Bauhaus: First Year

In Chicago this week visitors at the New Bauhaus found an exhibition of bewildering nameless objects: gadgets of wire, wood, sandpaper, linoleum, felt, rubber and ordinary paper cut in odd accordion-pleated patterns. These objects, which sometimes suggested the scraps left in cabinetmakers' shops, and sometimes the more outlandish contraptions of Rube Goldberg, represented part of the first year's work of the 70 students of the New Bauhaus.

They seemed so bizarre that hard-working Director Ladislaus Moholy-Nagy thought long before he decided to let the public examine them. But visitors who studied explanations of the work, discovered that the exhibit made sense, got a good insight into the methods by which Moholy-Nagy and his associates hope to revitalize U. S. architecture and U. S. design.

Determined to train students to make the most of native materials, Moholy-Nagy set them to creating original forms, to studying, blindfolded, the touch sensations of different objects. Cutting new forms from paper sounded easy until students tried it, found themselves sitting idle for hours before hacking away at practice sheets. When designs came easily in paper, they began working in wood and stone, did creditable sculpture, designed "machines" of fantastic shape but of no practical use, studied patterns of light and motion in classes in photography. Creating new forms was easiest for young high-school graduates, hardest for students with art school training. With no grades given at the New Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy last week expressed himself as highly satisfied, dropped only one boy.

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