Bauhaus Conflicts, 1919-2009: Controversies and Counterparts - Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm

The Bauhaus, one of the icons of modernism, was controversial from the start-not only because of internal strife, but also due to critique or enmities from the outside. And the controversy did not end with the closure of the Bauhaus itself. Yet nothing else revealed Bauhaus ideas and ideology as well as these confrontations did. Through them, the basic issues of the modernist program became clear. It became obvious that there was no such thing as one kind of modernism, just as there was no ONE Bauhaus; instead, there were different, contradictory, and even oppositional movements and positions: the Bauhauses.

Few cultural movements have been as politically instrumentalized as the Bauhaus has. These controversies reflect the relationship between politics and culture in the twentieth century, and hence, the history of the construction of German identity.