Editorial

Published by on Tuesday July 14, 2020

Last modified on March 14th, 2023 at 11:43

The time at the Bauhaus must have been magical. There, experimentation was the driving force that ultimately led to what we today call “the Bauhaus-style”.

The preliminary course

The so-called preliminary course was then what has become design theory at today’s art and design colleges over a period of more than 100 years. It was specifically concerned with experimentation, style finding and the personal development of the students.

Johannes Itten, the founding father of the preliminary course, broke with the tradition of copying old masters at the time. Instead, he integrated teaching principles that were very unusual for that time: Nude drawing under time pressure, painting abstract terms and even exercises for gymnastics and meditation.

Square, Circle, Triangle

Wassily Kandinsky established the so-called abstract formal elements into the Bauhaus teachings. Thus, the combination of the geometric shapes square, circle and triangle became a kind of trademark for the Bauhaus in general. This is still a very powerful idea, because almost all more complex forms can be constructed with these three elements.

The three basic geometric shapes: Square: Circle and Triangle

Simply put square, circle and triangle are the basic building blocks from which any type of design can be assembled. The fewer of these elements are needed, the better.

Photograms

Josef Albers and above all the Hungarian László Moholy-Nagy, introduced experimental photography to the preliminary course. This was very contemporary at the time, as it was a relatively new and rapidly emerging medium. A special form of experimental photography was the photogram.

The principle works like this: In the dark laboratory, objects are placed on the photographic paper, which is then exposed and developed. This creates negative shadow images of the placed objects.

One has to bear in mind here that the technical possibilities were very limited at that time. Of course there were no computers back then with which one could have worked compositionally. The photogram allowed completely free graphic compositions and above all the quick creation of variations, which certainly led to great popularity.