DESIGN AS A SYSTEM
Dessau · Where it worked
After Weimar’s experimental beginning, Dessau is the chapter of implementation: a school built as a machine for learning, housing built as an industrial process, and public architecture that turns method into everyday reality.
From idea to infrastructure
In Dessau, Bauhaus stops being a promise — and becomes a functioning model across school, housing and civic life.
Bauhaus locations in Dessau
Clear structure. Short reading. Optional depth.
Bauhaus Building Dessau
A built manifesto (1925–26): glass, concrete and circulation turned into an operating system for learning.
In Dessau, the school becomes architecture: workshops, studios and shared life organized for collaboration and production.
- Designed by Walter Gropius as a functional complex
- Workshops and interiors developed inside the Bauhaus itself
- Teaching becomes readable in space: movement, light, and workflow
Masters’ Houses
A cluster of living and working spaces (1926): private life, color, furniture and practice as one continuum.
Not villas, but prototypes of modern living: daily routines, interiors and artistic thinking aligned with Bauhaus method.
- Director’s House and semi-detached houses by Walter Gropius
- Associated with figures like Kandinsky, Klee, Moholy-Nagy, Feininger, Muche, Schlemmer
- Interior color concepts and furnishings become part of the work
Bauhaus Museum Dessau
Bauhaus in the 21st century (opened 2019): collection, evidence, and reflection — method made legible through objects.
The Dessau chapter is read through originals: prototypes, documents and material culture that reveal how the system worked.
- Home of the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau collection display
- Focus on process: experiments, standards, and everyday objects
- Contextual framing rather than nostalgia
Kornhaus
Functional architecture for public life (1930): an everyday place designed with Bauhaus clarity at the Elbe river.
Here, modern design is not a lecture — it is a social setting: terrace, rhythm, signage, and atmosphere for daily use.
- Designed by Carl Fieger (Bauhaus context), 1929–30
- Public leisure as a design problem
- Modernism becomes hospitality: light, views, and structure
Employment Office
Architecture in public service (1928–29): rationalized movement and clarity of function for everyday administration.
A Bauhaus logic applied to the city: workflows, waiting, guidance — designed as a legible system rather than ornament.
- Competition-winning design by Walter Gropius (with Carl Fieger in his office)
- Public-facing functions organized for efficient circulation
- Modernism as civic infrastructure
Laubenganghäuser
Social housing as system solution (1929–30): access galleries, repetition and economy — built for real need.
The shift is visible: from the single experiment to scalable housing logic — rational, collective and socially oriented.
- Designed under Hannes Meyer with the Bauhaus building department
- Gallery access as spatial efficiency
- Architecture tuned to “need” rather than luxury
Dessau-Törten Estate
Industrialized housing construction (1926–28): standardized row houses as an experiment in affordability and production.
This is Bauhaus thinking at scale: modularity, speed and cost — housing as an industrial process with human consequences.
- Planned and built by Walter Gropius’ office as a trial estate
- Standardization as a response to housing shortage
- Urban infrastructure becomes part of the modern image
Steel House
Material experiment & prefabrication (1926–27): a prototype exploring dry construction and industrial skin.
The ambition is clear: build faster, lighter, and with repeatable parts — a laboratory for modern production methods.
- Developed by Georg Muche and Richard Paulick
- Prototype logic: industrial panels and assembly thinking
- A Bauhaus “test house” inside a real housing context
Anhaltisches Theater
A multi-genre stage for the city: performance, music, and public culture as part of Dessau’s modern identity.
Dessau is not only buildings — it is a civic rhythm. Theater makes the social dimension visible: gathering, emotion, and form.
- Mehrspartentheater: drama, music theater, ballet, concerts
- A cultural counterpoint to housing and administration
- Public life as a designed experience
Discover the Bauhaus
System · Space · Society
Continue with The Journey.
Dessau is the system chapter. The Journey connects the next layers — Berlin and further Bauhaus contexts — into one readable route with clear structure and depth where it matters.
View The Journey