Bauhaus vs. Brutalism: What's The Difference? Architecture + Art History 101

What's the difference between Bauhaus and Brutalism? Both are 20th century design movements that really care about the social function of design. Both are considered modern design movements. And both start with the letter B. Bauhaus and Brutalism both came from society's anxieties about rapid social change in the 21st century. I did an art history deep dive to get to the bottom of each movement's main themes and historical contexts. I tried to do my research and I read quite a few books. Still, this analysis may have blind spots. Here is what I learned. In a nutshell, Bauhaus or the Bauhaus was an art school in Germany from 1919 until 1933. The word Bauhaus comes from the German word for house building. But the Bauhaus taught lots of other crafts too, like object design, furniture design, graphic design, and textile design. Most Brutalist buildings were made between 1950 and 1980. Brutalism was most popular in the United States, Great Britain, and Eastern Europe. The word Brutalism sounds rough, but it actually takes its name from the French word for raw concrete, béton roux. Most Brutalist buildings are made from reinforced concrete. Brutalism and Bauhaus are directly connected because several of the same artists participated in both movements. The Bauhaus ended in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis, and many of the Bauhaus teachers fled Germany and ended up in the United States and England. Let's take a closer look at the Bauhaus. In the 1920s, Germany had just lost World War I, badly. But Germany's new Weimar Republic was a hot spot for social and political experimentation. And this is where we find the Bauhaus. The word Bauhaus comes from inverting the German word Hausbau, which means house building. And the Bauhaus was primarily concerned with building houses. The first Bauhaus school opened in Weimar Germany in 1919. Instead of straightforward teachers and students, the school had three tiers. Apprentices, also called journeymen, young masters, and masters. There were also three tiers of study. The preliminary course, one semester designed to see if you could cut it in the Bauhaus. Workshops, where most of the learning happened. And the final building course, which was by invitation only, pending exceptional performance in the workshop course. The entire process took about three years. It was collaborative, innovative, and exciting. Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius wrote the following manifesto. Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all return to craftsmanship. So let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen, free of the divisive class pretensions that endeavor to raise a prideful barrier between craftsmen and artists. Let us strive for, conceive, and create the new building of the future that will unite every discipline, architecture, and sculpture, and painting, and which will one day rise heavenwards from the million hands of craftsmen as a clear symbol of a new belief to come. It was a highly optimistic movement. The founders wanted to solve social problems through art and architecture. And the Germans of the 1920s faced some real problems. Students and masters were confronted with fundamental everyday problems of the war-torn Weimar Republic. There was a lack of clothes, food, building materials, and money, which lost value by the hour, with inflation reaching a crisis point in November 1923 when you needed four trillion German marks to purchase a kilo of beef. To solve these issues of scarcity, the Bauhaus emphasized very functional and material-efficient houses and objects. No more adornments and decorative doodads. These were not functional, and they showed excess, which was considered ugly and socially irresponsible. Bauhaus used raw materials like steel, glass, and concrete. It used many straight lines to save on building materials. This use of straight lines is called rectilinear. Let's take a look at some examples of Bauhaus design. One of the most iconic Bauhaus buildings is the Bauhaus school itself. In 1925, the Bauhaus school moved from Weimar to Dessau, where they manifested this custom complex. This complex was designed with no front and no declaration of an entrance. The workshop wing is an example of what Tom Wolfe calls the glass box. Walls of windows are a hallmark of Bauhaus design. Windows let in huge amounts of light, but they also let in temperature, heat, and cold, which causes the temperature of a building to fluctuate rapidly throughout the day. Another odd paradox of Bauhaus design is the flat roof. Flat roofs use much less building material than pitched roofs, gabled roofs, or A-frames. But rain, snow, and debris stay on a flat roof forever. It snows in Germany, so the adoption of flat roofs here is most puzzling. A flat roof makes much more sense in a drier climate, like Palm Springs. This is the workshop wing. Notice how the workshop wing has four stories. This wing, called the Prellerhaus, is the same height, but has five stories. This is because rooms in the Prellerhaus have lower ceilings. Lower ceilings mean more units. You can squeeze more floors out of the same space if you have lower ceilings. This functionality was important to the Bauhaus. They wanted to redesign high-density worker housing. They did this by using low ceilings, skinny hallways, and small square rooms. The Dessau school also has this iconic typography on the side of the building. It says Bauhaus. It's iconic in the same way that the Hollywood sign or the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign are. It inspired the iconic Bauhaus font. I actually might argue that Bauhaus' second most lasting legacy is in typography, lowercase stylization, curvy lines, and an effect that is both bold and understated at the same time. The Dessau campus was decimated in World War II, but they refurbished it in the 1960s and 1980s. Today, you can visit and even stay overnight and experience all the wonders of Bauhaus. Bauhaus founder Walther Gropius was obsessed with the modular house. The modular house is basically a prefabricated house, a ready-made house you can prop up on any flat land. He never got to realize his ideal modular house in Germany, so this is his house in New England. Walther lived here while teaching architecture at Harvard. It probably looks familiar to you because it contains many elements of modern design. It has a flat roof and walls with big glass windows. The spiral staircase is more space-efficient than a lateral staircase, and you'll notice Gropius spared every expense. There's barely any material on this spiral staircase. The stairs lead to a private entrance built for Walther's daughter, Atti. The two-story house also has low ceilings. Here is a view from inside the house. What do you think? Does the house feel cramped or cozy? The Gropius house is compact, geometric, and clean. It's a wonderful example of Bauhaus design. The Bauhaus Lamp by Willem Wagenfeld is one of the Bauhaus' most iconic and controversial objects. In their essay, The Bauhaus Paradox, Philip Oswald and Julia Muir write, For many people, the Bauhaus Lamp is a perfect embodiment of the Bauhaus concept, a modern, functional, and well-designed utility object of the industrial age. And yet, closer inspection reveals this impression is, in fact, deceptive. The Bauhaus Lamp is not functional. The Bauhaus advertised it as a work and bedside lamp. However, due to its small light beam that shines only downwards on its base, it is unsuitable for these purposes. It is instead employed chiefly as decorative mood lighting. The Bauhaus Lamp is not an industrial product. It was made by hand. Even today, the design on the lamp requires individual production by hand, which is why it costs so much. I will pause here to note that the Bauhaus hoped to mass-produce stylish objects so that the working class could have nice things in their homes. More on that later. The essay continues, To this day, scarcely a single Bauhaus exhibition would fail to include the Bauhaus Lamp. No one expects the Bauhaus Lamp to be a practical work or reading lamp. As a pleasing illuminated sculpture, it symbolizes a way of thinking, fits into many contexts, and does not take up a lot of space. Its practical value lies in its symbolic function. The German Bauhaus school closed in 1933 under pressure from the Nazis, who hated modernist art. At this time, many Bauhaus alumni escaped to the United States. There, Bauhaus influenced the movements known as modern, mid-century modern, and the international style. All these styles value straight lines, raw materials, many windows, and modular construction. Today, IKEA actually embodies the Bauhaus ethos quite well. The Bauhaus liked self-assembled furniture and objects because it made the consumer part of the design process. IKEA also mass-produces items that are quite stylish and relatively high quality. This was part of the Bauhaus' goal for workers to have nice things in their homes. Bauhaus' dream of house building never really caught on in a big way. Turns out, most people don't like living in tiny, plain, cramped little rooms. But after World War II and the baby boom, more working class people needed more places to live. And so Bauhaus evolved into brutalism. When you see a brutalist building, you might think that looks like a bomb shelter. Well, exactly. Europe was bombed to bits during World War II, and nuclear war loomed heavy on the horizon during the Cold War. People wanted sturdy public buildings that looked like they could take a beating. Or a bombing. There are several things that are quite brutal about brutalism. The bomb shelter thing, for one. The walls are thick and usually gray, which feels quite oppressive. They don't have many windows, and a lot of prisons are designed in the brutalist style. In the words of GQ writer Brad Dunning, brutalism should be kind of scary. But the term brutalism doesn't actually mean ruthless or cruel. It actually comes from the French béton brut, meaning raw concrete. No material defines brutalism better than concrete. Let's look at a few examples. In 1968, a 22-story housing development in England collapsed only two months after it was built. Four people died, and it was a huge deal. This, along with the Pruitt-Igoe housing debacle, where residents all but demanded that their building be demolished, caused a reckoning for the whole mass-scale modular housing idea. Meet its replacement, the Alexandra Road Estate. The estate contains 250 apartments, a school, a community center, a youth club, a healing complex, and a park. It's terraced in a building style known as ziggurat. The estate has a larger building footprint than a tower because units aren't stacked, they're terraced. This also makes the structure less likely to collapse. The complex is built of reinforced concrete. It looks sturdy, but also a bit depressing. Many residents dress up their homes with plants and laundry. Still, the Alexandra Road Estate is highly functional. People still live there. It is a successful example of brutalist public housing. This next example is public housing not for humans, but for birds. The World of Birds exhibit at the Bronx Zoo was a huge hit when it opened in 1973. The New York Times wrote, the architect Morris Ketchum recalled he wasn't concerned about the external appearance, but wanted to make a habitat hospitable for the animals, using concrete as a protective skin. It is obvious that the whole arrangement works well. Some birds started nesting as soon as they took up residence. The concrete multi-towered apartment complex for birds is lit mostly by artificial lighting and skylights. It houses over 100 species of birds, and most of them seem quite happy there. You can still visit the Birds and the World of Birds at the Bronx Zoo. The Met Breuer reminds me of a Vogon spaceship. Frightening indeed. Its architect Marcel Breuer studied at the Bauhaus School and is most famous for designing this chair. The Met Breuer was once considered the most avant-garde building in all of Manhattan. It certainly is experimental. It's built of concrete and granite blocks. The inverted ziggurat style isn't space efficient or structurally sturdy looking, but it does look cool. The Met Breuer flips Brutalism on its head. Literally. Today, you can see Brutalist buildings everywhere. The style is considered quite ugly, but you cannot deny the sheer strength of a concrete building. Brutalism is indestructible. Bauhaus and Brutalism are not so different. They both wanted to achieve functional buildings, not pretty ones. The Bauhaus glass box evolved into the Brutalist concrete brick, but they both have the same goals. Efficiency and function. These buildings are all about their materials. They say, look at my materials, look at them, look at this handsome concrete, look at these sexy windows, look at this sassy steel. These buildings don't need decorations or facades or even doorways to make a statement. And their statement is their simplicity. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you learned a little bit and had a little bit of fun here today. 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