Bauhaus Buildings Dessau:
Originals Retold
Bauhaus Building,
Masters' Houses,
Konsum Building in the Dessau-Törten Housing Estate
From the Kornhaus Restaurant in the north to the Dessau-Törten Settlement in the south – Dessau has many more original Bauhaus buildings than any other city. Twelve of them are publicly accessible, including the Bauhaus Building, the Masters‘ Houses, the Employment Office designed by Walter Gropius, and the Konsum Building. On the occasion of the Bauhaus centenary, they got a new, and for the first time coherent, narrative.
Between 1925 and 1932, the Bauhaus tried out the city of tomorrow in Dessau. The Bauhaus buildings and way of life in Dessau had model character. The living conditions of the people should be altered, and new forms of life created.
The Bauhaus enjoyed its heyday in Dessau. However, the Bauhaus architecture existing in this city, today UNESCO World Heritage sites, is also bears witness of moves, closures, expulsion, renovation, transformation, new foundation and cultural heritage of the avantgarde school. For closely connected to the course of the 20th century, the Bauhaus buildings also went through phases between democracy and dictatorship, war, destruction and reconstruction.
Visitors are invited to a tour through Dessau to newly explore these prototypes of modern construction. They will learn more about these model houses of Modernism, their architecture, their use and their inhabitants, and directly experience the essence of the Bauhaus buildings. The buildings themselves become exhibits. After all, nothing can tell the story more vividly than their own walls, façades and interior spaces.
Cinematic digital guiding concept
Short films were produced for the new curatorial concept of the Bauhaus buildings, bringing historical images into motion in a 2.5D tech-nique. Each short film refers to a space or aspect of the architecture and can be watched on screens in the buildings or using a smartphone. The cine-matic digital narrative supports the visitors in the perception of the unique ar-chitecture and its history, without changing the historical spaces.
Masters' Houses / Klee House
Karla Grosch – a life cut short
Bauhaus Workshops
Practical work
Bauhaus Buildings
Bauhaus Building
by Walter Gropius (1925–26)
The building was designed by the founder of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, and commissioned by …
Masters’ Houses
by Walter Gropius (1925–26)
Parallel to the Bauhaus Building, the city of Dessau commissioned Walter Gropius to construct three …
New Masters’ Houses
by Bruno Fioretti Marquez (2014)
After the Bauhauslers moved out in 1932 the Masters’ Houses were radically transformed by modifications. …
Dessau-Törten Housing Estate (1926–28)
Walter Gropius
During the Weimar Republic there was an acute shortage of affordable housing. Overcoming this shortage …
Employment Office
by Walter Gropius (1928–29)
In 1928 Walter Gropius won a competition tendered by the city of Dessau for the …
Dessau-Törten Housing Estate:
Houses with Balcony Access (1929–30)
The five Houses with Balcony Access were built as a collective planning project in the …
Konsum Building
by Walter Gropius (1928)
The Konsum Building was designed by Walter Gropius and built in 1928. Its location, height …
Steel House
by Georg Muche and Richard Paulick (1926–27)
The Steel House, which stands right next to House Fieger, was commissioned by the municipality …
The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is a non-profit foundation under public law. It is institutionally funded by the German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the State of Saxony-Anhalt, and the City of Dessau-Roßlau. Bauhaus Buildings Dessau: Originals retold is generously funded by:
