Jan 6, 2009, 10:03 GMT
Weimar, Germany - The eastern German city of Weimar has become a popular destination for holidaymakers in recent years.
Many people associate Weimar with Germany's literary past and figures such as Goethe, Schiller and the poet Johann Gottfried Herder. Weimar is also the location of the extensive Anna Amalia Library which claims to be the home of German classical literature.
But Weimar also has plenty to offer less literary-minded travellers such as its connection to the Bauhaus design movement.
The year 2009 marks an anniversary for the city's Bauhaus design high school and Weimar is holding a special exhibition to celebrate the occasion.
April 1 marks the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Bauhaus movement in Weimar and not in Dessau to the north as many people mistakenly believe. In 1925, the school moved to Dessau where it had a greater impact.
It is also commonly believed that the statues of Goethe and Schiller outside Weimar's National Theatre gaze heroically into the distance or even into the future - in fact they are looking directly at the Bauhaus Museum building.
That unassuming construction houses one of the most comprehensive collections of Bauhaus designs in the world.
The museum's exhibition tells the story of Weimar's art movement and its most prominent representatives between 1900 and 1930.
Just as Weimar was a focal point for the creative arts during the era of German Classicism, the city attracted the most creative minds in the early 20th century, according to museum guide Helga Peyer.
Mavericks and avant garde artists from throughout Germany and abroad came to Weimar in the state of Thuringia.
Many of those artists have long been forgotten with the passing of time while others never managed to make a name for themselves.
But many of Europe's greatest creative minds spent time in Weimar including the Belgian multi-talent Henry van de Velde who was one of the first to come to Weimar.
In 1902, van de Velde was made professor at Weimar's Applied Arts School which would later become the launch pad for the Bauhaus movement.
Van de Velde tried to bridge the gap between mass production and craftsmanship, between architecture and interior design. 'He educated artistic craftspeople in Weimar,' says Peyer.
As conditions worsened during World War I, van de Velde ran into problems for being a foreigner and eventually left Weimar - partially voluntarily.
His successor as director of the Applied Arts School was the architect Walter Gropius who would found the Bauhaus school.
Avant garde artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger or the Swiss painter and graphic artist Johannes Itten became part of Weimar Bauhaus.
The Bauhaus Museum houses several works by different artists including furniture designed by van de Velde.
It includes an art nouveau inspired writing desk, furniture for a hairdresser's salon and a chair that is reputed to have astounded its carpenter by having visible screws - an expression of van de Velde's understanding of transparency in craftsmanship.
There are also a number of fascinating everyday objects created to Bauhaus design including spice holders, milk jugs, tea caddies and a chess set based on cube and sphere shapes.
What often strikes people who visit the museum is how Bauhaus design still seems fresh to this day.
The exhibition 'The Bauhaus is Coming' will be shown at locations separate to the museum building including the Goethe National Museum, the Schiller Museum and the New Museum. A week-long Bauhaus festival is planned for the beginning of April.
Today the Bauhaus school is called the Bauhaus University of Weimar. Visitors to the campus can buy t-shirts printed with slogans such as 'Bauhaus Lives' or 'Discover the Gropius in you'.
Christian Tesch studied at the university and organises tours that follow the city's Bauhaus heritage.
One of the places Tesch takes visitors is to the former Applied Arts School. Just inside the entrance are two sculptures of Gropius and van de Velde and below its roof, you can glimpse his workshop as it would have been in his day. The stairway that leads to the attic is the original Bauhaus design.
The Martin Gropius room containing the desk that most visitors stand in awe before is a replica of the original.
The cube-shaped room was designed to strict Bauhaus principles and it was where Gropius worked as the school's director. 'Gropius is supposed to have taken a nap every afternoon on that sofa,' says Tesch.
Many buildings in Weimar were designed in the Bauhaus style such as van de Velde's home, the 'Hohe Pappeln' or the 'Tusculum' designed by his student Thilo Schoder.
To the east of Weimar in Ilm is the house 'Am Horn' which its
=designer, the painter and architect Georg Muche, hoped would serve as a template for modern living.
'It was supposed to have been demolished during the Third Reich,' says Tesch. 'But fortunately the war prevented that.' Today it serves as the home of the Bauhaus University Circle of Friends.
The house, Am Horn, is considered the first Bauhaus construction in the world and was completely restored 10 years ago. 'It was built in just four months in 1923,' says Tesch.
Weimar is already aiming for the 100th anniversary of Bauhaus' foundation and plans to open a new museum in 2019.
'Perhaps the opening might even happen a little earlier,' says Peyer. 'Maybe in 2016.'
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