Bauhaus Lab 2019:
Out of the Suitcase: A Dispersed Collection

12 June – 9 September 2019

In 1936 Marcel Breuer, who had emigrated to London the year before, designs a table for the Isokon Furniture Company. The table was bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Gilbert and Winifred ‘Mainie’ Cousland, authors of progressive children’s books and Breuer’s neighbours in the Lawn Road Flats. It is now part of the comprehensive collection of Bauhaus objects held by the V&A.

The Bauhaus Lab studied selected objects from this collection and researched the provenances and migration movements, exhibition careers and historiographies in which they have played a part. The research findings were presented in an experimental exhibition in the Bauhaus Building, and constituted a contribution to the conference “Collecting Bauhaus” which took place in December 2019.