In 1919, German architect Walter Gropius founded Bauhaus, the most influential art school of the 20th century. Bauhaus defined modernist design and radically changed our relationship with everyday objects. Gropius wrote in his manifesto Programm des Staatlichen Bauhauses Weimar that “There is no essential difference between the artist and the artisan.” His new school, which featured faculty that included the likes of Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky, did indeed erase the centuries-old line between applied arts and fine arts.









Bauhaus architecture sandblasted away the ornate flourishes common with early 20th century buildings, favoring instead the clean, sleek lines of industrial factories. Designer Marcel Breuer reimagined the common chair by stripping it down to its most elemental form. Herbert Bayer reinvented and modernized graphic design by focusing on visual clarity. Gunta Stölzl, Marianne Brandt and Christian Dell radically remade such diverse objects as fabrics and tea kettles.

Nowadays, of course, getting one of those Bauhaus tea kettles, or even an original copy of Gropius’s manifesto, would cost a small fortune. Fortunately for design nerds, typography mavens and architecture enthusiasts everywhere, the good folks over at Monoskop have posted online a whole set of beautifully designed publications from the storied school.

Click here to pick out individual works or here to just get all of them. Sadly, though, you can’t download a teakettle.

The list of Books in the Monoskop Bauhaus archive includes:

And here are some key Bauhaus journals:

bauhaus 1 (1926). 5 pages, 42 cm. Download (23 MB). bauhaus: zeitschrift für bau und gestaltung 2:1 (Feb 1928). Download (17 MB). bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestaltung 3:1 (Jan 1929). Download (17 MB). bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestaltung 3:2 (Apr-Jun 1929). Download (15 MB). bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestaltung 3:3 (Jul-Sep 1929). Download (16 MB). bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestaltung 2 (Jul 1931). Download (15 MB).

Get more in the Monoskop Bauhaus archive.

Related Content:

The Homemade Hand Puppets of Bauhaus Artist Paul Klee

Time Travel Back to 1926 and Watch Wassily Kandinsky Create an Abstract Composition

Bauhaus, Modernism & Other Design Movements Explained by New Animated Video Series

Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veeptopus, featuring lots of pictures of vice presidents with octopuses on their heads. The Veeptopus store is here.