Issue: BAUHAUS

What was the Bauhaus? It was not an artistic movement or a modern style. The Bauhaus was a school that opened in Germany in 1919, and in the fourteen years of its existence it provided the basis for a new profession: industrial design. An industrial designer has to master and apple art and technology in equal measures. So, the Bauhaus created a teaching program that brought the workshop into the school, thereby creating the model for most of today's design schools all over the world.

The designer faces three main challenges: the first is to discover the true essence of an object, what it is that really defines it; the second is to study its function, to be able to improve it; and the final one is to search for its beauty.

The study of geometry and elemental forms, as well as the influence of Constructivism and , above all, De Stijl, gave rise to an easily identifiable formalist style in the Bauhaus, based on cubes, cones, spheres and cylinders. It established canons of modern furniture by experimenting with bent tubes of stainless steel.

The Bauhaus sought to bring art to the people by integrating it into the industrial process but, paradoxically, only an intellectual elite understood its work.