Probably the most recognized of all architectural institutions for centuries. Bauhaus, a movement in architecture, but also an art and craft college. The history of the academy is well known to all, but its elements captured in film stills, personal stories and reminiscences reveal often previously unknown sides of the Bauhaus.
The New Bauhaus
The New Bauhaus, the term is not only a new movement launched in 2020 by the European Commission to improve the environment, the Chicago school, but also the title of an outstanding documentary that premiered last year.
New Bauhaus | trailer | YouTube
The film portrait of the innovative architectural school takes a look at one of its most important figures. The theme of the film will focus on Moholy-Nagy' s innovations . Its art was not meant to be pretty. Its task was to change the world for the better. The Hungarian-born artist worked in so many media that it is difficult to define him clearly. Moholy-Nagy was also an influential teacher, from experimental photographer to printmaker and blacksmith.
Moholy-Nagy moved to Chicago in the 1930s amid the deteriorating situation in Europe. His ideas were unacceptable in Nazi Germany, so he continued his vision so in the American school The New Bauhaus, of which he was director. It is this period in his life that the documentary will focus on, which will also tell the story of the points at which technology and design became intertwined in one timeless form.
Like many filmmakers do with cities in a fictional narrative form, director Alysa Nahmias allows Chicago to become a living, breathing entity that pulses with Moholy-Nagy's romantic view of the world in documentary form. By the end of the film, you won't just admire Moholy-Nagy, you'll want to be like him," the press (Forbes) announced before the film's release.
press materials | The New Bauhaus
The documentary was produced by an independent New York studio, with Alysa Nahmias behind the camera. A few years ago she won an Independent Spirit Award for a previous documentary she made with Benjamin Murray - Unfinished Spaces (2011). It, too, dealt with the subject of design - it looked at the revolutionary design of Cuba's National Art Schools.
documentary series
The three-episode series about Bauhas includes previously unpublished material, interviews with the school's alumni, students and friends. It was created for the 100th anniversary of the school's founding.
Episode 1: The Bauhaus Code - what's behind the successful Bauhaus formula? You can find further episodes HERE.
more than a school
In this documentary from the Barbican Centre, Nicolas Fox Weber, director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, provides an unfamiliar perspective on school life and work. The film is a kind of lecture, a personal story about a subject so familiar to all. According to him, the Bauhaus was not only a "factory" of architectural novelties, but above all a place full of scandals and conflicts. The film talks about the value of the Bauhaus as a phenomenon that revolutionized thinking about architecture, not only in the design sphere.
Bauhaus:Art as Life | YouTube
It might seem that the topic has already been exhausted, but nevertheless every year there are more albums, series and films about Bauhaus, its creators and students. Is there anything else we don't know?
