Asymmetry, elegance, beauty and practicality, this describes some of the Bauhaus design curricula. The school emphasized a teaching method that shifted the mindset from competition-focused to a focus on personal potential and universal purpose. Lead by Walter Gropius, Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany. The Bauhaus teaching style resembled a utopian artists’ guild. To set up a new way of living, the Bauhaus taught principles that instituted creative design and technical disciplines. Community living in a unified-designed environment can influence an individual to adopt a more creative design awareness. Design knowledge can add vitality to live a better life. The school moved to Dessau, Germany in 1924. By 1933, the Nazi political party had forced the school to close

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Marcel Breuer and Joseph Albers immigrated to the United States to take teaching positions at Yale. After Walter Gropius went to Harvard, Moholy-Nagy eventually established a New Bauhaus school.

In 1922, Bauhaus principles were introduced in the United States with The Chicago Association of Arts and Industries. The association’s primary purpose was to open a school of design. Funding to initiate the New Bauhaus school was a major problem. Maholy-Nagy’s hard work and persistence eventually led to the opening of The School of Design in 1939. A few years later in 1944, a new board of directors dissolved The School of Design and formed the new Institute of Design. What started out as an artists’ guild and design school with a pedagogical teaching approach in Germany, evolved into one of the most prestigious industrial design graduate schools in the United States, the Illinois Institute of Technology – Institute of Design.

As World War II progressed, the import of other highly regarded Germans was essential to the U.S. war effort. A secret project “Operation Paperclip” involved 88 German scientists and rocket technology production. Other German scientists provided necessary help developing the Atomic Bomb.

The video shows a quick fundamental review of the Bauhaus School’s history, philosophy and achievements.