During his time served as the second director of the Bauhaus from 1928 to 1930, Hannes Meyer was confronted with a dilemma: ‘As director of the Bauhaus, I fought against the Bauhaus style…’ (Meyer, as cited in Weltge-Wortmann, 1993). Instead of embracing the Bauhaus’s manifesto – the unity of art and technology, Meyer upheld only the latter by advocating for an entirely functional and practical program while orienting all design activity at the Bauhaus toward mass production (ibid.). His ideology and favor for pragmatism reflected greatly in a socially-oriented approach to design and teaching, especially during the undertaking of the ADGB Trade Union School where spatial design played an important role in initiating interactions and a close-knit relationship between faculty and students (Schnaidt, 1965). In a collaborative effort, Meyer assigned his students with a diversity of tasks ranging from background analysis and looking at natural surrounding environment to conducting user research, planning and construction all the way to the handover of the building (Original Bauhaus, 2019). This kind of practical experience was unique to architectural education at the time. It motivated students to think in economic terms, investigate social situation and prioritize the people’s concerns over political agenda (ibid.).
Hannes Meyer surveying the building site of the school of the Federation of German Trade Unions in Bernau by Berlin, 1928. Photo: Erich Consemüller, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, © Stephan Consemüller
As the second director of this renowned school of design, Hannes Meyer is still overshadowed by the world-famous Bauhaus directors Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Historically, this is chiefly due to his involvement in explicitly left wing politics. For him, art, design and architecture were not independent disciplines. In interaction with the sciences, he saw them as components integral to a comprehensive restructuring of society under the maxim “Volksbedarf statt Luxusbedarf” (The needs of the people instead of the need for luxury). He no longer awarded them an elitist special status, but saw them as a serving part of society. – BMIAA
Much like the teaching approach of the Bauhaus in general and in Hannes Meyer’s era in particular, Black College Mountain’s pedagogical strategy was built upon a foundation of ‘a better understanding of social relation’ and a strong sense of community (Blume and Felix, 2015). At Black Mountain College, students were encouraged to take full responsibility of their own learning module and actively engage with the world through creative process and everyday life tasks from growing their own food to administrative duties (Fully Awake: Black Mountain College, 2008). The college’s interdisciplinary strategy aimed to facilitate practical responsibilities and the creative arts as equally important components to intellectual growth: ‘We are finally on our own grounds…what we should carry on, I think, is our belief that behaviour and social adjustment are as interesting and important as knowledge’ (Blume and Felix, 2015). This enabled students not only to cultivate creativity, self-discipline and independence but also to obtain a set of practical skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking that remain relevant and applicable in today world (Fully Awake: Black Mountain College, 2008).
A photography class in a cabbage patch at Black Mountain College. Photo: Barbara Morgan / Courtesy of Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina.
Both pedagogical approaches at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College are widely considered as exemplary, albeit being short-lived. Without taking the core purpose of their teaching into consideration, it still remains arguable whether the students of the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College were fully prepared for the ‘real world’ or not, for their reality were different from that of ours today. As a design student, I often find myself questioning the role of my chosen practice and study among other noble professions. My first encounter with the ‘real world’ in an academic setting was in between the pages of ‘Real World Research’, a book written by Collin Robson, an Emeritus Professor in the School of Human & Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield. The book aims to furnish students with the skills and knowledge necessary to conduct research outside of the laboratory and in a ‘complex and multifaceted’ setting that figures of the real world (Robson, 2002). As an undergraduate student at the time, real world to me means all that is happening beyond the walls of the classroom – it is intriguing, full of uncertainty and excitement.
Entangled Curiosity 