The release of the film "The Brutalist" was widely celebrated by film critics, but it caused controversy among architecture critics due to anachronisms, as the architecture referred to as Brutalist in the film resembles the 1990s works of Tadao Ando and Peter Zumthor. Although it is a work of fiction, some passages are said to have been inspired by the lives of the Jewish-Hungarian architect and designer Marcel Breuer (1902–1981) and the Jewish-Hungarian artist, filmmaker, and designer László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946).
By: Tania Tisser Beyda
Marcel Breuer trained at the Bauhaus School in Germany before emigrating to the United States in 1937, becoming a prominent proponent of the Brutalist style in America. László Moholy-Nagy taught at the Bauhaus from 1923 to 1928, when he resigned due to pressure from the Nazi regime. From 1933 onwards, he was banned from working in Germany, emigrating to Amsterdam, London, and then to Chicago in 1937, where he was invited to direct the New Bauhaus school and, later, the School of Design.
During this period, other architects, such as Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, also emigrated. However, contrary to fiction, they emigrated to continue their successful careers, assuming prominent positions at major North American universities, and contributing to the development of modern architecture.
Brutalism
In architecture, Brutalism is recognized for its raw, unrefined aesthetic. It is a movement that emerged in England and France in the early 1950s, characterized by its experimental approach to form and materials. This style is marked by its massive, monumental design, utilizing unadorned reinforced concrete structures and highlighting the material in its most original state. This focus on simplicity and lack of ornamentation emphasizes the movement's commitment to functional and "honest" design, originating from the Bauhaus. Despite this significant Bauhaus influence, Brutalism sought to respond to the demands and challenges of the post-World War II world.a World War, with social and aesthetic needs very different from the post-World War I context.a World War that led to the development of the Bauhaus.
Brutalist architecture employs characteristic principles reflected in its construction elements. Unlike the Arts & Crafts which employs ornamentation to mask structure, Brutalist architecture exposes bare concrete as a dramatic, rough-textured form in simple, repetitive geometric shapes.
Primarily used in government and institutional buildings, Brutalism serves as a physical manifestation of authority and permanence. Although modern masters such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier were prominent in the architectural scene in America and Europe after the war, Le Corbusier was the preeminent architect in its development. The Brutalist style in architecture was named after the French term— 'brut béton' – that is, raw concrete, which Le Corbusier was fascinated by due to its plasticity and malleability arising from changes in the technology then applied.
The Bauhaus
Despite being considered the most important school of architecture, design and art of the 20th century, the Bauhaus existed for only 14 years – from 1919 to 1933. Its creation was directly influenced by Deutscher Werkbund – German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists founded in 1907, in Germany, which played a fundamental role in the development of modern design.
This association aimed to integrate traditional craftsmanship and industrial production, seeking to improve the quality of German products and make them more competitive in the global market. The discussion focused on how to establish a new relationship between artisans and industry, how to link artisanal processes to industrial manufacturing processes, and how to mitigate the social impacts arising from the fragmentation of artisanal work. Workshop promoted the idea that design should be functional and standardized, eliminating unnecessary ornaments. After the 1a World War II, discussions began to focus on urban planning, housing construction, housing plans, and the construction industry.
The Bauhaus was created in 1919 with the hiring of Walter Gropius as Director of the Grand-Ducal Saxon College of Fine Arts in Weimar. He formally merged this school with the College of Applied Arts, which had been dissolved in 1915, and issued a manifesto announcing his program as a post-war fresh start. His intention was to offer artistic training focused on modern production, reclaiming the value of manual labor in an industrial context. He advocated for the unification of the arts and proposed that design should respond to the needs of modern life, blending function, aesthetics, and technique.
The Bauhaus's pedagogical approach was innovative in combining theory and practice, art and technique, through the "learning by doing" method, focusing on training well-rounded professionals—architects, designers, and artists—capable of handling industrial materials and processes. It advocated that every designer should understand and practice manual craftsmanship, such as carpentry, joinery, ceramics, weaving, and so on. The program's foundation was craftsmanship training through workshops. He argued that the unification of disciplines such as sculpture, painting, applied arts and crafts would establish a new art of architecture.
In the following years the school prospered, incorporating, as teachers, Lyonel Feininger, Gerhard Marks, Johannes Itten, Georg Muche, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, Lothar Schreyer, Adolf Meyer, Wassily Kandinsky and László Moholy-Nagy.
In 1923, Gropius formulated a new approach to the school, recognizing industry as the defining force of the era. Engagement with industry and mechanized production became a prerequisite for all Bauhaus work. Even so, Gropius maintained a commitment to educating individuals engaged with the cultural and social phenomena of the modern world. Despite his rationalist approach, activities related to stimulating the imagination were highly valued, but they must have a practical application.
In 1924, changes in the parliament of the Federal State of Thuringia, a Free State (free State) of the Weimar Republic where the city of Weimar is located, led to the replacement of the Social Democratic majority that supported the Bauhaus.
Beginning in April 1925, the new government announced the termination of employment contracts and the Bauhaus School, initiating the search for a solution. The "Friends of the Bauhaus" group was created to provide moral and practical support to the school's members. They were part of its Board: Marc Chagall, Albert Einstein and Gerhart Hauptmann1, among others. Negotiations began with several cities, seeking to continue the school. They were successful, and the Dessau City Council decided to establish the Bauhaus as a municipal school. It was there that books featuring the works of Gropius, László, Paul Klee, Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian began to be published. In 1926, the school's new headquarters were inaugurated, based on a project designed by Gropius and equipped by the Bauhaus studios. The ceremony, attended by over a thousand guests and lasting two days, demonstrated the Bauhaus's relevance and led to its international acclaim.
In 1928, Gropius decided to resign as director to work as an architect in Berlin. László, Bayer, and Marcel Breuer also left the school. Hannes Meyer took over as the new director, redirecting the school's principles with criticism of the previous work, which he called formalist and focused on aesthetic considerations. He argued that design should be considered an objective process based on understandable, rational results, focused on people's needs and appropriate to their lives. He restructured the workshops and gave prominence to architecture. He undertook the financial reorganization of the Bauhaus, increasing the productivity of the studios and generating income for the school and its students. Meyer was a profound connoisseur of the science of construction, and his architecture course was based on this knowledge.
Two lamp factories began producing Bauhaus-designed models, ushering in the mass production of objects previously manufactured only in the school's own workshops. At that time, the "Friends of the Bauhaus" association already had 460 members. Several presentations and exhibitions were held in major cities in Germany and Switzerland, promoting the school and its members.
Director Meyer was concerned with systematizing scientific and social knowledge, making it available to studios, and aiming for low prices and meeting the needs of the population, which lived in poverty and destitution. Under his leadership, priorities became cooperative ideals: collaboration, standardization, and the harmonious balance of the individual and society.
Bauhaus students became increasingly politicized until, in 1930, director Meyer was fired for his communist sympathies. Mies van der Rohe was appointed to the position, and once again, the school's direction was changed. He made the course entirely academic and once again focused on aesthetic issues. workshops lose relevance, and industrial design production declines. He tries to keep the school away from political debates, banning political activities and removing all students who supported former director Hannes Meyer. He focuses on transforming the Bauhaus into a school of architecture, intending to save it from Nazi attacks, which considered the school "Jewish and Oriental" and pressured its students and faculty to leave, accusing its work of being "degenerate."
The following year, the Nazi Party won the municipal elections in Dessau on the platform of canceling subsidies to the Bauhaus and ordering the demolition of its buildings. Subsidies were cut in half in 1930, leaving the school to survive on income from license fees paid by companies that manufactured the school's products. In 1932, the Nazi Party prevailed, and a motion was passed to discontinue the school and cease all its activities.
Mies van der Rohe decided to continue the school as a private institution in Berlin. Even so, in 1933 the school was searched and sealed by the police, who arrested 32 students. At that time, the Gestapo imposed as a condition for its reopening that Kandinsky and Ludwig Hilberseimer be replaced by teachers aligned with Nazi ideology and that the curriculum meet the requirements of the new state—a proposal considered unacceptable. Uncertainty about the future, political threats and pressure, and financial problems led the teachers to close the Bauhaus.
The Bauhaus's journey was not smooth, reflecting the innovative methods, experiments, diverse leadership, and the ideological and political context in Germany. Because the Bauhaus was a government-owned school and dependent on subsidies, its existence was constantly threatened by ideological debates and shifts in the political majority in Parliament. The school was threatened, challenged, and persecuted on numerous occasions. It was closed for political reasons at least three times. External pressure is credited with establishing an internal environment of great solidarity, which enabled its members to advance into a "new era," not only due to the quality of their collaboration but also due to the nature of the life they shared at the Bauhaus.
Teachers and students lived in a rich cultural and social environment, where parties, lectures, theater, poetry, music, and meetings flourished. They lived and ate together and participated in recreational and sports activities at the school itself. Themed parties were popular and encouraged the involvement of academic activities in their planning and preparation, in addition to fostering contact between the school and the public. This environment also fostered the development of playfulness—considered the driving force of creativity.
Bauhaus and Nazism
Between 1933 and 1945, approximately 200 Bauhaus members, Jews or descendants, were persecuted, expelled, and even murdered. About 25 of them were murdered in concentration camps, killed in combat and forced to serve in the army, or even driven to suicide. But Nazi pressure and persecution impacted not only Jewish members but also those with Marxist ideology.
In official propaganda, the Nazi regime completely rejected the Bauhaus for being associated with everything they considered negative. But behind the rhetoric, the actions were different: Nazi leaders recognized the Bauhaus's functionality and knew how to leverage the school's objective precepts, employing several of its members in projects and initiatives of their interest. Posters, furniture, household items, portraits of Hitler, propaganda pieces, and even buildings in concentration camps were created following Bauhaus design principles and construction guidelines.
In 2024, three Weimar museums jointly presented the exhibition Bauhaus and National Socialism, presenting to the world an uncomfortable legacy of the Bauhaus that contradicts the illusion that has persisted since 1945, that modernism—including the Bauhaus—"was exclusively good and persecuted." Based on research that lasted approximately three years and involved the cooperation of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar², the University of Erfurt in Germany, and the University at Buffalo in New York, it brought together the most recent research findings from international universities and museums.
The exhibition catalog recalls that many Bauhaus members continued their work uninterrupted after 1933, working in many areas of design in Germany. It also highlights that, after the school's closure, many of its former students and teachers remained in Germany and faced difficult decisions about how to deal with the regime. Some adapted, collaborated, or sought ways to survive, while others were persecuted for political or racial reasons.
The numbers are impressive – of the school's 1.250 members, 202 were not in Germany when Hitler took power and did not return, and 134 left the country for political reasons. About 900 members reportedly remained in Germany under the Third Reich. Of these, 188 reportedly joined the
National Socialist Party (Nazi Party): (170 men and 18 women), 14 were part of the Sturmabteilung3 (SA) and 12 served the Schutzstaffel4 (SS).
Research for the exhibition explored the biographies of 58 Bauhaus members – investigating their artistic production, their positioning, and potential evidence of resistance to or collaboration with the Nazi regime.
The case of Franz Ehrlich (1907-1984) is highly representative of this period. He studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1927. As an architect and carpenter, he worked with Walter Gropius and dabbled in sculpture and typography. In 1933, he received his Bauhaus diploma and followed Walter Gropius to Berlin, where he ran an advertising firm. Because of his communist involvement, he was arrested in Leipzig in 1934 and transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1937. His architectural career seems to have saved his life: he was commissioned to design the interior decoration of the SS camp commandant's residence. He later received other SS commissions, including the creation of the inscription "To each his own” (“To each his own”) to the concentration camp gate. His work for the Nazis at Buchenwald took place as a prisoner and likely under duress, casting doubt on what motivated him: collaboration or a quest for survival?
Herbert Bayer (1900-1985) portrays the situation of the school's members who continued working in Germany after 1933. He was one of the leading figures of the Bauhaus, creating the graphic design that remains the school's signature to this day. He was a student from 1921 to 1925, later becoming a teacher and director until 1928. From 1933 onward, he began drawing for Nazi propaganda and worked on the design of catalogs and exhibitions that celebrated the ideology and racial hatred of Hitler's regime.
Fritz Ertl (1908–1982), who earned his Bauhaus diploma in 1931, was involved in the construction of the Auschwitz concentration camp from the outset. He worked on the project from 1940 to 1943. He served as head of the Technical Department and later as head of the Structural Engineering Department, eventually becoming deputy head of the Central Construction Management. He also made his way within the SS, reaching the rank of SS-Untersturmführer (equivalent to second lieutenant).
On the other hand, artists such as Otti Berger (1898-1944) faced professional prohibition by Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture)5 due to her Jewish origins. She was invited by László Moholy-Nagy to join the New Bauhaus in Chicago, and while waiting for her visa, she spent several short periods in London, looking for work. In 1938, she returned to Croatia due to her mother's illness and her inability to find work in England—she didn't speak the language, was hearing impaired, and, to the English, was considered German (despite being Croatian). In April 1944, Otti was deported to Auschwitz, along with her family, where she died.
Ernst Neufert (1900-1986) was a professor at the Bauhaus from 1928 to 1933. From 1938 onwards, he collaborated with Albert Speer – Hitler's general building inspector for the Reich capital. He was appointed commissioner for the standardization and rationalization of residential construction in Berlin, and from 1944 onwards, he was involved in planning the reconstruction of cities destroyed by the war. Neufert exerted a great influence on world architecture, especially through his work in the standardization and standardization of architectural designs. His greatest legacy is the book Art of Designing in Architecture, published in 1936, which has become an essential reference for architects, engineers, and designers around the world. The book is considered the "Bible of Architecture."
An example of "tolerance" was the use of the "Bauhaus" label as a marketing tool for a line of wallpaper from the Rasch company. This was one of the Bauhaus's most commercially successful products and was produced in the family business of student Maria Rasch (1897-1959). The Nazis discovered that Rasch was one of the few German design firms with international connections and lucrative export business, which is why it remained largely unmolested.
All former Bauhaus members who were not part of the German right were banned, along with their artwork. The Nazi regime classified it as “degenerate art” (Entertete Kunst) several works and artists that did not align with his aesthetic and ideological vision. Among them were: Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Anni Albers, Oskar Schlemmer, Lyonel Feininger, Johannes Itten, Georg Muche, Marcel Breuer and Herbert Bayer.
Many walked a fine line, allowing themselves to be manipulated, manipulated, or positioned, while many others euphorically embraced the regime, participating in it, and profiting from it. While some were affected by the "degenerate art" movement, others participated in major exhibitions and Nazi propaganda shows, and, especially in the field of applied art, created works that conformed to the system. Mies van der Rohe had a complex relationship with the Nazi regime. For a brief period in 1934, he joined the Reich Chamber of Culture, an organization created by the Nazi government to control arts and culture. However, his participation apparently did not result in significant collaboration with the regime. He faced difficulties obtaining projects in Germany and, in 1937, decided to emigrate to the United States, where he became a central figure in modern architecture.
Like him, several artists, teachers, and thinkers were forced to leave Germany due to persecution by the Third Reich: Josef Albers (1933, USA), Wassily Kandinsky (1933, France), Paul Klee (1933, Switzerland), Walter Gropius (1934, England; 1937, USA), László Moholy-Nagy (1934, Netherlands; 1935, England; 1937, USA), Marcel Breuer (1935, England; 1937, USA), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1937, USA), Herbert Bayer (1938, USA), and Walter Peterhans (1938, USA). This emigration movement helped to reinforce, disseminate, and internationalize the principles of modernity developed at the Bauhaus.
The Bauhaus's reputation endures globally to this day due to its broad approach, which embraced modernity and progress in various aspects of art and life. Although the school was closed, its members brought its philosophy and attitude to life worldwide.
1 Gerhart Hauptmann was a German novelist and playwright (1862-1946). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1912 and the Goethe Prize in 1932.
2 The Klassik Stiftung Weimar is one of Germany's largest and most important cultural institutions. The foundation preserves and promotes the legacy of the Weimarer Klassik, in addition to housing spaces dedicated to the Bauhaus, modern art, and German literature.
3 A Sturmabteilung (SA), or Brown Shirts, was a paramilitary militia of the Nazi Party, acting as assault squads.
4 A Schutzstaffel The SS was a Nazi paramilitary organization initially created as a personal guard unit for the Nazi leader, which grew to become one of the most powerful institutions in Nazi Germany. Under the command of Heinrich Himmler, the SS was responsible for administering concentration camps, repressing opponents, and implementing genocidal policies.
5 Reichskulturkammer (RKK): The Reich Chamber of Culture was an institution established in 1933 in Germany—a professional organization for all German artists. Its goal was to gain control of Germany's cultural life by creating and promoting art in line with National Socialist ideals.
Tânia Tisser Beyda is a Business Management consultant, PhD and Master in Administration and Architect.
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