Bauhaus Retraced

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Abstract

The concept of unity and totality was central for Walter Gropius at the beginning of the 20th century when he founded the Bauhaus. At the base of the new school was this idea of wholeness, but not as a homogenous whole, with its inherent neutralization of the oppositions between things. On the contrary, the new whole was to emerge through the coexistence and contrast of the opposing constituent parts. Gropius’s conception of unity in diversity can be called a dialectical unity. The intense dialectical relationship between the subjective and the objective, the local and the universal, the industry and the handicraft, the theory and the praxis, composed a new, enriched unity in Bauhaus. This dialectical way of design education is an important instrument for a total and dynamic outlook on reality, which reassures the interconnection of design with its social and cultural conditions of place and time. In our era with its increasing specialization, the emerging request for interdisciplinary education expresses a need to reconstruct the unity of the world around us. A dialectical way of design can provide the ability to grasp and shape reality as a dynamic, composite whole, and not as an aggregate of random elements.