Puzzle No. 114: Chain

In April 1919 the architect Walter Gropius founded the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, and issued a four-page manifesto proclaiming a new school that would unite fine art, craft, and industry. Gropius sought to abolish the hierarchy separating 'artist' from 'craftsman,' declaring that 'the ultimate goal of all art is the building.' The school's workshop-based curriculum trained students under both an artist and a master craftsman, producing furniture, typography, textiles, ceramics, and architecture defined by functional clarity and the union of form and purpose. After moving to Dessau in 1925 into a purpose-built complex, and briefly to Berlin, the Bauhaus was closed in 1933 under Nazi pressure. Its faculty and graduates, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, and László Moholy-Nagy, dispersed internationally, carrying its principles to the United States and elsewhere. The Bauhaus aesthetic of simplicity, geometric rationality, and mass-producible design became foundational to modern architecture, industrial design, graphic design, and product design worldwide, shaping the look of the built and manufactured environment for the remainder of the century and beyond.

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Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

Before Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar

After Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar