The New Bauhaus

The New Bauhaus
Name	The New Bauhaus
Formation	1937
Founder	László Moholy-Nagy
Type	Art and Design School
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois
Region served	United States
Key people	László Moholy-Nagy, Joseph Albers, György Kepes, Lucia Moholy

The New Bauhaus The New Bauhaus was an influential art and design school founded in 1937 in Chicago by Hungarian artist and educator László Moholy-Nagy after his emigration from Germany and departure from the Bauhaus. The institution sought to adapt the experimental pedagogy of the Weimar Republic‑era Bauhaus to the industrial and cultural conditions of the United States during the late 1930s and postwar era. It operated through several reincarnations and partnerships, interacting with major figures and organizations across Europe and North America and shaping modern industrial design, photography, architecture, typography, and visual arts practices.

History and Origins

Moholy-Nagy established the school in response to the closure of the Bauhaus by the Nazi Party and the exile of many artists and teachers to London, Amsterdam, and New York City. The New Bauhaus initially opened as the School of Design in Chicago with support from patrons connected to Institute of Design, Chicago Art Institute, and industrialists linked to Sears, Roebuck and Co. and General Motors. Early years saw collaboration with émigré practitioners from Germany, Hungary, and England, and exchanges with networks tied to Albers, Kandinsky, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and contemporaries from the De Stijl and Constructivism movements. Financial instability, wartime material shortages, and municipal politics prompted reorganizations that led to the school's later incarnations under names including the Institute of Design and affiliations with Illinois Institute of Technology.

Philosophy and Pedagogy

The New Bauhaus advanced a synthesis of craft and industry, proposing a program that merged hands-on workshops with theoretical study drawn from Moholy-Nagy's writings and earlier Bauhaus manifestos. Its pedagogy emphasized experimentation with materials, interdisciplinary collaboration, and functional aesthetics informed by contacts with Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier ideas circulating among émigré circles. Instructors promoted visual literacy influenced by László Moholy-Nagy's photograms, experiments parallel to Man Ray and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's contemporaries, and analytic methods resembling work by György Kepes and Herbert Bayer. The curriculum sought alignment with industrial commissions from firms like Herman Miller and design philosophies advanced by figures such as Charles and Ray Eames.

Key Figures and Leadership

László Moholy-Nagy served as founder and principal organizer, drawing on networks that included György Kepes, Joseph Albers, Lucia Moholy, Bela Kolár, and photographers and typographers from Paris and New York City. Administrative and teaching roles involved émigrés such as Tibor Gergely, Knud Lonberg‑Holm, George Nelson, and visiting lecturers from Harvard University and Columbia University. Collaborations extended to patrons and trustees linked to Frank Lloyd Wright circles and corporate design leaders including Norman Bel Geddes and Raymond Loewy. Later directors and faculty who shaped the Institute's trajectory included alumni connected to MIT, Pratt Institute, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Curriculum and Workshops

The New Bauhaus offered workshops in foundational studios that mirrored Bauhaus laboratories: materials study, metal workshop, wood shop, textile studio, typography, and photography. Courses integrated technical instruction in areas tied to industrial partners, such as engineered materials for Aluminum Company of America projects, acoustics studies adjacent to Bell Labs research themes, and display design for department stores like Marshall Field and Company. Experimental labs fostered photographic techniques akin to photograms and darkroom innovation credited to Man Ray, graphic experiments resonant with Jan Tschichold's typographic reforms, and spatial investigations drawing on Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright precedents. The school promoted studio projects that resulted in exhibitions at venues including Museum of Modern Art and collaborations with design firms commissioned by corporations such as Crosley and Westinghouse.

Influence and Legacy

The New Bauhaus catalyzed modern design education in the United States, seeding programs across institutions like Illinois Institute of Technology, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Yale School of Art, and Carnegie Mellon University. Its alumni and faculty influenced postwar modernism through work for Eames Office, Herman Miller, IBM, and cultural organizations such as The Museum of Modern Art and The Art Institute of Chicago. Pedagogical models propagated internationally via émigré networks to Israel, Brazil, Canada, and Japan, impacting design movements linked to Scandinavian design, International Style, and the later Swiss Style. Preservation efforts, retrospectives, and scholarship by historians and curators at institutions like Smithsonian Institution, Getty Research Institute, and Cooper Hewitt have reinforced its reputation.

Institutions and Notable Projects

Successor institutions included the Institute of Design, which later merged with Illinois Institute of Technology, producing notable projects in exhibition design for Century of Progress and wartime research partnerships with the Office of Strategic Services and National Defense Research Committee. Faculty and alumni executed commissions such as exhibition environments for Museum of Modern Art, graphic systems for Pan Am and American Airlines, and experimental photography shown alongside works by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston in major surveys. International collaborations involved exchanges with Royal College of Art, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, and archives housed at repositories including Chicago History Museum and Getty Research Institute.

Category:Design schools Category:Modernism Category:Art movements