrastructure supported by bicyclists, the automobile would have been ineffective at best. The airplane was initially more influential as a weapon than as transport. Designers and the supporters of design were beginning to see manufacturing as the primary means of delivering products to consumers. Advertising begins to exert its influence on the profession. This is the foundational period for the design profession as it is understood by current practitioners with Peter Behrens representing the first true Design generalist and manager.
Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in 1904. (Automobile Club of Southern California Archives)
A Revolution in Science
“It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing.”
Albert Einstein
The Context
Perhaps nothing better represents the beginning of the 20th Century than flight. The Wright Brothers sustained controlled flight in December of 1903 with the Wright Flyer. Industrialization represented a replacement of products made by hand, but flight represented completely new possibilities for humanity. The United States experienced continued growth with the United Kingdom beginning to decline after WWI. At the conclusion of the Great War, the U.S. was a dominant global economy. Design continues its dialog between craft and manufacturing, and the Bauhaus begins with an elaboration of this conversation. The Design profession begins with Peter Behrens and AEG with the complete consideration of brand, product, and plant.
Image: First flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, December 17, 1903.
The United States continued its rapid economic growth. A growing separation existed between the U.S. and the rest of the world with various region struggling with industrialization and colonialism. (Our World in Data)
The Second Industrial Revolution
“The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution.” With electrification and the assembly line, we enter the Twentieth Century poised for rapid acceleration in manufacturing productivity. Electricity was generally produced using coal. Few households had a reliable electricity supply. Household goods were increasingly made in factories. This led to the need for designers to apply their skills to these goods.
Breaker Boys, 1911 (Lewis Hine/The U.S. National Archives)
The Ford Highland Park Plant
Fordism evolved from research into how other businesses such as meatpacking and canning operated. Ford was adamant that he did not rely on experts like Taylor to evolve how model of manufacture. In 1910, Ford produced 32,000 Model T autos. By 1916, the number rose to 735,000. After WWI the increases in production began again rising to over 2 million autos. With this increase, came reductions in the price of the car. By 1916, one could purchase a Model T for under $400, a decrease in price of over 50% from 1908. This cost reduction points to the essential challenges facing craft. How can a craft person produce a livable wage? Handmade automobiles continued to be made for several decades, but these were intended as luxury items.
Image: Early Model T assembly at Highland Park Plant (Ford)
Cost and Production of Ford Vehicles, 1908-1924 (The Geography of Transport Systems)
A Material Revolution
New materials including Bakelite (1907), the first plastic, and Pyrex (1916) allowed manufacturers to make new kinds of products using industrial processes. The large base of research scientists in the United States, made it possible for companies to deliver new material and technological advances at a rapid pace. New uses for these materials, allowed a new language of form for consumer goods.
Image: Advertisement for Pyrex® glass dishes, 1916 (Corning Incorporated)
Thoughts to Consider
Consider how technology influenced design.
Image: AEG Hair Blower
The Deutscher Werkbund
Kaiser Whilhelm II hoped to make Germany a political and military power to rival Great Britain. The desire to create an economic power aligned with the ideas of Hermann Muthesius who founded the Deutscher Werkbund in 1907.
“Naumann envisioned the Werkbund as extending Germany’s economic power, just as the Navy League promoted a stronger military role for Germany in world politics.”
The Werkbund brought together industrial artists and industrialists who wanted to improve the quality of German goods. Connecting designers to industry also meant improving design education to support the needs of manufacturers. “[Bruno] Paul introduced an early version of of the dual system of workshop instruction that Walter Gropius would adapt at the Bauhaus.”
Quotes: A World History of Design, Viktor Margolin
Image: 1914 exhibition poster, Peter Behrens
Peter Behrens and AEG
Peter Behrens was a founding member of the German Werkbund, and a prolific architect and designer. Some of Europes most influential modernist architects, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, worked for him. He became “Artistic Advisor” to the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) in 1907. “Behren’s work for the AEG between 1907 and 1914 may well have been the first time that a designer was invited to control the entire design output of a large company.” He innovated in his product designs by reducing ornament and in his visual communications by utilizing grid systems.
Quotes: A World History of Design, Viktor Margolin
Image: AEG Turbine Factory, Peter Behrens, 1909-10
Thoughts to Consider
Consider the design needs of a large company.
Designs for AEG, Peter Behrens
Scientific Management
Frederick Taylor had begun studying industrial processes in the 1890s, and consulted with companies on manufacturing, most notably Bethlehem Steel. In his 1911 book, The Principles of Scientific Management, he described his techniques for a wider audience. His focus on standardization and observation of work processes was influential. Ultimately, one could question how this contributed to the life of the worker, but productivity certainly led to increased wages.
Frank Gilbreth, was another proponent of Scientific Management, but differed in his approach. “The symbol of Taylorism was the stopwatch; Taylor was concerned primarily with reducing process times. The Gilbreths, in contrast, sought to make processes more efficient by reducing the motions involved.” Gilbreth was noted for his use of stop motion film.
Christine Frederick was a home economist noted for her studies into home efficiency. Her books, Selling Mrs. Consumer and Household Engineering, are noted for the exploration of the home environment and products used within the home.
Image: Page from Household Engineering, 1919
Efficiency & Shopping
The Piggly Wiggly store changed the format of the customer experience from merchant-service to self-service. The self-service concept was patented in 1917, and the company began to offer franchises to other retailers. “The customers selected merchandise as they continued through the maze to the cashier. Instantly, packaging and brand recognition became important to companies and consumers alike.”
Image: Piggly Wiggly Store, Memphis, Tennessee, 1918
Thoughts to Consider
Consider the advertising needs of consumer products.
Image: Woodbury Soap Ad 1916
Italian Futurism
“The Manifesto of Futurism (Italian: Manifesto del Futurismo) is a manifesto written by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, published in 1909.” The publication celebrate industrial culture as well as the effects of industrialization such as noise, pollution, and struggle. War was glorified, although many supporters of Futurism died in the Great War.
Source: Manifesto of Futurism (Wikipedia)
Program of the State Bauhaus in Weimar
Image from the Harvard Art Museums and Busch-Reisinger Museum, ©President and Fellows of Harvard College
The Weimar Bauhaus
The Bauhaus was founded in Weimar after the city bid to host the school. As described, Gropius presented the school in craft terms when it was founded in 1919. Johannes Itten taught the Preliminary Course from its inception through his departure in 1922. During this period, the program was largely craft based with little consideration for manufactured objects. Initially, Itten’s perspective on teaching aligned with Gropius’, however as the latter’s perspective evolved, the two were at odds. The 1922 diagram describing the teaching structure at the Bauhaus demonstrates a significant change of perspective.
Craft and the Bauhaus
Europe was devastated by a mechanized war and many artists were reluctant to support industry. The Weimar Bauhaus reflected a return to craft, in contrast with many of the ideas that Gropius held about craft and design prior to WWI. This period of the Bauhaus is distinctly different to that which emerged just a few years later and continued at Dessau.
Image: The African Chair, Gunta Stölzl and Marcel Breuer, 1921
Thoughts to Consider
Consider the design curriculum of the 1919 Bauhaus.
Image: Schedule, Weimar Bauhaus Bauhaus, winter semester, 1921–1922