Opinion / Nolan Giles
Sale of the century
Bauhaus is being celebrated in 2019. A hundred years after the influential German school was inaugurated, “Bauhaus-inspired” has become a phrase used by everyone from Swiss watch-makers to Los Angeles-based fashion designers to flog products. But most efforts to mimic the movement – which had an impact on everything from teapots to housing – have fallen short, being steeped in either nostalgia or obvious salesmanship.
That’s why it’s refreshing to come across the Growing House, a construction project finished this week by students and tutors from Department of Architectural Theory and Design at Germany’s Kassel University. Informed by a concept devised by Bauhaus teacher Ludwig Hilberseimer, Growing House is a modular housing system that allows inhabitants to add on new sections as a family expands.
Those keen to ape the principles of Bauhaus would do well to remember that the movement was about finding simple solutions to complex problems – not about shifting product.