July 8: The Bauhaus archiv

On July 8 we did the first museum of our stay, the Bauhaus Archiv, Janet's favorite from her years in Berlin. The special exhibition was a display on color and the Bauhaus, whose stated goal was to show that the notion that all Bauhaus work is in white is mistaken. That mistake arose in part from black and white photography, in part from the fact that the colors used by the Bauhaus were not deemed as novel as other traits of their work. The exhibit showed well enough (even to one distracted by a somewhat less than enchanted/enchanting three year old) that the artists of the Bauhaus were quite interested in the different effects to be achieved through color. But one look at the white exterior of the Bauhaus Archiv itself shows at least one example of colorless architecture. As it happens, next door is the Stiftung Preussischer Kuturbesitz (something like the Foundation for the Prussian Cultural Heritage), an example of what buildings looked like before modernism, complete with numerous classicizing touches. In comparison the Bauhaus building looks very clean modern. Among the more amazing items within, in a way, were desk lamps of the sort mass-produced nowadays--the sort of thing that leads one to momentarily wonder how such a common item could have mistakenly made its way into a museum case. In some areas the Bauhaus was so successful that its innovations have become as standard as the classical styles it made seem obsolete. But of course what seems standard to us now was controversial in its day: the Nazis shut down the Bauhaus as an example of degenerate art.