BAUHAUS

During lockdown I was reading all about the Bauhaus. It struck me that the school which opened its doors on 1st April 1919 (a mere 5 months after the Great War) lived a day-to-day existence not entirely out of keeping with how our lives are today. I dwelt on the school’s less well-known formative years between 1919 and 1923. It is the first time I have considered writing something that was not at least in part fiction and I am aware, should I go on to write this, that there is a duty to maintain the integrity of the characters from that period including Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Johannes Itten. These are the better known people. My research has identified the coordinates of history - points that must appear and remain true. This, of course, will be a difficult thing to achieve as they have to be embedded so as to remain congruent with the drama of the piece (a lot has been said recently on the deviation from truth in ‘The Crown’). It is difficult enough with characters where a simple Google search will throw up full life details; however, there were characters at the Bauhaus about whom very little is known…simply because they were female. Gertrud Grunow seems to have taught every student between 1919 and 1924 and yet a search - however deep - will throw up just one paragraph and one image of her despite her teachings being instrumental during those early years. This, of course, does offer a level of freedom as a writer but as a researcher I was always curious to learn more about her: “one more search will surely deliver me to the full life of Grunow”. Sadly, no. Grunow is an important character and I will do my level best to shine a rare light on the integrity of the woman.

The Bauhaus is the story of a school as it struggles to find a footing in the 20th century and win the battle of ideas on how to live against a backdrop of chaos. Most of them would not live to know it…but the school’s alumni would go on to influence the world well into the 21st century…even if the idea of IKEA was not quite what they had in mind.