Cooperative societies, sharing communities, building groups – the collective is booming. The questions of the relationship between society and design, between individual and collaborative creation and production were already being negotiated at the Bauhaus: The second Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer (1889-1955) notably organised his teaching and workshops, planning and architecture along the radical lines of the collective and its requirements. Meyer’s idea of a collective design process was particularly revolutionary. Now, this so-called coop principle is being addressed for the first time by the exhibition “the coop principle – Hannes Meyer and the Concept of Collective Design”.
The exhibition elucidates why Meyer by his own admission never developed projects alone, how he realised the “cooperative” in theory and practice and what precisely lies behind his motto “Volksbedarf statt Luxusbedarf” (the needs of the people instead of the need for luxury). Under Meyer’s reign as director, for a period of two years the ‘Volkswohnung’ (People’s flat) was the Bauhaus Dessau’s main mission and leitmotif. The goal was to achieve the greatest economy in form, construction and material – a design credo that is being rediscovered in many places today. Visitors will be able to try out elements of the ‘Volkswohnung’ for themselves, which have been reproduced by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in cooperation with the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau and the Arbeits- und Sozialförderungsgesellschaft Dessau e.V.
Based on the topical modules “Society”, “Education”, “Architecture” and “Landscape”, the exhibition presents the coop idea – and the innovations that it yielded at the Bauhaus: be it Meyer’s grasp of architecture as a social science, the focus on social content, organic functionalism in design or the students’ interdisciplinary teamwork in so-called vertical brigades.
Above and beyond this, the exhibition focuses on Hannes Meyer’s personal history, which was influenced by migration. Subsequent to his time at the Bauhaus, the committed Marxist taught until the mid-1930s in the Soviet Union and from 1939 to 1949 in Mexico. The exhibition will also portray Hannes Meyer’s extensive international network as part of the „coop cosmos“, thereby elucidating the status and reception of the second Bauhaus director.
In the round-up to the opening of the exhibition the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation will hold a press conference and organise a tour through the exhibition with the curators. A separate invitation will be delivered during the coming weeks.
Curated by Dr. Werner Möller (Bauhaus Dessau Foundation) and Dr. Raquel Franklin (Anahuac University, Mexico City)
Sponsored by the German Federal Cultural Foundation’s International Museum Fellowship programme, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and Lotto-Toto Sachsen-Anhalt. Under the patronage of the Swiss Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, H.E. Tim Guldimann
Opening: May 21st, 7 pm