Published: May 24, 2021 14:46 Richard Rose Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet, 1927 Image Credit: Supplied
Tom Wolfe was lucky. His passing will have allowed him to just miss out on the shower of celebrations for the centenary of the Bauhaus. In From
Bauhaus to Our House (1981) the US author had written a ferocious outcry against the devotees of the famous German art school, held responsible for the concrete cubes at Sarcelles, New York or La Défense. And at the forefront of those accused, its founder, a certain Walter Gropius who Tom Wolfe nicknamed “Prince of Silver” or “White God no. 1”. As strange as it may be, the first months after opening in Weimar in April 1919, the Bauhaus school showed a rare talent for attracting enemies. To such an extent that a newspaper launched a call to residents of the town to close it down. For fourteen years of its existence, the Bauhaus was just as much contested