From the beginning, the dual-masters system heightened a kind of class warfare that raised its ugly head when mundane subjects like vacation days and salary increases were in dispute. Although all masters were equal in theory, the reality of the situation differed. Gropius’ ideal of the Bauhaus as microcosm of a utopian society did not materialize. Despite unrelenting efforts to quiet tensions, against a backdrop of turbulent monetary and political crises, internal squabbles demoralized both staff and students. In addition, local government authorities were demanding evidence of the school’s progress. As a state-financed school, the Bauhaus depended on subsidies, but almost from its inception, its very existence was endangered by politicians’ attacks on the program. In 1923, to placate official demands, Gropius staged “Bauhaus Week,” including modern dance and music performances, an exhibition of Bauhaus products under the new central theme, “Art and Technology: a New Unity,” and the construction of Haus am Horn, the prototype for the single-family house of the future, entirely furnished by the workshops. Owing to Gropius’ public relations campaign, hundreds traveled across Europe to view what fired the imaginations of many visitors. “I had a glimpse of a world that was being reborn,” reminisced architectural theorist and critic Sigfried Giedion who later wrote a Gropius biography. A student at the time, he journeyed by overnight train from Munich and never forgot the impression. “It remains with everyone who took part in it for the rest of his life.”

Modernity had arrived, but to little fanfare. Among the detractors were unsympathetic political officials under pressure from hostile unions, frustrated old-school academics and townspeople who had always regarded Bauhaus art students as strange and unsavory. Government officials reacted by cutting funds and revoking the masters’ contracts, forcing the dissolution of the Bauhaus in Weimar. As Gropius searched for alternative locations, he received a tempting offer from mayor Fritz Hesse of Dessau, an industrial city awash in cash due to the success of the Junkers airplane factory. “To Mayor Hesse the Bauhaus represented a chance to renew the city’s cultural prestige,” writes biographer Reginald Isaacs in Gropius: An Illustrated Biography of the Creator of the Bauhaus (1991). Not only did Hesse promise ample funds for a new school and accommodations for students and staff, he also offered a lucrative contract to design a low-income housing development called Törten for much-needed workers’ housing.

Gropius jumped at the chance. The new Bauhaus complex housed the workshops, school, auditorium and dining hall with an attached dormitory, the first student housing of its kind in Germany. Filled with innovative details, its outstanding visual feature, a vast glass wall on the main building’s workshop side, epitomized the “all it takes and no more” philosophy that also advocated no heavy velvet cushioned seats, no carpets and no materials to swallow sound. An enclosed two-story bridge housed the administration as well as Gropius’ private office. The painting workshop did the interior decoration of the entire building. The metal workshop designed and executed every lighting fixture. Marcel Breuer designed the tubular steel furniture of the assembly hall, dining room and studios. Three semi-detached duplexes for the six masters and a house for the director were provided nearby.

Here in Dessau, art and design turned to industry with a passion. Over the years, workshops had been established for stone and plaster work, woodwork, carpentry, metalwork, including gold and silver, pottery, wall painting, house painting and color decoration, stained glass, weaving, wood and stone sculpture, theater and the graphic arts. In Dessau, the pottery, wood and stone sculpture workshops closed; others merged or changed direction. The new printing workshop, run by Herbert Bayer, emphasized layout, typography and advertising. In 1925 Bauhaus Ltd. branded itself to sell school-designed products and patents, exactly the cooperation with industry that Gropius wanted to ensure outside income. Earlier, there had been private sales and several commissions, notably, then-student Herbert Bayer’s redesign of Germany’s inflated million-mark currency in 1923 and the Josef Hartwig chess set manufactured in 1924—hardly money-making ventures. That would change.

Bauhaus workshops were now laboratories where students acquainted themselves with the tools and materials that would enable them to understand machines and their processes. Following the motto, “necessities, not luxuries,” product guidelines stipulated that each component consist of as few parts as possible so that the design could easily be adapted to industrial production. “Ein Ding ist bestimmt durch sein Wesen” (“A thing is defined by its essence”), Gropius taught. In order to design an item—whether a chair, a house or a box—its essence must first be explored. In the end, it serves its purpose by fulfilling its function as well as being durable, cheap and attractive. Students worked, then reworked prototypes of products and furnishings by combining and interlocking geometric shapes (squares, triangles and circles), often in primary colors (red, yellow and blue), using contrasting textures, proportions and innovative materials, such as chrome-plated steel tubing, plastics and neon lights as well as innovative ways to work with standard materials, such as glass. The end result? Average people had access to quality items at affordable prices.

The aim to “educate a new, as yet non-existent type of worker for the industries and trades who has an equal command of both engineering and form” led versatile, entrepreneurial students, like Josef Albers, Marcel Breuer and Gunta Stölzl, to develop impressive portfolios. Marianne Brandt became known for her adjustable hanging cylinder lamp produced in the metal workshop, but she was also a painter and photographer whose talent in photomontage is being acknowledged in the current National Gallery of Art traveling exhibition, Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918–1945 at the Milwaukee Art Museum (Feb. 9–May 4) and terminating at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (June 7–Aug. 31). Numerous Bauhaus products have achieved classic “Modern” status, including Marcel Breuer’s steel furniture and lamps by Wilhelm Wagenfeld, but interestingly, at the time, the most successful commercial product was wallpaper designed in the mural painting workshop.