2 man tent according to the plans of the destroyed Director’s House by Walther Gropius in the Masters’ Houses Ensemble in Dessau - Part of an exhibition at the Masters’ Houses Ensemble in Dessau, Germany, Summer 2005.

partner: Henning Kunow
related concept: SBR 80-Type Walter

This tent is an attempt to appropriate the lost Director’s House by Walther Gropius. As a contribution to the current reconstruction debate, we tried to put this cult object into a new functional context. By scaling it down, we created a cheap take-away Bauhaus icon, reproducible and accessible to many people.

Prototype at HGB Leipzig, 2005

Background: The Masters’ Houses in Dessau are, like the Bauhaus Building, aesthetic objects and, at the same time, documents of the historic Bauhaus ideas. Designed by Walter Gropius in 1926, the Masters’ Houses Ensemble originally consisted of the Director’s House and three pairs of semidetached houses. During air raids in World War II, the Moholy-Nagy semi-detached house was completely destroyed, as was most of the Director’s House. Here, in 1956, a gable-roofed house was built on the original foundations. Following the completion of restoration work on the five preserved Masters’ Houses in 2002, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation initiated a debate on approaches to the former Director’s House.

The Gropius Director's House in 1926

Gropius House since 1956

Bauhaus Masters Estate