Bauhaus Bus Travels Around the World to Bring Different Approaches to Design Education | illustrarch

The Bauhaus bus, one of a series of events that will take place during the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, will travel four different cities throughout the year and question the design education. 

Founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany, the Bauhaus has great importance in shaping our current architectural education. Global influence of the school is still valid today, but it is also true that there has been a search for different methods related to design education. 

SAVVY Contemporary has concerned about this issue and explained its purpose as follows “seeks to challenge and act against the inherent, neocolonial power structures in design practices, theory and teaching with its project SPINNING TRIANGLES.”  

Photo:yellowtrace

The project, which is called the Spinning Triangles, emphasizes that the Bauhaus has various problems besides its positive aspects and achievements. Getting out of school buildings and learning through mobile tools or learning without learning are new perspectives for design education. They bring the idea of a mobile tool by focusing on concepts such as ‘unlearn’ and ‘unschooling’ that are widely debated. This bus is intended to travel four different cities – Dessau, Kinshasa, Berlin and Hong Kong – for a year. The reason for the selection of these cities is to move west-based design education to other geographies.  

The bus, designed by Van Bo Le-Mentzel, is an imitation of the famous Bauhaus school building in Dessau. Everything is the same, from the gridded facade of the building to the well-known font “Bauhaus”. This 15 square meter interior will also host various exhibitions. 

Photo: yellowtrace

Photo: yellowtrace

Photo: yellowtrace

As a result, there is a contradiction between the manifesto and the design of the bus. “Not in order to repeat it but to twist it” You can read from the text that they don’t want to repeat, but the design of the bus is a copy of the Bauhaus building and this contradicts what the text wants to say. 

What do they aim by making such a design besides strong criticism and ideas? Is that a parody or a praising? Or is there a distinctive design approach that we can’t see? The fact that the bus will be traveling for a year may give the answer to these questions in the following days.