Bauhaus

Weaving workshop (1920-1933). Part of the Bauhaus cultural program starting in 1920, under the direction of Georg Muche, who would preside over it until 1927, it was initially attended only by women, with a small number of men attending later. Set up to teach weaving techniques, hand and machine embroidery, and tailoring, and enjoying a good deal of autonomy, it immediately established a strong connection with the carpenter’s workshop, in order to make decorative elements that could be coordinated with furnishings such as carpets, tapestries, cushions and linings. Already in 1923 this department was producing things for sale, experimenting with fabrics blended with cellophane, chenille, and artificial silk, favoring innovative fibers in combination with more traditional ones. The greatest impetus on the level on stylistic innovation came from the lessons of the Bauhaus’ great artists. Fundamental was the influence of Johannes Itten on students Otti Berger and Anni Albers, who worked with basic shapes such as the circle, the square, and the triangle, and often in pure colors. Through the studies of the weaving workshop, the typology of the tapestry would be completely revolutionized. There would no longer be a traditional narrative and figurative background, but compositions that were geometric and bidimensional, more in line with the ideas of the new abstract art. Besides, even the lessions of Paul Klee, Kandinskij and Moholy-Nagy favored the progressive affirmation of these tendencies with the result that fabrics and designs would more and more resemble geometric paintings. In 1927 Gunta Stìlzl became director of the textile department and promoted the opening of an in-house dye-works for fabric. In the Dessau era, a new impetus was given to industrial design in order to develop a new and significant professional figure: the textile designer. After the dismissal of Stìlzl in 1931, Mies van der Rohe asked Lilly Reich, an interior designer from Berlin, to coordinate the activities of the workshop, and she would point it towards the production of printed fabrics for fashion and furnishings up until the forced closing of 1933.