With the Bauhaus, a cultural awakening began in Germany in the early 20th century. The members of the Bauhaus were engaged in redesigning living spaces for the Industrial Age - from the design of simple domestic devices to the architecture of personal working and living environments. The Bauhaus only existed for 14 years. It was founded in Weimar in 1919, moved to Dessau in 1925 and was compelled to close in 1933 in Berlin under pressure from the Nazis. Many Bauhaus teachers and students were forcibly displaced. At the same time, this displacement spread their ideas around the world. Then and now, the Bauhaus is emblematic of a modern, open and free society.
Germany, as a nation of culture, has a special responsibility to preserve and disseminate this heritage and to draw links between it and the Bauhaus approaches that remain current to this day in the realms of architecture, art and design. With this in mind, its 100-year anniversary was honoured as a national celebration with international visibility and more than 2500 events. With the slogan "Rethinking the World", the Federal Government, represented by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the German Federal Cultural Foundation, eleven Lander and the three Bauhaus institutions in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin all came together as the Bauhaus Association 2019 to celebrate the centenary across Germany.
Numerous contributions on architecture, art, design, performance, society and education were published digitally. Interviews and articles touched on the transformation of modern cities, the role of women as drivers of innovation and the design of virtual worlds, among other topics.
The highlights of the centenary included the grand opening of the two new Bauhaus museums in Weimar and Dessau, the international opening festival held in Berlin in January 2019, the international exhibition project "bauhaus imaginista" and the Grand Tour of Modernism, for which 100 of Germany's modernist buildings and structures of importance to cultural history were selected.