Haushaltsmesse 2015

The masters’ houses in Dessau – built by Walter Gropius for the Bauhaus Masters in 1926 – were used as object lessons to promote Bauhaus ideas of modern living and household management. For the ‘Household Fair 2015‘ of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation they serve as a point of departure for the investigation of contemporary housekeeping and budgeting issues. The fair comprises historic material as well as contemporary artistic positions and research on the household as a modus operandi ranging from the individual house to the entire world.

It was my pleasure to design the visual identity, signage and exhibition graphics for the Haushaltsmesse 2015.

Haushaltsmesse 2015. The art of housekeeping and budgeting in the 21st century | A project of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in the masters´ houses from June 12 to August 9, 2015 | curators: Regina Bittner, Elke Krasny | project management: Katja Szymczak | design: Rose Apple with Wolfgang Schneider | For more information on the project click here.
All photos by Rose Epple unless otherwise indicated

Workshop of Modernism

The permanent exhibition in the famous building tells the story of the Bauhaus through selected exhibits and a media timeline.

Bauhaus Dessau Exhibition
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, ground floor, 2009 – 2019
Curators: Omar Akbar, Wolfgang Thöner, Lutz Schöbe, Kirsten Baumann
Exhibition architecture and graphics, media timeline: chezweitz & roseapple
Photos: Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

Modell Bauhaus

The exhibition shows the development and influence of the legendary school on it’s 90th anniversary. With about 1.000 exhibits, it is the biggest show on the Bauhaus so far.

MODELL BAUHAUS | BAUHAUS. A CONCEPTUAL MODEL
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 22.7.– 4.10.09
Direction: Omar Akbar, Annemarie Jaeggi, Philipp Oswalt, Hellmut Seemann
Curators: Ulrike Bestgen, Werner Möller, Lutz Schöbe, Michael Siebenbrodt, Wolfgang Thöner, Klaus Weber
Architecture and exhibition graphics, media architecture, printed matter, book design: chezweitz & roseapple
Photos: Volker Kreidler

Publication on the exhibition in Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin: The book re-examines and re-evalutes the art school´s history and influence.

MODELL BAUHAUS | BAUHAUS. A CONCEPTUAL MODEL
Hatje Cantz, 2009, 376 pages, 302 illustrations, 236 in colour, hardcover with book jacket (English and German editions)
Editors: Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, Klassik Stiftung Weimar
Graphic Concept, layout, typesetting: chezweitz & roseapple

Related Post: Navigating Bauhaus

Navigating Bauhaus

My favourite graphic designer in the Bauhaus is László Moholy-Nagy. Graphic design was just one of many areas he was working in, and his layouts often seem a trifle inelegant and akward. But when it comes to translating ideas into graphic compositions, he is the boldest and the most inventive and engaging. He is trying to tell you something and he wants you to UNDERSTAND that something. That is because he could be your great-great-grandfather. He was born in 1895.

People often write about how contemporary and relevant the Bauhaus still is and how it’s cultural legacy can be found everywhere around us, which is probably correct, at least in the case of Germany. But while working on the graphic interface of the 90th anniversary Bauhaus Exhibition, I was more interested in pin-pointing the difference between now and 90 years ago.

Light-Space-Modulator by László Moholy-Nagy in the Modell Bauhaus Exhibition

One important difference I found, lies in the changed relationship between designer, content and audience. Whereas László Moholy-Nagy is one with his content and comes up real close to deliver his message into your face, the contemporary designer keeps a distance. He doesn´t shout, he doesn´t arrange his words for maximum impact, but to strict grammatical rules. He wants you to understand the underlying sentence structure first, the words second. He designs systems in which content is arranged, and then lets you draw your own conclusions.

The contemporary designer not only keeps a distance to the content and the audience, but also to his own work and the idea of authorship. The thing that appeals to him in using systems is the element of chance. Graphic systems can be programmed to generate an aesthetic almost by themselves. They work like a bit like a Graphic-Meaning-Modulator, you feed some parameters into it and out comes a visual surprise. Here are our parameters for the 23 panels guiding the visitor from the inner Central Hall of the Martin-Gropius Bau into the outer exhibition ring.

  • Every panel depicts a key object shown in the exhibition room the panel is guiding to, as a technical drawing.

 

  • A chromatic circle runs over all 17 panels. The background colour of each panel is determined by its position in the great hall.

 

  • All key objects occupy roughly the same size on the panel. The pixel ratio of the background is determined by the original size of the key object.

And now press start and see what happens:

 

Navigation System for the exhibition:
MODELL BAUHAUS | BAUHAUS. A CONCEPTUAL MODEL
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, Klassik Stiftung Weimar
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 22.7. – 4.10.09
exhibition design and graphics by chezweitz & roseapple.
Photos of the exhibition by Volker Kreidler

More about the exhibition here: Modell Bauhaus

Icon of Modernism – The Bauhaus Building Dessau

ICON OF MODERNISM – THE BAUHAUS BUILDING DESSAU
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, 2.12.06–11.3.07
Curators: Walter Prigge with Wolfgang Thöner, Monika Markgraf
Visual identity, exhibition architecture and graphics, printed matter, cover design: chezweitz & roseapple

Bauhaus Style

The exhibition presents the varied attempts to canonize the historic Bauhaus in a seemingly endless spatial structure.

BAUHAUS STYLE. BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL STYLE AND LIFESTYLE
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, 23.5.03-30.5.04
Curator: Regina Bittner
Visual identity, architecture and exhibition graphics, printed matter: chezweitz & roseapple