BAU
HAUS
FORM
Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, the Bauhaus school unified craft and fine art. Its design language - primary colours, geometric shapes, functional typography - remains the most influential in history.
Tension from centre outward
Associated with Red
background: #E63946;
Sharp energy directed upward
Associated with Yellow
50% 0%, 0% 100%, 100% 100%);
Equal tension on all sides
Associated with Blue
background: #1A5276;
+0.04em tracking
All-caps always
Colour accent optional
All-caps
1.8 line-height
+0.14em tracking
Typography as Form
The Bauhaus typographers treated the printed page as a grid of forces - every letter a geometric object with weight and direction.
Itten's Colour Circle
Johannes Itten's colour theory course was the foundation of every Bauhaus student's visual education from 1919 to 1923.
László Moholy-Nagy
Director of the metal workshop - and the teacher who redefined the role of light, space and material in industrial design.
Closure Under Pressure
The Bauhaus closed in 1933 under pressure from the Nazi government. Its teachers scattered across the world, spreading its influence permanently.
Anni Albers
The greatest textile artist of the 20th century discovered that weaving was a structural, spatial, and intellectual discipline - not a domestic craft.
Oskar Schlemmer
The stage workshop master who turned the human body into a geometric object - his Triadic Ballet remains a masterpiece of the form.
Art and Technology
A New Unity
The Bauhaus sought to reunite all creative disciplines under one roof. Painters, sculptors, weavers, and architects worked side by side.
Form Serves Function
Every visual element must justify its presence through utility. Decoration for its own sake is forbidden. The shape of an object should be determined by what it does.
Primary Geometry Only
Circle, square, triangle - and their combinations. No organic curves, no ornamental forms. Pure geometry is the universal language of structure and clarity.
Three Primaries, No Tints
Red, yellow, blue - never mixed into pastels, never tinted into gradients. Colour is meaning, not decoration. Each hue carries specific psychological weight.
Functional Typography
Type is geometry in another form. Sans-serif, geometric, functional. The Bauhaus favoured lowercase to save keystroke time - efficiency as typographic philosophy.