The success of Bauhaus abroad

Light and airy: This was the idea behind the Bauhaus building in Dessau with its glass facade. Walter Gropius designed this School of Art, Design and Architecture in 1925. After the Nazis took power in 1933, many Bauhaus artists were forced to flee the country. They were able to successfully carry their ideas out into the world, where similar concepts of modern architecture existed.

The Van Nelle coffee and tobacco factory opened in Rotterdam in 1923. Leendert van der Vlugt delivered a masterpiece of "Neues Bauen" (New Objectivity) in the Netherlands. Reinforced concrete, glass and chrome are the materials used to ensure that the building is flooded with light. As early as the end of the 1910s, the idea of a new design began in Holland with the "De Stijl movement."

Villa Tugendhat in Brno is a silent witness of history and a symbol of modern living. The Gesamtkunstwerk, which was built in 1930, was designed by German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The rich Jewish family Tugendhat lived there for only eight years until they fled in 1938. Floor-to-ceiling windows and flowing room transitions make the villa a masterpiece of modernity.

In France, Le Corbusier was responsible for the influence of functional architecture. He created residential skyscrapers and villas such as Villa Savoye near Paris in 1929. The building stands on so-called pilotis, or pillars, which lend the architecture a feeling of lightness. Typical are the strip windows, the spiral staircase and the flat roof with a terrace.

In just three months' time, 37 residential buildings were built in Wroclaw: detached single-family houses, townhouses and apartment buildings. Here, architect Theo Effenberger's cubic house is shown with a simple roughcast. Under Nazi rule, Effenberger was banned from his profession. In 1950 he became professor of architecture at the Berlin University of Arts.

The Bauhaus also has a long tradition in Chile. As early as the 1920s, initial information about Neues Bauen reached the South American country. The reduced-style buildings were well received in Chile, which was still dominated by the colonial style. Soon after, the first Chilean architects went to Weimar to study there. And conversely, Bauhaus teachers traveled to Chile to work there.

The largest collection of Bauhaus buildings is located in Tel Aviv. The "White City" was designed by young European Bauhaus students who had fled Germany from the Nazis. Their teachers were Walter Gropius or Erich Mendelsohn. The architecture reflected the mood of the time since the exiles aimed to found a new, egalitarian society in Israel.

The Fagus factory has no white facade. The factory Walter Gropius built in Aalfeld in 1911 is considered a milestone in his architecture. The factory was built before the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar and appears to be a manifesto of Neues Bauen: horizontal windows, clear lines, purist construction. Gropius wanted to improve the working conditions of the workers by way of more light and air.

With 25 students, the Hungarians, among them many Jews, were the third-largest nationality group at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Architects of the modern avant-garde began to build residential communities. The cradle of the Hungarian Bauhaus is Pecs, where numerous artists such as Marcel Breuer and Farkas Molnar (whose model "Red Cube" is shown here) created their lifeworks.

Casablanca is considered a city of white buildings. When the Moroccan metropolis began to grow rapidly at the beginning of the 20th century, numerous new Bauhaus-style buildings were built. Some of them stand empty today, like this building. In the 1960s, the Casablanca School adopted the synthesis of the arts and the workshop principle that form the basis of Bauhaus.

Mies van der Rohe brought the Bauhaus to Spain. The 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition took place under a military dictatorship. Although National Socialism was gaining influence in Germany, van der Rohe presented the Spaniards with an icon of democratic architecture. Even the smallest details in this elegant pavilion have been thought through: from the door handle to the marble floor.