Borrow From the Bauhaus for a Modernist Landscape Design

Borrow From the Bauhaus for a Modernist Landscape Design

Garden layout wasn’t taught at the powerful Bauhaus design school founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, but the popular Bauhaus notion of bringing art, art and technology into one total work, the Gesamtkunstwerk, afterwards found its way into houses and landscapes. We see expressions rooted in these Bauhaus notions in our houses — as integrated living systems between home and garden, combined with functional layout without decoration.

Elad Gonen

The Arts and Crafts movement influenced several features of the Bauhaus school, including the value of quality craftsmanship and materials, though its strong use of decoration was reversed. Early gardens created after the edicts of the Bauhaus movement were built by modernist architects, maybe not anglers; Walter Gropius designed only one garden, at England’s Dartington Hall, from the 1930s.

Modernist houses in the 1920s and 1930s were built based on geometric shapes having a watch to form following function. Gardens began mirroring the home layout as part of the general site layout, becoming more than simply a decorative element enclosing the home.

We can see that this implemented from the modern case revealed here.

Nixon Tulloch Fortey Architecture

Economy of layout. Bauhaus pupils were taught that beauty was to be found in economy of form and in how materials were utilized.

Here we see a layout which has economy of design, with materials linking the construction and garden — the timber siding on the home links with the garden decking, along with the concrete patio links with the board-formed concrete on the home.

Huettl Landscape Architecture

This doesn’t indicate that landscapes must avoid crops, using only hardscape and bud to replicate the geometric contours of their structure.

This planting has been carefully selected to enhance the general design without being too decorative. The planting layout is functional — equally economical in its use and functional in its low maintenance.

West Architecture Studio

Integration of house and garden. This home and garden are a terrific illustration of the Bauhaus concept of Gesamtkunstwerk — or “complete work.”

The garden is essential to the overall design of the building and cannot be separated from it. The formality of the planting inside the geometrically shaped raised beds averts any softening or portion of the general layout.

BAAN layout

This space is the ultimate integration of house and garden. Does it seamlessly connect the inside to the surface, but it embraces the use of new technology and materials to create a seamless connection — so loved from the followers of the Bauhaus movement.

Dean Herald-Rolling Stone Landscapes

Bauhaus layout ideas work well in the design of smaller outdoor spaces. Here we see that the ideals of rationality, functionality and using simplified forms brought together in a modernist courtyard garden.

Cultivart Landscape Design

Functional layout. Functional layout is a keystone of Bauhaus design used widely today in garden design. Instead of hardscaping and plant selection used purely for decorative purposes, characteristics inside the garden work for their keep in addition to being visually pleasing.

The attractiveness of the seating space is the careful selection of two materials — concrete and timber — which creates quite a simple layout, one which is not diluted by the strong planting.

Christopher Yates Landscape Architecture

Each bit of the garden has a single use, but they come together to create a complete design. The barbecue and dining set are functional and clean, not ornamental, fitting with the ease of the plot. The concrete wall has been carefully selected, making an almost industrial feel.

These features follow the preference of Bauhaus designers for products which could be industrially produced yet were aesthetically pleasing.

Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC

In hardwood decking, the most fundamental of modern garden design features, we can see the effect of Bauhaus design fundamentals.

Both the decking and wire fencing here fulfill their function without using extraneous decoration; they’re simple and inexpensive, and yet the type follows the function.

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