Bauhaus Reviewed 1919-1933 (2007)

“This full-length archive CD explores the highly influential Bauhaus school of art and architecture, which operated in Germany between 1919 and 1933.

The spoken word element is centred on a revealing talk by Walter Gropius, the architect and theoretician who founded the Bauhaus in 1919. The album also includes contributions from the school’s third and final director, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, as well as teacher Josef Albers. All interviews are in the English language.

The musical content features piano pieces written between 1919 and 1925 by six composers associated with the Bauhaus: Arnold Schoenberg, Josef Matthias Hauer, George Antheil, Stefan Wolpe and H.H. Stuckenschmidt. Several reflect serialism and 12-tone technique; most are performed by Steffen Schleiermacher on piano.

With a generous running time of 72 minutes, the CD booklet also features archive Bauhaus images and liner notes by James Hayward.”

Publisher LTM Recordings (LTMCD 2472), 2007
ISBN 9780955433542
72 min

Reviews: Boomkat (2007), Stephen Eddins (AllMusic, 2008).

Publisher
Discogs

MP3s, MP3s (updated on 2017-10-15)

Anni Albers: On Weaving (1965–)

“In this book, Anni Albers develops the thoughts on the history and design of weaving which she put forward in her collection of essays On Designing, published in 1959. Although On Weaving is not meant to be a technical reference book, it conveys a fundamental understanding and appreciation of the craft, both to the textile expert and to the interested layman, and is written in uncomplicated language, illustrated with clear diagrams.

In chapter 5 Anni Albers says: ‘Though elaborations are usually thought to be an advance of stage of work, they are often an easy expansion from basic concepts. Intricacy and complexity are not, in my mind, high developments. Simplicity, rather, which is condensation, is the aim and the goal for which we should be heading. Simplicity is not simpleness but clarified vision–the reverse of the popular estimate.’

This methodically intellectual approach has been applied in the composition and writing of this book and has enabled the author with her expert knowledge to condense into a small space the very quintessence of designing woven fabrics and the many facets and intricacies of this craft. But at the same time Anni Albers is able to excite and inspire the reader’s imagination and unravel the romantic story of weaving.

The technical side, which includes tapestry and carpet weaving, weaves and their derivatives, cloth constructions and materials is extremely well documented with drawings and photographs. The artist-designer will find delight in the many illustrations of ancient and modern weaving.” (back cover)

First published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown/CT, 1965
Reprint, Studio Vista, London, 1974
ISBN 0289370043
204 pages
via x

Review: Irene Emery (American Anthropologist, 1968).

WorldCat

PDF (1965/1974, 30 MB, no OCR)
HTML (New Expanded Edition, 2017, added on 2017-10-30)

Bauhaus Photography (1982/1985)

“These five hundred photographs are a record of Bauhaus activities and experiments during the 1920s and early 1930s. Most of the photographs were taken by artists-painters like Fritz Kuhr and Werner Siedhoff, designers Heinz Loew and Herbert Bayer, Bauhaus masters Hannes Meyer and Joosst Schmidt – who were not self-conscious photographers but who wanted to work with a new technology.

The book supplements visual material already published in Hans Wingler’s monumental Bauhaus and presents the school’s more human side. Some of these photographs have never been published before, while others have not been published since the period in which they were made.

Part I consists of over 100 ‘artistic’ images, a listing of Bauhaus photography exhibits, an example of a Dessau Bauhaus lesson plan, including photography, and essays on various aspects of photography by Peterhans, Moholy, Vordemberge-Gildewart, Ernst Kallai, Fritz Kuhr, Willi Baumeister, Adolf Behne, Max Burchartz, Will Grohmann, and Ludwig Kassack. There is also a section on the use of photography with typography.

Part II is a Bauhaus album – nearly 400 illustrations of applied photography documenting the Bauhaus buildings, classroom projects, or day-today activities of students and faculty.”

First published as Bauhaus Fotografie, Marzona, Düsseldorf, 1982

Edited by Egidio Marzona and Roswitha Fricke
Translated by Harvey Mendelsohn and Frederick Samson
Foreword by Eugene Prakapas
Publisher MIT Press, 1985
ISBN 0262132028, 9780262132022
xi+315 pages
via x

Review: Clark V. Poling (Design Issues, 1986).

WorldCat

PDF (32 MB)