Bauhaus: A Failed Utopia?

For those who have read books like Tom Wolfe’s angry and excoriating (and very funny) From Bauhaus to Our House, or any of the nearly infinite number of popular, scholarly and academic attacks on Bauhaus-style Modernism, the exclamation mark at the end of Gropius’ first sentence is disconcerting. This tradition-soaked Modernism, if we can call it that, was evident in many of the writings of those who would be associated with the Bauhaus, like Wassily Kandinsky, whose “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” voices many of the same ideas that Gropius expressed in his manifesto. One of the more delightful passages of Gropius’ manifesto explains that the Bauhaus will be for “[e]ncouragement of friendly relations between masters and students outside of work; therefore plays, lectures, poetry, music, costume parties.

Source: the-easel.com