Bauhaus in Dessau: What remains 100 years on

In the twilight, the Bauhaus building looks much smaller than it seems to be. All the photographers who have captured it and published their perspectives in architecture guidebooks likely used particularly sophisticated vantage points to give it a larger-than-life look. Nevertheless, seeing it with your own two eyes is a memory in the making.

Gropius wanted to do away with the heaviness in architecture; by using a large amount of glass in the Bauhaus workshop building, it appears airy and light. It should appear as though the building is floating. Not a single column is used to support the glass façade and the window ledges run horizontally. The architecture resembles a sculpture as new viewpoints are constantly emerging.

The director's room of Walter Gropius is located on the bridgeway connecting the workshop building and the former vocational school across the street. The two parts of the building share an underground floor. The architecture was designed by Walter Gropius himself, attributed to his name alone and not a Bauhaus design.

The heaters are hung beneath the ceiling. Most of the first generation of Bauhaus architects wanted as a rule to have no picture on the wall and therefore saw the heating elements as an accessory, or replacement for image. That's why the radiators are located in a place where few would expect.

Located along a green, tree-lined boulevard, the Master Houses were built in 1926/27 at the same time as the Bauhaus in Dessau and can be reached in five minutes from the Bauhaus workshop. Designed by Walter Gropius, the detached house belonging to the Bauhaus director has the largest yard. Located at the head of the avenue, the original was destroyed in World War II. Above, the reconstruction.

Georg Muche, a painter and graphic artist, shared a semi-detached house with his colleague Oskar Schlemmer. The studios, wall-to-wall, employ large picture windows that face the street to the north. There are a total of three semi-detached houses for Bauhaus teachers. A common feature among the houses (above), which are situated in a park, is that one can go directly outside from almost any room.

Inside the Master House where Georg Muche lived with his family is a bedroom with a wall of built-in wardrobes painted in primary colors. As the rooms were quite small in size, residents required quite a bit of storage, which the closets provided as they were integrated into the room seamlessly. The colors in the image above are the originals. These built-in closets were beloved by Walter Gropius.

Walking upstairs in the studio building, you'll find the rooms where Anni and Josef Albers, Gertrud and Alfred Arndt or architect Franz Ehrlich worked. The Prellerhaus was the first student residence. As on a modern university campus, ithe dormitories were directly connected to the Bauhaus workshops. The women lived in the basement, the men on the three upper floors.

The "Prellerhaus" still has the flair of the 20s. Many at the Bauhaus designed their furniture themselves. Five rooms have been restored to their original look, including one where Marianne Brandt, the first and only woman in the metal workshop, stayed. Many rooms in the studio building can be rented by guests, like this one. If you want to feel the Bauhaus spirit, you've come to the right place.

Walter Gropius has left his mark across Dessau, including at the employment office, which was completed according to his plans in 1929. The semicircular building does not correspond to the cliché of the Bauhaus as a white, square cube but it does follow the maxim of form follows function. The building with its five entrances still houses the employment office today.