The Bauhaus Archive / Museum of Design in Berlin investigates and presents to the public the history and influence of the Bauhaus (1919–1933) – the twentieth century’s most important college of architecture, design and art. Housed in the building on the Landwehrkanal designed by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, the world’s most comprehensive collection of materials on the history of the college and every aspect of its work is open to everyone interested. In addition to topics associated with the Bauhaus, the Bauhaus Archive also addresses current issues in contemporary architecture and design and aims to serve as the museum of design within Berlin’s museum scene.
W h a t: The entire posthumous materials belonging to the founder of the Bauhaus and first Director of the renowned art college, Walter Gropius, and his wife Ise Gropius, which have been held by the Bauhaus Archive since the mid-1980s, are to be digitized by the end of 2014 in the ‘Walter Gropius Open Archive’. The two groups of materials contain 5000 photos and 14,000 documents – a unique research source on the Bauhaus and its age for the history of modern art, architecture, and culture. In addition to detailed photographic documentation of Gropius’s own work and that of other architects (c. 3000 pictures), his posthumous papers also include photos capturing private moments (c. 2000 pictures). The presence of valuable originals, some of which are now only held by the Bauhaus Archive, make the Gropius papers a unique source. In his extensive correspondence from 1910 to 1969, Gropius exchanged ideas with more than 1000 correspondents – including famous artists, architects, literary figures and politicians of the period such as Max Bill, Marcel Breuer, Albert Einstein, Lyonel Feininger, Theodor Heuss, Le Corbusier, László Moholy-Nagy, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Erwin Piscator, Hans Scharoun, Kurt Schwitters, Henry van de Velde and Frank Lloyd Wright.
W h y: The aim is to secure the Gropius papers for posterity in digital form and make access to the collection easier for academic researchers, students and interested individuals. This will promote the role of Bauhaus Archive as a central educational site for the history of the Bauhaus and will strengthen Berlin’s significance as a base for academic research.
H o w: After complete processing and digitization of the documents and photographs, the metadata will be available free of charge in an online database and will be internationally accessible.
W h e r e: www.bauhaus.de