The heritage of Indian modernity- The Impact of Bauhaus

While the Bauhaus manifesto undoubtedly consisted of a set of ideologies that facilitated radical change, the fact that it was the first unifying school of thought that transcended it's campus boundaries to leave a lasting impact on the world seems to be it's biggest achievement. Despite it's short lived stint, the spark that created Bauhaus changed the world,whether it was the Tel- viv city in Palestine or the spread of modernism in America.It definitely charted the course of post colonial India.

Where would we in India be without Bauhaus? Design as we know it today would never exist. Design would never be viewed as something synonymous to life. The idea of designers and architects using design to solve everyday problems would never come to fruition and design would remain as a pastime for the affluent. The Bauhaus school of thought was reinterpret and applied to the Indian context that lead to the redefining of the term designer in modern India.

Bauhaus underlies all the principles that form the Indian design education system as it is today. With the India report as drafted by Charles and Ray Eames and the inception of the National Institute of Design came a new age for designers in India. Eames was said to be fascinated by the 'lota' making it a symbol of the Indian experiment in modernity. They said, "Of course, no one man could have possibly designed the Lota. The number of combinations of factors to be considered gets to be astronomical – no one man designed the Lota but many men over many generations. Many individuals represented in their own way through something they may have added or may have removed or through some quality of which they were particularly aware."( The India report)They stated that the institution should generate the 'lotas' of their times that become viable solutions to the problems faced in their times.

THE LOTA

The modern movement, aside from bringing in radical thoughts into the world, was also a call for social transformation. It definitely managed to achieve that in India, changing our outlook towards design and designers as public figures.Bauhaus was only one of the many modern movements raging across the world, however, it was the only one to leave a large impact to the programme of Nation building in post independence India.

What makes Bauhaus so inspirational is the fact that even today, it remains universally relevant and is the foundation of the Indian design education system. Bauhaus is the only school of thought that has endured till today and continues to impact us.

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DESIGN, AHMEDABAD

REFERENCES-

https://www.stirworld.com/think-opinions-design-education-in-india-an-experiment-in-modernity

http://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/3268/bauhaus-and-the-origin-of-design-education-in-india?0bbf55ceffc3073699d40c945ada9faf=75c92e0b3dfef371d347ecf64bed7ea6

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/bauhaus-architecture