Gestures of late justice

There they stand, twelve men in suits and coats, with or without hats. Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky and Lyonel Feininger casually holding cigarettes. Second from the right, the only woman: Gunta Stölzl. The famous group photo from 1926, taken on the roof of the Bauhaus building in Dessau, shows the masters of the legendary school. More than almost any other document, the photo demonstrates with probably unintentional clarity: a hundred years ago, architecture and design were a man's world, garnished with a few marginalized female figures. Modernism was modern - but not for everyone. While the men recommended themselves for the history books with glass façades, tubular steel chairs and manifestos, women had to fight for training opportunities, work and recognition, at the Bauhaus as well as elsewhere in Europe or the USA. Notorious was the decision by Bauhaus director Walter Gropius to send female students to the weaving workshop after the preliminary course, which from 1926 was headed by the same Gunta Stölzl as a master and exceptional figure. Promising talents disappeared completely from the history of design or at best played supporting roles as "assistant to" or "wife of". The historical ruptures of the 20th century also contributed to women falling into oblivion. Like the Bauhaus student Otti Berger, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. In addition, the narrative of Western modernism as the heroic creation of ingenious white men proved to be quite enduring and still has an impact today. For example, furniture manufacturer Knoll International still markets classics such as the "Barcelona" armchair and the "Brno" chair as designs by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - although experts today assume that Mies designed the furniture together with his then working and life partner Lilly Reich.

The Kunstmuseen Krefeld are dedicating the second major heroine exhibition this autumn to the architect and designer Charlotte Perriand. The show opens on November 2 and runs until March 2026. In her long career, the Frenchwoman Perriand worked for and with Le Corbusier and Jean Prouvé, two greats of modernist architectural history. And yet she went her own way, for example with the large-scale project Les Arcs. She developed the urban planning concept for the French winter sports resort and was able to realize several buildings. However, the tubular steel furniture that she developed in the 1920s with Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret was long known under the abbreviation LC for Corbusier and was generally regarded as his designs. The Italian furniture manufacturer Cassina now sells the pieces under all three names. A special highlight of the exhibition in Krefeld: Perriand's designs are not only on display in the main building, the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, in original pieces, sketches and photos. She is also given a stage in the annex, Haus Lange, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. A meeting of two exponents of modernism at eye level.

Incidentally, there is another group photo from the Bauhaus, one that is not quite as well-known as the shot on the roof terrace. It was taken by photographer T. Lux Feininger in 1928 and shows a group of young women scattered loosely across the stairs of the Bauhaus building in Dessau. They are Gunta Stölzl and her students from the weaving workshop, including Otti Berger. They do not appear as established and self-satisfied as the masters on the roof, but all the more lively and enterprising. It would be nice if this photo were as representative of the university as the group photo of the masters.