Mats Werchohlad

Research assistant, University of Applied Sciences Erfurt, Collegium Helveticum Zurich, Switzerland.

Mats Werchohlad is a research assistant at Erfurt University of Applied Sciences. During his studies, he completed a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering combined with a master’s degree in urban studies and additional courses in media studies. His research circles around questions on spatialities of knowledge. At the Collegium Helveticum in Zurich, he is conducting a research project as part of the doctoral programme “Epistemologies of Aesthetic Practices” on the topic of the historical Bauhaus and the »crisis of reality«. 

The Fabrication of Reality – A Relativistic Account on the Question what the Bauhaus ‘truly’ was

Keywords: Bauhaus, scientific revolution, relativity, Ludwik Fleck, Bruno Latour

Abstract: The search for a nucleus, a comprehensive and conclusive definition of the term Bauhaus has preoccupied art and architecture history since the founding of the historic design school to this day. Both the Bauhaus protagonists and numerous academics, journalists and exhibition organizers have since devoted themselves to the question of what the Bauhaus truly was. Prominent figures of the Bauhaus like Gropius and Moholy-Nagy, accompanied by the Swiss architecture and art historian Sigfried Giedion argued that the work of the Bauhaus had been profoundly characterized by a new concept of space. Since the discourse around this concept had emerged from the field of physical sciences, this line of argumentation stylized the Bauhaus image as an aesthetic expression of rationalist and science-orientated modernism. Whether this thesis is tenable or just as much part of the Bauhaus’ orchestrated self-staging could be discussed at far-reaching levels. This essay aims to link the implications this historical interpretative framework draws towards the concept of truth. The treatise draws on this context, considering that every claim to truth changes the view toward the object of research accordingly. Consequently, a standpoint will be taken from which contemporary research on the Bauhaus is re-viewed in a Science and Technology Studies perspective. Conversely, the historical approaches of the Bauhaus will be placed in relation to an epistemological debate on the notion of reality between Kurt Riezler (1928) and Ludwik Fleck (1929). In conclusion, this discussion aims to reveal how far the search for truth about the Bauhaus relates to a revised understanding of truth in the context of the historic Bauhaus itself.