Imagined Bauhaus Architecture

A Public Lecture Series in conjunction with the anniversary year Summer School

The examples of Classical Modernism built in Dessau have become internationally known and studied through publications, educational programmes and exhibitions. For a long time, they have led an independent life in the international realm, whilst the actual buildings in Dessau went through various uses, restorations, changes in their significance and revaluations. In the discourse on the Bauhaus buildings this transnational realm supplants the real city in which they have been built.

Therefore, students of architecture and art students from around the world are familiar with images of the Bauhaus buildings, and these images shape their notion of Modernist Architecture. In the international Summer School students will work creatively with the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau as a decisive feature shaping the city, but we also wish to thematize the tension between the Bauhaus buildings as an imaginary space and their presence in Dessau.

Whilst the participants of the workshops will explore the Bauhaus buildings on site, the lectures will look at the buildings from a distance. What significance did the reception of Modernism in Israel, South Africa and Brazil attach to these buildings? And how relevant is this still today? How can these diverse views of the Bauhaus enrich the Bauhaus city?

The aim of the lecture series is to enter into the transnational dialogue on what the Bauhaus city evokes elsewhere, and how these perceptions and ideas can benefit the place in which the buildings stand.

Pictures of the Public Lectures