Hobbit style magic
Catarina Araújo
Bauhaus – 100 years
Nuno Ladeiro
Architect / Designer / University Professor
The application of the ideology of the age of mechanisation to the design of houses, public buildings, and also to everyday objects made Bauhaus (1919-1933) insist on the idea that form should follow function. Bauhaus associated looks with efficiency, precision, simplicity, regularity and functionality in the creation of beautiful and useful objects, in the design of buildings and artefacts that resembled machines and were used as such. The triad of "unity, order, purity” was meant to guide any project. Less is more was the doctrinal phrase that came to invoke simple and economic taste and was adopted by the architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, the last director of Bauhaus.
With Bauhaus the aesthetic order was now defined through three principles: emphasis on volume; regularity instead of symmetry and finally the intrinsic elegance of materials, perfection of technique, perfect proportions, instead of ornamentation. The development of curved steel furniture and, in particular, the invention of the cantilever chair, was one of the most important "inventions” in design and is intrinsically linked to the Bauhaus. The association of bent tubular steel allowed the spring effect, providing extra comfort to the chairs.
Teachers and designers of the Bauhaus period played a decisive role in the development of these types. Those who stood out the most when it came to curved steel furniture included Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. However, others made a significant contribution, such as Le Corbusier and Wassili Luckhardt. The German brand Thonet became the largest manufacturer of tubular steel furniture in the 1930s and all models are still on sale today.
The exhibition Bauhaus 100 years, 100 objects organised by the Design Degree Course of the Universidade Lusófona honoured Bauhaus and exhibited, among others, the original Thonet chairs: Thonet S 533 by Ludwing Mies van der Rohe, Thonet S 43 by Mart Stam and the Thonet S64 by Marcel Breuer, currently on sale in the stores Smoke Signals in Oporto and Nord in Lisbon.
With Bauhaus the aesthetic order was now defined through three principles: emphasis on volume; regularity instead of symmetry and finally the intrinsic elegance of materials, perfection of technique, perfect proportions, instead of ornamentation. The development of curved steel furniture and, in particular, the invention of the cantilever chair, was one of the most important "inventions” in design and is intrinsically linked to the Bauhaus. The association of bent tubular steel allowed the spring effect, providing extra comfort to the chairs.
Teachers and designers of the Bauhaus period played a decisive role in the development of these types. Those who stood out the most when it came to curved steel furniture included Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. However, others made a significant contribution, such as Le Corbusier and Wassili Luckhardt. The German brand Thonet became the largest manufacturer of tubular steel furniture in the 1930s and all models are still on sale today.
The exhibition Bauhaus 100 years, 100 objects organised by the Design Degree Course of the Universidade Lusófona honoured Bauhaus and exhibited, among others, the original Thonet chairs: Thonet S 533 by Ludwing Mies van der Rohe, Thonet S 43 by Mart Stam and the Thonet S64 by Marcel Breuer, currently on sale in the stores Smoke Signals in Oporto and Nord in Lisbon.
