Download Original Bauhaus Books & Journals for Free: A Digital Celebration of the Founding of the Bauhaus School 100 Years Ago

in Art, Books | March 28th, 2019 Leave a Comment

In 1919, German architect Walter Gropius founded Bauhaus, the most influential art school of the 20th century. Bauhaus defined modernist design and radically changed our relationship with everyday objects. Gropius wrote in his manifesto Programm des Staatlichen Bauhauses Weimar that “There is no essential difference between the artist and the artisan.” His new school, which featured faculty that included the likes of Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky, did indeed erase the centuries-old line between applied arts and fine arts.

Bauhaus architecture sandblasted away the ornate flourishes common with early 20th century buildings, favoring instead the clean, sleek lines of industrial factories. Designer Marcel Breuer reimagined the common chair by stripping it down to its most elemental form.

Herbert Bayer reinvented and modernized graphic design by focusing on visual clarity. Gunta Stölzl, Marianne Brandt and Christian Dell radically remade such diverse objects as fabrics and tea kettles.

Nowadays, of course, getting one of those Bauhaus tea kettles, or even an original copy of Gropius’s manifesto, would cost a small fortune. Fortunately for design nerds, typography mavens and architecture enthusiasts everywhere, the good folks over at Monoskop have posted online a whole set of beautifully designed publications from the storied school.

Click here to pick out individual works or here to just get all of them. Sadly, though, you can’t download a teakettle.

The list of Books in the Monoskop Bauhaus archive includes:

• 1. Walter Gropius (ed.), Internationale Architektur, Munich: Albert Langen, 1925.
• 2. Paul Klee, Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch, Munich: Albert Langen, 1925, 50 pp.
  • Pedagogical Sketchbook, intro. & trans. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1953 (in English)
  • Παιδαγωγικό Σημειωματάριο, trans. Β. Λαγοπούλου, 1976. (in Greek)
  • Pedagogikheskie eskizy, trans. N. Druzhkovoy, 2005. (in Russian)
• 3. Adolf Meyer (ed.), Ein Versuchshaus des Bauhauses in Weimar, Munich: Albert Langen, 1924.
• 4. Die Bühne am Bauhaus, Munich: Albert Langen, 1925.
  • The Theater of the Bauhaus, trans. Arthur S. Wensinger, Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. (in English)
• 5. Piet Mondrian, Neue Gestaltung, Neoplastizimus, Nieuwe Beelding, Munich: Albert Langen, 1925.
• 6. Theo van Doesburg, Grundbegriffe der neuen gestaltenden Kunst, Munich: Albert Langen, 1925.
  • Principles of Neo-Plastic Art, London: Lund Humphries, 1969. (in English)
• 7. Walter Gropius (ed.), Neue Arbeiten der Bauhauswerkstäffen, Munich: Albert Langen, 1925.
• 8. L. Moholy-Nagy, Malerei, Fotografie, Film, Munich: Albert Langen, 1925, 115 pp; 2nd ed., 1927, 140 pp. Incl. "Dynamik der Gross-Stadt."
  • Painting Photography Film, trans. Janet Seligman, London: Lund Humphries, 1969. (in English)
• 9. Kandinsky, Punkt und Linie zu Fläche: Beitrag zur Analyse der malerischen Elemente, Munich: Albert Langen, 1926.
  • Point and Line to Plane: Contribution to the Analysis of the Pictorial Elements, trans. Howard Dearstyne and Hilla Rebay, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1947, 200 pp. (in English)
• 10. J.J.P. Oud, Holländische Architektur, Munich: Albert Langen, 1929.
• 11. Kasimir Malewitsch, Die gegenstandslose Welt, Munich: Albert Langen, 1927.
• 12. Walter Gropius, Bauhausbauten Dessau, Munich: Albert Langen, 1930.
• 13. Albert Gleizes, Kubismus, Munich: Albert Langen, 1928.
• 14. László Moholy-Nagy, Von Material zur Architektur, Munich: Albert Langen, 1929, 241 pp; facsimile repr., Mainz and Berlin: Florian Kupferberg, 1968.
  • The New Vision: From Material to Architecture, trans. Daphne M. Hoffman, New York: Breuer Warren and Putnam, 1930; exp.rev.ed. as The New Vision and Abstract of an Artist, New York: George Wittenborn, 1947, 92 pp. (in English)

And here are some key Bauhaus journals:

1. bauhaus 1 (1926). 5 pages, 42 cm. Download (23 MB).
2. bauhaus: zeitschrift für bau und gestaltung 2:1 (Feb 1928). Download (17 MB).
3. bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestaltung 3:1 (Jan 1929). Download (17 MB).
4. bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestaltung 3:2 (Apr-Jun 1929). Download (15 MB).
5. bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestaltung 3:3 (Jul-Sep 1929). Download (16 MB).
6. bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestaltung 2 (Jul 1931). Download (15 MB).

Get more in the Monoskop Bauhaus archive.

Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2015. We're bringing it back to celebrate the founding of the Bauhaus school 100 years ago--on April 1, 1919.

Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019 opens visitor centre

Yorkshire Sculpture Park opens visitor centre designed by Feilden Fowles READ MORE

First details of Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019 programme announced

22 June – 29 September 2019

Release date: Wednesday, 19 September 2018

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• By Rebecca Land
• Henry Moore Institute
• Head of Marketing & Communications

- Two major new public commissions in the city centres of Leeds and Wakefield announced.

- Leading international artists confirmed as part of the programme including Huma Bhabha, Ayşe Erkmen, Rashid Johnson, Wolfgang Laib, Tau Lewis, David Smith and Nobuko Tsuchiya.

- Associate Artist scheme launches today - five Yorkshire-based artists will be awarded grants of £7,500 to make new work.

Yorkshire Sculpture International today announces the first details of its inaugural programme. The UK’s largest sculpture festival will take place across Leeds and Wakefield from 22 June until 29 September 2019, and will present sculpture by artists from across the world.

A celebration of sculpture in all its forms, Yorkshire Sculpture International is presented by four world-renowned cultural institutions based in Leeds and Wakefield - the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds Art Gallery, The Hepworth Wakefield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

This first festival builds upon Yorkshire’s rich history as the birthplace of pioneering sculptors, including Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, and as the home of this unique consortium of galleries and celebrated sculpture collections.

Reflecting the curatorial theme put forward by British artist Phyllida Barlow that ‘sculpture is the most anthropological of the artforms’ the free 100-day festival responds to the idea that there is a basic human impulse to make and connect with objects, and the programme will explore what it means to create sculpture today.

The free 100-day festival will feature major new commissions in city centre locations; Ayşe Erkmen will make a new site-specific work for Leeds and Huma Bhabha will be presenting her first UK public commission in Wakefield.

Work by leading international artists, including newly commissioned work and key sculptures from their careers, will be exhibited at the four partner galleries. These include Rashid Johnson (Henry Moore Institute), Wolfgang Laib and Tau Lewis (The Hepworth Wakefield), David Smith (Yorkshire Sculpture Park) and Nobuko Tsuchiya (Leeds Art Gallery).

“With new commissions in city centres and exhibitions in world-renowned galleries, Yorkshire Sculpture International will be a major new addition to the cultural calendar in a region whose cultural and sporting prowess is drawing the attention of increasing numbers of national and international visitors.”

Jane Bhoyroo, Producer, Yorkshire Sculpture International

There will be an extensive public engagement programme that will support artistic talent development in the region and introduce new audiences to sculpture. People of all ages will have the opportunity to connect with sculpture, inspiring them to think about, talk about, and make sculpture.

Yorkshire-based artists are integral to the project and five artists working in sculpture will be supported through Yorkshire Sculpture International’s Associate Artist Programme which will award grants of £7,500 for selected artists to develop their practice. Expressions of interest for participating in the programme open today (19 September). In addition, opening for submissions today is an opportunity for ten artists from Yorkshire to be part of the festival’s Engagement Programme, creating collaborative work with schools and communities.

“Yorkshire Sculpture International promises to offer an exciting programme of commissions and exhibitions that will give visitors an opportunity to experience new work by artists from Yorkshire, the UK and across the world. It is a venture that builds on the strengths of the collaborating institutions and the success of their programmes in reaching new audiences across the region.”

Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair of Arts Council England

Further details

Rashid Johnson is one of the artists at the Henry Moore Institute who will be realising new commissions. The exhibition examines the responsibilities of objects. Within the trajectory and methods of anthropology lie the foundation of history and all social sciences. All objects can play a pivotal role within that framework, functioning as black boxes that absorb much about our existence while perpetuating mistruth. In short, they have a lot to answer for. The Institute’s exhibition brings together an assimilation of anthropological debates around the responsibility of tangible forms in understanding human behaviour, human history and what it means to create objects today.

For Yorkshire Sculpture International, Leeds Art Gallery will present new work by a selection of artists including Nobuko Tsuchiya responding to Phyllida Barlow’s provocation. The world-class sculpture collection will be installed throughout the galleries including major new acquisitions which will be displayed for the first time.

The Hepworth Wakefield will stage a series of new commissions and debut UK presentations by established and emerging artists from around the world. For the first time, all the public spaces within the David Chipperfield-designed building will be used with the exhibition unfolding as a series of encounters across the whole gallery, interacting with The Hepworth Wakefield’s remarkable collection of modern British art.

It will bring together artists of different generations who share with both Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore an intense interest in harnessing the cultural histories and physical properties of the materials they use - from an expansive installation by German sculptor Wolfgang Laib to new work by Jamaican-Canadian artist Tau Lewis.

Important sculptures and works on paper in Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Underground Gallery and the open air will show the development of David Smith’s sculptural practice, including previously unseen artefacts from Smith’s home. Smith aligned himself to an anthropological trajectory, embracing the creative continuity that connects humanity across millennia, connecting to an ancient tradition of making and fettling. This exhibition examines the immediacy of his sculpture; its sometimes obdurate, sometimes tactile nature; its shared space with man, machine, and natural forms; and the social/human impulse through which Smith developed abstraction from the automotive factory and foundry.

Further details about Yorkshire Sculpture International will be announced in early 2019.

Yorkshire Sculpture International We're proud to be part of the upcoming Yorkshire Sculpture International - the UK's largest event to celebrate sculpture - taking place in 2019.