The Aram Gallery was invited to collaborate with the Barbican Centre London by mounting an exhibition on the Bauhaus. The Barbican opened Bauhaus: Art as Life in May 2012, a retrospective exhibition focussing on the life of the school first in Weimar, later in Dessau and finally in Berlin from 1919 - 1933.

With a clear focus on contemporary design, a complementary exhibition at The Aram Gallery expanded on both the enduring influence and the prolonged inspiration the school has, and continues to have, on the work of contemporary working architects and designers.

Interested too in the way designers think and work, we were excited to see how saturated the essence of this hugely influential period in design history was manifest. In some cases that essence dominates an entire project - a building for example looks 'of the period', in others it is more subtle - through the use of colour, form or proportion. The result was an exhibition which showed how the ethos of the Bauhaus has filtered down into the work of contemporary designers, but still remains a current source of inspiration.

Works shown spanned architecture, product, graphics and furniture design.
 

Participants included:

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Michael Anastassiades,  BCXSY, Allies and Morrison, Sebastian Bergne, Carmody Groarke, CZWG Architects LLP, David Chipperfield Architects, David Kohn Architects, Dixon Jones, dRMM, Tony Fretton Architects, Martino Gamper, Eva Gevaert, Konstantin Grcic, Eva Jiricna Architects, Rodney Kinsman, Gerald Levin, Industrial Facility, Tomas Kral, Max Lamb, Make Architects, Peter Marigold, Jasper Morrison, John Miller + Partners, Morag Myerscough, Eric Parry Architects, John Pawson, Piercy & Company, Sophie Smallhorn, Stanton Williams and Pia Wüstenberg.

 

Photographer Christina Theisen