Block Island, RI -
The Nazi Party killed the Bauhaus School of arts and architecture in 1930s’ Germany. Ironically, the country had given birth to the Bauhaus movement in 1919, fresh from defeat in the First World War.
Fascists and autocrats including Germany’s Nazi Party at the time find architecture inspired by internationalism, such as Bauhaus modernism, to be deeply threatening. They fear and vilify “the other” and, in the Nazis’ case, wanted a purity of German architecture free of foreign influences. They wanted to reinforce so-called traditional German values in attempting to Make Germany Great Again.
Autocrats and authoritarians also covet size and scale. Everything has to be big, brawny, bloated, and often about them, which must be compensating for something. Insecure, deeply damaged dictators love garish expressions of size and machismo in their architecture, often tracing their buildings to Ancient Greek and Roman grandiosity. The Nazis labeled all other outside art and architectural influences as degenerate, Communist, Jewish, or homosexual. Yes, nothing changes. It’s the same old script.
In this light, Hitler commissioned his henchman Albert Speer to design and build monumental, stone structures such as the Reich Chancellery, Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, and the Nazi Rally Grounds in Nuremberg and, well, the rest is history.
We visited the Walter Gropius Home in Lincoln, MA the other day. He created the Bauhaus School before he fled 1930s’ Germany and the successful Nazi effort to destroy Bauhaus. Fascists and authoritarians may build powerful mausoleums but they are far better at destroying everything else.
Image courtesy of Rethinking the Future.