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MANILA, Philippines - Who was the German architect and art educator who founded the Bauhaus School of Design, which became a dominant force in architecture and the applied arts in the 20th century?

He was born in Berlin, Germany in 1883.  The son of an architect, he studied at the Technical Universities in Munich and Berlin. After graduating, he joined the office of Peter Behrens, in whose practice the seminal AEG Tubine Hall of concrete, steel.

Three years later, he established a practice with Adolf Meyer.  Together they share credit for one of the seminal modernist buildings Fagus Werks in Alfred an der Lien, Germany.  Although the only designed the facade, the glass curtain walls of this building demonstrated both the modernist principle form reflects function and his concern with providing healthy conditions for the working class.  Other works during this early period include the office and factory of the Werrbund Exhibition in Cologne, Germany in 1914.

After serving in World War I, he became involved with several groups of radical artists that sprang up in the winter of 1918.

His career advanced in the postwar period when Henry Van Velde, the master of the Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and crafts in Weimar was asked to step down in 1915 due to his Belgian nationality.  Van Velde recommended him to succeed him, leading to his appointment as the master of the school in 1919.

It was this academy which he transformed into the world famous Bauhaus in 1919.  Believing that all design should be functional as well as aesthetically pleasing.  The Bauhaus School pioneered a functional, severely simple architectural style, featuring the elimination of surface decoration and the extensive use of glass.

The Bauhaus School attracted many artists including Paul Klee and Wassily Kadinsky, graphic artist Kathe Kollwitz, and expressionist art groups such as Die Trucke and Der Blau Reiter.

The Bauhuas curriculum consisted of preliminary courses and practical training in workshops.  The workshops were to be laboratories for developing models “ripe for mass production, implements typical of the present day.”

One product of the school’s workshops was the armchair F51 designed for the Bauhaus director’s room in 1920, indicating that expressionism was an influence on him at that time.  In 1923, he designed his famous door handles, now considered an icon of 20th century design and often listed as one of the most influential designs to emerge form Bauhaus.  He also designed largescale housing projects in Berlin, Karusrute, and Dessau in 1926-32 that were contributions to the new objectivity movement.

As war again became imminent, he left the Bauhaus and resumed private practice in Berlin.  Eventually, he was forced to leave Germany for the US, where he became a professor at Harvard University.  From 1938-1941, he worked on a series of houses with Marcel Beuer and in 1945 founded the Architect’s Collaborative, a design team that embodied his belief in the value of teamwork.

He created innovative designs that borrowed materials and methods of construction from modern technology.  This advocacy of industrialized building carried with it a belief in team work and an acceptance of standardization and prefabrication.  Using technology as a bases, he transformed building into a science  of precise mathematical calculations.

An important theorist and teacher, he introduced a screen wall system that utilized a structural steel frame to support the floors and which allowed the external glass walls to continue without interruption.

Among his works are the Harvard Graduate Center, the US Embassy in Athena, the University of Baghdad, and the Pan Am Building in New York with Pietro Bellushi.

His family home, built in in 1937, is also an architectural landmark.  Modest in scale, the house was revolutionary in impact.  It combined the traditional elements of New England architecture — wood, brick, and fieldstone — with innovative materials rarely used in domestic settings at that time — blass block, acoustical plaster, chrome banisters, and the latest technology in fixtures.  In keeping with the Bahaus philosophy, every aspect of the house and its surrounding landscape was planned for maximum efficiency and simplicity of design.

He received the AIA Gold Medal in 1959, and died in Boston, Massachusetts in 1969.

Last week’s question: Who is the Chicago-based chef who represents the best of molecular gastronomy in America with his multi-awarded Alinea restaurant?

Answer: Grant Achatz

Winner: Wilfred Ariel Agbulos of Kamias, Quezon City

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