Bauhaus Study Rooms: Habitat

Study Rooms
Year after year, over one hundred people from all over the world are directly involved in the various educational opportunities offered by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation: the Coop Design Research MSc programme; the Bauhaus Lab research programme in Global Modernism Studies; and the Bauhaus Open Studios teaching residency. As a transitory presence in the Bauhaus Building, each of these projects inscribes itself in the historical Bauhaus learning environment, becoming part of a network of learners and teachers. In 2020, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation has chosen to temporarily synchronise the various projects and to bring them together in a common study room.

The Bauhaus Study Rooms were conceived as an opportunity to intensively engage with the annual theme of the Foundation, and to consider it from the perspective of the three different programmes. By inviting alumnx from each programme, the Foundation aims to create a digital, temporary learning place, which allows to explore and experience the conditions of collective knowledge production.

In this first edition of the Bauhaus Study Rooms, designers, architects, design researchers, and activists come together to pick up the historical threads of criticism and revision in respect to hegemonic Western design ideologies for modern living. In a rich and varied curriculum comprising panel discussions, workshops, performances, talks, an exhibition opening, and virtual guided tours, they reposition discourse on the theme “Habitat” in the context of contemporary discussions and practices.

The event will be live-streamed on the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation’s YouTube channel. For a detailed schedule and more information, see bauhaus-dessau.de or send an e-mail to studyrooms [​at​] bauhaus-dessau.de.

Habitat
Annual theme of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in 2020

Post-war modernist debates on how to reconsider architecture as a practice that creates community have mostly revolved around the notion of “Habitat.” These discourses distance themselves from the uniformity and dogmatic character of Western functionalism, the Bauhaus, and the International Style. The post-war order, with its novel social dynamics and geopolitical realignments, also shaped the way that architects were thinking about building and design as a practice of organizing communal living. At the core of the concept of ‘Habitat’ lies a radical change in perspective—from the sociology of housing to an anthropology of living conditions.

A reconsideration of spontaneous building practices, local housing cultures, and design traditions in the Global South led to a paradigm shift in post-war discourses. Today, inhabiting is considered a networked practice, embedded in spaces of different scopes and scales, various materialities and geopolitical constellations. Post-war architects and designers developed these assumptions in dialogue with anthropological concepts describing the house as a “modus operandi” (Pierre Bourdieu), meaning that it is involved in and influences human actions. Today, in the face of threats on a planetary scale, critical design practices are pursuing this path with a leap in scale: from the house society to the planetary community. Design and anthropology have thus become increasingly intertwined in discourses on cohabitation and the associated epistemological upheaval. Anthropocentric views of the world and the underlying separation between nature and humanity are being questioned, and the relationships and shared coexistence between human and non-human actors renegotiated.

With contributions by Bergit Arends, Gabriela Aquije Zegarra, Mya Berger, Regina Bittner, Leticia M Brown, Sria Chatterjee, David Davalos Sanchez, Imad Gebrayel, Corin Gisel, Ines Glowania, Gudskul (Rifqi Fajri, Rifandi Nugroho, Farid Rakun), Rhiannon Haycock, Rebecca Hehn, Aída Herrera Peña, Fritz Horstman, Tanishka Kachru, Denisa Kollárová, Metini Krivanish, Sebastian Elias Kurth, Rebekka Ladewig, Monika Markgraf, Simon Mitchell, Roohid Novinrooz, Alina Oueishek, Marlene Oeken, Adam Przywara, Maryia Rusak, Kathrin Rutschmann, Sneha Singh, Martha Schwindling, Pappal Suneja, Vivien Tauchmann, Léonie Thiroux, Hong-Ngoc Trieu, Lilo Viehweg with students of the MSc Coop Design Research, Angelika Waniek, Christian Zöllner with students of Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design, and many others.

The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is a non-profit foundation under public law. It is institutionally funded by: