Hands-On: The Gropius Touch

My story on the Museum of Modern Art’s Bauhaus Lab and the 3D workshop led by Ati Gropius Johansen, daughter of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, student of Josef Albers at Black Mountain College, wife of Harvard 5 architect John Johansen is up today on The Moment, the T Magazine blog.

This was a thrill to write: I couldn’t believe no one else had noticed that Johansen was coming to MoMA, and it seemed like a piece of history. The Bauhaus may have ended in 1933, but there are still students and teachers who learned from the founders, and who believe that design education starts with a blank sheet of paper. I can’t speak to that, but there was something completely Zen about watching Johansen limit a room of 20 adults to one piece of paper, one fold, one rip, one roll.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity closes next Monday. It is (as I wrote when it opened) not to be missed, something for everyone, no excessive hagiography. For a look at the building today see Adrian Shaughnessy’s recent account of sleeping at the Bauhaus.