Bauhaus Teachers at Isokon

Just imagine that you’ve been living for ever and a day in a villa surrounded by trees (see photo) and then in twelve rooms in an old house in Berlin …

… and then suddenly you find yourself squeezed with your dearest into 45 square metres in London. You would not be amused. Or would you?

That’s exactly what happened to Walter and Ise Gropius (on the right) in 1934. Their reaction to their new home was very emotional. In fact, they were actually totally over the moon!

Marcel Breuer, who invented tubular steel furniture in his early 20s ...

... and László Moholy-Nagy (the man with the glasses), one of the original multi-media artists.

Bauhaus weaver Otti Berger lived in the neighbourhood as well, and dropped in now and again.

Soon it was as nice in London as it had once been in Dessau.

Isokon founders Jack and Molly Pritchard must have been pretty gobsmacked when the Bauhaus crowd made themselves at home with them. After all, they’d had quite a different clientele in mind for their new build – young professionals who wouldn’t want to shop, cook or clean after coming home from work (that was done by service staff).

Their house was a continuation of ‘Hotel Mum’ by other means.

With the Bauhaus in the house some rather different perspectives were opened up. Other buildings like this were planned, and the idea was – quite bauhauslike – to design matching furniture for them.

The Bauhaus people were only too happy to get stuck in. In 1935 Gropius became Head of Design at the Isokon Furniture Company, while Maholy-Nagy designed the firm’s logo and brochures …

… and Breuer designed various pieces of furniture, like the legendary Long Chair.

Soon Isokon was a miniature version of the Bauhaus. The cream of the avant-garde school was tinkering away in a small space at big plans.

Ah, what might have come of all this!

But there was a lack of cash and building permits. One after another, the prominent Bauhaus people moved away …

… to America.