L’esprit du Bauhaus

About

“Architects, sculptors, painters, we all must return to the crafts,” the architect Walter Gropius wrote in his Bauhaus manifesto. Founded in 1919 in Weimar and forced under Nazi pressure to close in Berlin in 1933, the Bauhaus was an art school that established itself as a major influence on 20th-century art. It was created by Gropius to improve our habitat and architecture through a synthesis of the arts, crafts and industry. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs is paying tribute to the Bauhaus in this exhibition featuring more than nine hundred works – objects, furniture, textiles, drawings, models, paintings – all placed in the context of the school and illustrating the extraordinary wealth of its experimentation in all fields. The exhibition begins by showing the historic context and sources that brought the Bauhaus into existence, then takes us through all the stages of the student curriculum in its various workshops. It ends with an invitation to the artist Mathieu Mercier to highlight the work of contemporary artists, designers and fashion designers demonstrating the durability and vitality of the Bauhaus spirit.