July Contributions for Bauhaus9090

1: "Rediscovery and Rebirth" -- Gropius in Chicago Coalition event (Monday, July 6)
2: "Some Knowledge of Schlemmer Is Required" by Patrick Lichty (Tuesday, July 7)
3: "Working Class History and the Institute of Design" by Janina Ciezadlo (Wednesday, July 8)
4: "Bauhaus Reverse Abecedarian" by Dan Godston (Thursday, July 9)
5: "The Twittering Machine" by Alice Shapiro (Friday, July 10)
6: "5 Against 4" by Lee Barry (Saturday, July 11)
7: "BauHouse" by Cathleen Schandelmeier (Sunday, July 12)
8: "Influence in Time" by Jeremy Hight (Monday, July 13)
9: "Littlehampton's Lobsters" (Tuesday, July 14)
10: "Composition for Josef Albers" by Tony Renner (Wednesday, July 15)
11: "FORM FOLLOW FUNCTION" by Charlie Newman (Thursday, July 16)

more TBA

"Tomorrow in the Past" by Dan Godston

You see a picture. Why should it move you, an image
of something in a world that has no direct connection with anything
you have ever experienced, why should that move you? Visions
of the future—a future that will never be what we thought it was.

A crystal hovers over train tracks, a crystal sky-straddling
between a locomotive and a horse. How fast is that crystal moving?
Photomural and crystal designed by Xanti Schawinsky, with Marcel Breuer
and Walter Gropius, competition for the Pennsylvania

World’s Fair Pavilion of 1938. A year later, the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Cigarettes and multi-cultural metrosexuals, of course. Take a centipede-
like bus to your destination. That would be almost 15 years
before Buckminster Fuller and Walter O’Malley’s nosedived

talk about putting a dome over the Brooklyn Dodgers stadium.
We’re not even talking about a post-WWII kitchen appliance-
buying frenzy yet, the myth of the open road on high powered wheels,
or Nixon getting in Khrushchev’s grill in front of a stove—

but part of the stage being set for that. What were the tomorrows
that were promised way back when? Fastforward to yesterday,
tomorrow not far behind. As we beeline to the future in 1938,
the year of my parents’ birth, the year Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel

first inked Superman, the year of the Pennsylvania World’s Fair,
and the crystal hovering in the sky, what kind of innocence and purity
was there then—real or imagined? What kind of nostalgia
could there be or have been, during a year before one was born,

in a time before cell phones, twitter, instant messaging,
pick your quintessential image that you think typifies our epoch,
our zeitgeist, our Weltanschauung, but there was that crystal in the sky,
and it wasn’t a cult ploy, it was a crystal floating in the sky, in a photomural.

This poem is also posted on "The Bauhaus: 90 Years / 90 Days" website.

"Bauhaus Mesostic" by Dan Godston

- + Ask the questions, the hoWs, the whys,
+ - + - + a vision of civic engAgement --
- + - + - + - +elegant space, cLean lines
+ - + - + - + - + - the blueprinT, the blank page
- + - + - + - + - +Michael ReesE Hospital --
+ - + - + - + right angles and Recycled

- + - + - + - + - architecture, Grand image, a bit boxy, but out-of-
+ - +the-box thinking, not so Rigid really, box can flatten and pop up,
expansively creative, "Make nO small
- + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +Plans --
+ - +they have no power to stIr
- + - + - + - + -men's hearts." Urban
+ - + - + - + -planning lesson(S) from the past.

“Working Class History and the Institute of Design” by Janina Ciezadlo

These photographs were probably taken by my Uncle Frank (Francis) Ciezadlo sometime in the Forties. The influence of the School of Design, of the work of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and others is clear. The man with the book is my father, John Ciezadlo. I am not sure who the other man is. It might be Bill (Syzsynski??) a friend of my father's who had a sailboat. it is dated 1940 and says, I think, "Seagull." I know my Uncle Frank brought back a Leica from WWII, although I am not sure he was using the Leica here, and I am not sure about the dates. Frank Ciezadlo was a photographer in the service (I don't know which service) and later made his living as an illustrator; he changed his name to Cidell, because he thought it would be easier to stay employed without the difficult ethnic name. My mother, who doesn't appear in any of these photos, attended classes at the Institute of Design. I grew up with the ideas, ideals, and the visual sense that my parents and uncle encountered there. I began my own career with the fundamental studio training -- based on the Bauhaus curriculum in those days -- at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Please click here to read this at Bauhaus9090.org, and to view the photos that accompany this piece.

"Bauhaus Reverse Abecedarian" by Dan Godston

Zeitgeist of the Weimar Republic, Mityko and Iwao
Yamawaki, yet much more than just color theory and design: less is much more.
Xtreme Total Theater! Breuer’s
Wassily chair, Gropius’ Bauhaus Manifesto, Bauhaus wallpaper, weaving workshops,
Van der Rohe’s design of downtown post office w/ Calder’s Flamingo in front of it, first prize for Antonin
Urban’s design of a standardized “serial” house.
Triadic Ballet, took Tallahassee Civic Center design to Baghdad,
Schawinsky’s Flowing Architecture, photo of Hajo
Rose high jumping,
Question superfluity, Hans
Przyrembel’s hanging lamp with pull (1926), Pius Pahl’s 1932 drawing of a low-building estate, Walter Peterhans’ “Dead Hare.”
Oskar Schlemmer’s “Form Dance”—humans as marionettes? Happy
Ninetieth! Nazis shut it down, New Bauhaus in Chicago, North Carolina’s BMC: “experiment in art”,
Marianne Brandt’s teapots and lamps, Moholy-Nagy’s
Leda and the Swan, less is more, Lyonel Feininger’s woodcut cathedral.
Klee and Kandinsky—from the Blue Rider group to the Bauhaus.
Joost Schmidt’s poster of the Bauhaus’ 1923 show, Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square, Johannes
Itten’s form theory and Mazdaznan circle, industrialization’s challenges,
Herbert Bayer’s Bauhaus typeface morphs into Helvetica(?), Harvard takes Gropius,
Gropius designs Dessau Bauhaus building, boiled down to pure geometric form,
Freedom and discipline, form follows function forward and backwards.
“Equilibristics,” every part goes into the whole, “evolve a kinship of expression…how to maintain unity in
Diversity,” discipline to freedom, dot to line, diagram illustrating the Bauhaus curriculum,
Collaboration, “crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith,”
Backwards and forwards, Dessau to Berlin to Black Mountain College, Bauhaus history to future, The
ABC’s of Bauhaus, Anni Alber’s fiber arts innovations, and now we begin.

Please click here to view this poem at Bauhaus9090.org.

The Bauhaus: 90 Years / 90 Days

The Bauhaus celebrates its 90th anniversary this year, and “The Bauhaus: 90 Years / 90 Days” is a new project which commemorates the Bauhaus. Every day during this 90-day project (from July 6 till October 6), a project happens which creatively plays around with and pays homage to an aspect of the Bauhaus. Examples of those projects might include a dance performance inspired by Oskar Schlemmer’s ballet, a musical performance that uses a Kandinsky painting as a graphic score, a fiber art project inspired by Anni Albers’ work, a poem inspired by Walter Gropius’ architecture, a short story inspired by Marianne Brandt’s work, an essay reflecting on an aspect of the Bauhaus movement, and so on.

These events will be presented at different locations around the world. Information about this project’s day-to-day developments will be posted at http://www.bauhaus9090.org. “The Bauhaus: 90 Years / 90 Days” is being organized by the Borderbend Arts Collective and the Gropius in Chicago Coalition.

Please note: this blog is run by Dan Godston. You are invited to visit The Bauhaus: 90 Years / 90 Days website to find out more about this project -- including more details about artists' contributions, forums about the Bauhaus, and more!