Hannes Meyer, Second Director and The Social Vision of the Bauhaus
09/04/2019.
100 YEARS OF THE BAUHAUS
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA, ÁLVARO MUÑOZ
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA, ÁLVARO MUÑOZ
Hans Meyer, Swiss architect and urban planner, was the second director of the art school of the Bauhaus during an ephemeral stage of his career, from 1928 to 1930. A year and a half before Gropius named him his successor, he invited him to join of the architecture workshop within the school.
Meyer did not conceive of architecture as an artistic action: under the motto "the needs of people instead of luxurious needs", he conveyed in school the idea of putting the social character of architecture before ornamentation. His life and work were strongly influenced by his political ideas, giving rise to numerous polemics, which ended up overshadowing in some way his career as a teacher and director of the Bauhaus.
Meyer did not conceive of architecture as an artistic action: under the motto "the needs of people instead of luxurious needs", he conveyed in school the idea of putting the social character of architecture before ornamentation. His life and work were strongly influenced by his political ideas, giving rise to numerous polemics, which ended up overshadowing in some way his career as a teacher and director of the Bauhaus.
Hannes Meyer in his studio, 1920s. Image courtesy of Bauhaus 100.
Original axonometric view for a competition design for the ‘Palace of the League of Nations’, Geneva, design: Hannes Meyer / Hans Wittwer, 1927.
Freidorf Housing Estate, axonometry, Muttenz, 1920. Image courtesy of Bauhaus 100.
Competition design for the Petersschule, design: Hannes Meyer, Hans Wittwer and building course Bauhaus Dessau, 1926.. Image courtesy of Bauhaus 100.
Diseño del concurso para la Petersschule, diseño: Hannes Meyer, Hans Wittwer y curso de construcción Bauhaus Dessau, 1926.
Hannes Meyer, 1928 in Bernau near Berlin. Photograph: Erich Consemüller, Bauhaus Foundation
Trade Union School of ADGB, Bernau near Berlin, architecture: Hannes Meyer / draft: Hans Wittwer and the building department of the Bauhaus Dessau, 1930. Photograph by Junkers Luftbild. Image courtesy of Bauhaus 100.
Trade Union School of ADGB, Bernau near Berlin, architecture: Hannes Meyer / draft: Hans Wittwer and the building department of the Bauhaus Dessau, 1930 . Image by © Brenne Architekten.
Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer with Bauhaus Baulehre, Technical explanatory report Federal School of ADGB (Participation in the contest), April 1928, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. Image courtesy of Bauhaus 100.
Expansion of the Dessau-Törten Settlement, Laubenganghaus, design: Hannes Meyer and the Bauhaus Dessau Architectural Department, 1929–30. Image courtesy of Bauhaus 100.
Expansion of the Dessau-Törten Settlement, Laubenganghaus, design: Hannes Meyer and the Bauhaus Dessau Architectural Department, 1929–30. Image by tadashi okochi.
Expansion of the Dessau-Törten Settlement, Laubenganghaus, design: Hannes Meyer and the Bauhaus Dessau Architectural Department, 1929–30. © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Image courtesy of Bauhaus 100.
Hannes Meyer with two students in dessau 1927-1930.
Assembly drawing. Lomas becerra in Mexico 1942 by Hannes Meyer.
Hannes Meyer, Development Project for the Manzana de Corpus Christi Mexico City, Mexico, 1947.
Portrait of Hannes Meyer. Photograph: unknown, 1938.Image courtesy of Bauhaus 100.
Hans Emil Meyer was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1889, in a family of architects. Raised in an atmosphere of Marxist ideas, his life and work were strongly influenced by his thoughts until the date of his death in 1954. He trained in a workshop, away from a college. His first relevant work was the Siedlung Freidorf, a cooperative project that tried to solve the needs of the working people.
Being already an architect, he appeared in different competitions with his partner Hans Wittwer. One of the projects that made more known was the primary school for women in Basel, Petersschule, 1926. The work stands out for its open spaces, with which sought a great brightness within the classroom. The project raises an interesting idea of raising the playground space on a large platform, which allowed the creation of a covered public plaza below it.
The project for the contest of the League of Nations in Geneva in 1927, despite not winning, became an important reference for the Bauhaus and became a constructivist icon.
Beginnings at the Dessau school
Meyer met Walter Gropius during the inauguration of the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1927. Interested in Meyer's abilities and character, Gropius invited him to take part in the architecture workshop of the Dessau school. Hannes accepted and joined the teaching team of the Bauhaus in the spring of 1927. He remained in school until 1930.
Initially, he was a teacher of the architecture section, and he took courses on general issues of architecture. The workshop did not have the expected reception, with a little less than 10 students per semester. Among its first students was the first woman from the Bauhaus to study architecture, Lotte Stam-Beese, with whom she would be romantically linked. During this period he published his previous projects in the Bauhaus magazine.
In a second stage, he was particularly interested in the projects that were presented at the school, in order to achieve a comprehensive training of students. He began a method of study in which he analyzed with his students plans that were not executed and constructions carried out. His colleague Hans Wittwer gave continuity to this procedure when Meyer was appointed director of the school.
Screenshot. Video. Hannes Meyer – der vergessene Direktor | 100 Jahre Bauhaus | SRF Kultur
Nombramiento como director de la Bauhaus
Barely a year and a half after his arrival at the Bauhaus, Gropius appointed him director of the school, after his first candidate, Mies Van Der Rohe, initially rejected the position. Thus, in 1928, Hannes Meyer became the second director of the Bauhaus.
His motto as director of the school was "the needs of the people instead of the luxurious needs". Meyer did not conceive of architecture as an artistic action and put the social nature of the discipline before ornamentation. This idea led to tensions with the teachers of the Bauhaus artistic area, such as Kandinsky, Klee or Schlemmer. The situation worsened when the projects of the students began to be commercialized, and as a result of a radical process of industrialization, the ornamentation was reduced to the minimum.
The income of the Bauhaus came mainly from the state. Gropius had already started a process of linking to the industry in order to become economically independent from the government, which was suffering a period of crisis when Meyer joined the school. The strategy was to provide products created in the same school to the upper classes.
Meyer initially continued with this system, although he was far from his political convictions. He ended up adapting it to his ideology, developing in his place collective and more anonymous projects, like the state school of the ADGM in Bernau in 1928, in which they participated to a greater or lesser extent of all the departments of the school. The authorship of this project, caused that the increasing tension between Witter and Meyer collapsed, ending in the abandonment of Witter from the school in 1930.
The production of items that went on sale grew between the periods of 1928 and 1929, while receiving more and more private orders and different campaigns. During the following year, productivity doubled, generating significant income for both the school and the students themselves.
Between 1928 and 1930, Hannes was in charge of the urban organization of Dessau, at the request of the same city. He proposed a project of orthogonal layout, in which he gave prominence to the basic needs of housing, which were affordable and functional.
In his change of focus for the Bauhaus, Meyer promotes the participation of political figures, finanaces, philosophy and economics, accentuating the development of social and ideological ideas linked to labor movements. As a consequence of his travels, Meyer assumed a representative role, giving lectures with titles such as "Construction and education", "The liberated architecture" and "The Bauhaus and society", focusing on the most social approach to architecture.
With this idea of transforming the teaching culture of the Bauhaus that made it different from other schools of the same order, Meyer sought external and internal support. His commitment to the social and construction process, facing issues that further enhance the artistic and ornamental character of Bauhaus architecture, won him a large number of internal opponents. It will be this group of teachers who ended up complaining to the government of Anhalt and the mayor of Dessau, and what led to Meyer's resignation in 1930.
Being already an architect, he appeared in different competitions with his partner Hans Wittwer. One of the projects that made more known was the primary school for women in Basel, Petersschule, 1926. The work stands out for its open spaces, with which sought a great brightness within the classroom. The project raises an interesting idea of raising the playground space on a large platform, which allowed the creation of a covered public plaza below it.
The project for the contest of the League of Nations in Geneva in 1927, despite not winning, became an important reference for the Bauhaus and became a constructivist icon.
Beginnings at the Dessau school
Meyer met Walter Gropius during the inauguration of the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1927. Interested in Meyer's abilities and character, Gropius invited him to take part in the architecture workshop of the Dessau school. Hannes accepted and joined the teaching team of the Bauhaus in the spring of 1927. He remained in school until 1930.
Initially, he was a teacher of the architecture section, and he took courses on general issues of architecture. The workshop did not have the expected reception, with a little less than 10 students per semester. Among its first students was the first woman from the Bauhaus to study architecture, Lotte Stam-Beese, with whom she would be romantically linked. During this period he published his previous projects in the Bauhaus magazine.
In a second stage, he was particularly interested in the projects that were presented at the school, in order to achieve a comprehensive training of students. He began a method of study in which he analyzed with his students plans that were not executed and constructions carried out. His colleague Hans Wittwer gave continuity to this procedure when Meyer was appointed director of the school.
Screenshot. Video. Hannes Meyer – der vergessene Direktor | 100 Jahre Bauhaus | SRF Kultur
Nombramiento como director de la Bauhaus
Barely a year and a half after his arrival at the Bauhaus, Gropius appointed him director of the school, after his first candidate, Mies Van Der Rohe, initially rejected the position. Thus, in 1928, Hannes Meyer became the second director of the Bauhaus.
His motto as director of the school was "the needs of the people instead of the luxurious needs". Meyer did not conceive of architecture as an artistic action and put the social nature of the discipline before ornamentation. This idea led to tensions with the teachers of the Bauhaus artistic area, such as Kandinsky, Klee or Schlemmer. The situation worsened when the projects of the students began to be commercialized, and as a result of a radical process of industrialization, the ornamentation was reduced to the minimum.
The income of the Bauhaus came mainly from the state. Gropius had already started a process of linking to the industry in order to become economically independent from the government, which was suffering a period of crisis when Meyer joined the school. The strategy was to provide products created in the same school to the upper classes.
Meyer initially continued with this system, although he was far from his political convictions. He ended up adapting it to his ideology, developing in his place collective and more anonymous projects, like the state school of the ADGM in Bernau in 1928, in which they participated to a greater or lesser extent of all the departments of the school. The authorship of this project, caused that the increasing tension between Witter and Meyer collapsed, ending in the abandonment of Witter from the school in 1930.
The production of items that went on sale grew between the periods of 1928 and 1929, while receiving more and more private orders and different campaigns. During the following year, productivity doubled, generating significant income for both the school and the students themselves.
Between 1928 and 1930, Hannes was in charge of the urban organization of Dessau, at the request of the same city. He proposed a project of orthogonal layout, in which he gave prominence to the basic needs of housing, which were affordable and functional.
In his change of focus for the Bauhaus, Meyer promotes the participation of political figures, finanaces, philosophy and economics, accentuating the development of social and ideological ideas linked to labor movements. As a consequence of his travels, Meyer assumed a representative role, giving lectures with titles such as "Construction and education", "The liberated architecture" and "The Bauhaus and society", focusing on the most social approach to architecture.
With this idea of transforming the teaching culture of the Bauhaus that made it different from other schools of the same order, Meyer sought external and internal support. His commitment to the social and construction process, facing issues that further enhance the artistic and ornamental character of Bauhaus architecture, won him a large number of internal opponents. It will be this group of teachers who ended up complaining to the government of Anhalt and the mayor of Dessau, and what led to Meyer's resignation in 1930.
Screenshot. Video. Hannes Meyer – der vergessene Direktor | 100 Jahre Bauhaus | SRF Kultur
Stay in Moscow
After finishing his work in the school of the Bauhaus in 1930, he left with other students expelled from the Bauhaus to Moscow, in order to continue their careers without their political ideas harmed them. Among these students, it is worth mentioning the presence of Lena Bergner, who would become the second wife of the Swiss. During his stay in the Soviet Union he did not have any built work, but together with former students, participated in the project of Stalin's five-year plan, developed between 1928 and 1932. Finally, the policy of closed doors of the Stalinist government, complicated Meyer's professional development, although he was granted a position as professor at the Moscow school. His step in the USSR ended in 1936, the year in which he returned to his native Switzerland, where he remained until 1939, when he accepted the invitation of President Lázaro Cárdenas to practice again in Mexico.
Screenshot. Video. Hannes Meyer – der vergessene Direktor | 100 Jahre Bauhaus | SRF Kultur
Estancia en México
In 1939 he left for Mexico, where he worked in various positions of public agencies as a technical advisor, and also as a professor at the Polytechnic School of Mexico, since he combined with his project work as an architect. However, it did not have work built in this country. The change of government in 1941 caused that again, it was forced to resign to the teaching position in the polytechnical school of Mexico. Among his work as an urban planner, highlight his work of planning the Lomas de Becerra in March 1942, or the Apple of Corpus Christi, in Mexico City in 1945, which relizó three proposals, but did not build any.
His stay in Mexico lasted 9 years, to finish returning to his native Switzerland in 1949, where he would devote to do theoretical work. Finally he died in the community of Crossifisso, in southern Switzerland in July 1954.
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Hans Emil Meyer Hans Emil Meyer
Hans Emil Meyer, (Basel, Switzerland, November 18, 1889 - Lugano, Switzerland, 1954), known as Hannes Meyer, was an architect and town planner known for being the second director of the school of the Bauhaus between 1928 and 1930.
He was born in a family of architects, and during his youth he worked as a draftsman in Basel, to later study in Berlin in 1909. Meyer received the typical workshop training of the time, as happened to Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. During training he studied different courses of cooperativism, such as the project of the garden cities of Ebenezer Howard. These projects especially called attention, due to the solution they proposed to improve the living conditions of workers.
Before joining the Bauhaus, Meyer had a significant career, thanks to projects such as the Petersschule, the palace of the United Nations society, or the Meyer / Witter laboratories, together with his partner Hans Witter. This trajectory surprised Walter Gropius when they met at the inauguration of the school in Dessau in the spring of 1927, and a short time later, Gropius himself proposed directing the architecture section of the school. His competitive nature, professional competence and enthusiasm earned him to stand out from the rest of the candidates.
In his first time at the Bauhaus, from 1927 to 1928, he directed different classes on general questions about architecture about constructive organization, as well as the study of architecture through the planes. Teaching methods that would also apply to his partner Hans Witter, who also joined the school, and who headed the architecture department while Hannes was the director of the Bauhaus. Just a year and a half later, Walter Gropius entrusted him with the direction of the school in 1928, after the rejection of the post of Mies Van De Rohe In 1929 his extramarital relationship with the student Lotte Stam-Beese, led the student to leave the Bauhaus, and put Meyer in the teachers' point of view, one more appendix to the list of reasons why the Swiss had to leave the address of the school.
He was pressured to leave his post in 1930, partly because of his ideas related to communism and the mistrust that these ideas generated with the Dessau authorities, and on the other hand the dissatisfaction of the faculty and of Walter Gropius himself with his teaching methodologies and address of the school, of a social nature, and less focused on the artistic question. This also led him to leave Germany in the same year, and emigrate to Moscow, where at first he would not be discriminated against for his ideas, so he left with some students who were also expelled from school and settled there, where they made the First Five-Year Plan of Stalin (1928-1932).
During this period in the Soviet Union, he strengthened ties with Lena Bergner, who was a student at the Bauhaus from 1926 to 1929, a student of Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky and Joost Schmidt. Lena traveled to Moscow with Meyer, with whom she would marry in 1937, until the end of her days.
But this reception of the Soviet Union did not last long, since Stalin applied a policy of closed doors to everything that came from abroad, which again led him to have tensions with the authorities of the city in which he exercised. However, he was allowed to hold a post at the Moscow University as a professor at the Institute of Architecture and Construction until 1937, the year he would return to Switzerland, and where he would be installed until 1939.
He emigrated again in 1938, when Lázaro Cárdenas, president of Mexico, received an invitation to work with the public administration. There he worked for multiple public organizations, and carrying out different projects that he combined with his teaching life, since he was also the Director of the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, as well as director of the School of Planning and Urbanism and Director of the Department of Workers' Housing in different stages of your stay in the country. He soon returned to having problems with the government for his ideas, which cost him his positions as director and professor at the University of Mexico.
He finally returned to Switzerland in 1949, settling in Crossifisso, where he lived until his death in 1954, due to health complications.
He was born in a family of architects, and during his youth he worked as a draftsman in Basel, to later study in Berlin in 1909. Meyer received the typical workshop training of the time, as happened to Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. During training he studied different courses of cooperativism, such as the project of the garden cities of Ebenezer Howard. These projects especially called attention, due to the solution they proposed to improve the living conditions of workers.
Before joining the Bauhaus, Meyer had a significant career, thanks to projects such as the Petersschule, the palace of the United Nations society, or the Meyer / Witter laboratories, together with his partner Hans Witter. This trajectory surprised Walter Gropius when they met at the inauguration of the school in Dessau in the spring of 1927, and a short time later, Gropius himself proposed directing the architecture section of the school. His competitive nature, professional competence and enthusiasm earned him to stand out from the rest of the candidates.
In his first time at the Bauhaus, from 1927 to 1928, he directed different classes on general questions about architecture about constructive organization, as well as the study of architecture through the planes. Teaching methods that would also apply to his partner Hans Witter, who also joined the school, and who headed the architecture department while Hannes was the director of the Bauhaus. Just a year and a half later, Walter Gropius entrusted him with the direction of the school in 1928, after the rejection of the post of Mies Van De Rohe In 1929 his extramarital relationship with the student Lotte Stam-Beese, led the student to leave the Bauhaus, and put Meyer in the teachers' point of view, one more appendix to the list of reasons why the Swiss had to leave the address of the school.
He was pressured to leave his post in 1930, partly because of his ideas related to communism and the mistrust that these ideas generated with the Dessau authorities, and on the other hand the dissatisfaction of the faculty and of Walter Gropius himself with his teaching methodologies and address of the school, of a social nature, and less focused on the artistic question. This also led him to leave Germany in the same year, and emigrate to Moscow, where at first he would not be discriminated against for his ideas, so he left with some students who were also expelled from school and settled there, where they made the First Five-Year Plan of Stalin (1928-1932).
During this period in the Soviet Union, he strengthened ties with Lena Bergner, who was a student at the Bauhaus from 1926 to 1929, a student of Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky and Joost Schmidt. Lena traveled to Moscow with Meyer, with whom she would marry in 1937, until the end of her days.
But this reception of the Soviet Union did not last long, since Stalin applied a policy of closed doors to everything that came from abroad, which again led him to have tensions with the authorities of the city in which he exercised. However, he was allowed to hold a post at the Moscow University as a professor at the Institute of Architecture and Construction until 1937, the year he would return to Switzerland, and where he would be installed until 1939.
He emigrated again in 1938, when Lázaro Cárdenas, president of Mexico, received an invitation to work with the public administration. There he worked for multiple public organizations, and carrying out different projects that he combined with his teaching life, since he was also the Director of the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, as well as director of the School of Planning and Urbanism and Director of the Department of Workers' Housing in different stages of your stay in the country. He soon returned to having problems with the government for his ideas, which cost him his positions as director and professor at the University of Mexico.
He finally returned to Switzerland in 1949, settling in Crossifisso, where he lived until his death in 1954, due to health complications.
