Page 67 - Studio International - September 1968
P. 67
had the assistance of several pupils, since its complex
construction consisted of several hundred new particles
like plexiglass and synthetic metals, welded together to
produce the 10,000 varieties of reflected light and
texturized shadows. The object must have been the most
successful kinetic construction to date and was filmed in
1927. This film experiment, which he has shown me
several times, had a profound influence on me. Nobody
has quite surpassed its visual variety in conjuring
exciting textures, space and light onto a screen. At least
not until 1968.
Today, with the aid of computers, we are more or less
in a position to create similar abstract shapes and com-
plexity. We could, however, cut down the year-and-a-
half production time of this 26-minute film to two weeks.
How grateful Moholy-Nagy would have been.
My association with Moholy-Nagy was renewed in
London at the end of 1936. During the winter he had
an exhibition in a gallery at Cork Street where we met
The 1920 again. He was involved in the interior design of
Synthetic Total `Simpsons' of Piccadilly but he had already planned a
Theatre. journey to the States in 1937. The hard resistance to
The diagrams basic functional design in this country and the lack of
show how by concern towards his frameless constructional painting
turning the was a matter he could not understand or tolerate. He
deep stage would hardly be happier at present.
platform and A few months later I had the experience of meeting
orchestra, either another Bauhaus personality, Marcel Breuer, in London.
a proscenium His opinion of the English interest in good design was
stage or even poorer than Moholy-Nagy's. Consequently, the
a centre stage USA gained another catalyst.
are brought It is interesting that today in most of the world's art
into being colleges tuition is structured on the basis of the Bauhaus
curriculum. It is even more pleasing to see how many
revolutionary ideas have been put into practice. Some are
still waiting to be released, like Walter Gropius' plan
for a 'Total' theatre, combinging special lighting, film
projection on three-dimensional mobile screens, and
a central proscenium for greater audience participation.
Bauhaus became a symbol of a new attitude to life. Its
historical role was to establish a relationship between
art and technology, to break down barriers between
artist and industrialist, to demolish prejudices between
art and science and put into effective practice the
twentieth-century technological revolution. The closure
of Bauhaus in 1933, and other establishments like ours
later, mattered little. The ideas were firmly established
by permission and quickly spread east and west by 1940. Ideas do not
Walter Gropius depend on buildings; they know no frontiers.