Download Original Bauhaus Books & Journals for Free: Gropius, Klee, Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy & More

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:

• 1. Wal­ter Gropius (ed.), Inter­na­tionale Architek­tur, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1925.
• 2. Paul Klee, Päd­a­gogis­ches Skizzen­buch, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1925, 50 pp.
  • Ped­a­gog­i­cal Sketch­book, intro. & trans. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, New York: Fred­er­ick A. Praeger, 1953 (in Eng­lish)
  • Παιδαγωγικό Σημειωματάριο, trans. Β. Λαγοπούλου, 1976. (in Greek)
  • Ped­a­gogikheskie eskizy, trans. N. Druzhkovoy, 2005. (in Russ­ian)
• 3. Adolf Mey­er (ed.), Ein Ver­suchshaus des Bauhaus­es in Weimar, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1924.
• 4. Die Bühne am Bauhaus, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1925.
  • The The­ater of the Bauhaus, trans. Arthur S. Wensinger, Mid­dle­town, Conn.: Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 1961. (in Eng­lish)
• 5. Piet Mon­dri­an, Neue Gestal­tung, Neo­plas­tiz­imus, Nieuwe Beeld­ing, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1925.
• 6. Theo van Does­burg, Grund­be­griffe der neuen gestal­tenden Kun­st, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1925.
  • Prin­ci­ples of Neo-Plas­tic Art, Lon­don: Lund Humphries, 1969. (in Eng­lish)
• 7. Wal­ter Gropius (ed.), Neue Arbeit­en der Bauhauswerk­stäf­fen, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1925.
• 8. L. Moholy-Nagy, Malerei, Fotografie, Film, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1925, 115 pp; 2nd ed., 1927, 140 pp. Incl. “Dynamik der Gross-Stadt.”
  • Paint­ing Pho­tog­ra­phy Film, trans. Janet Selig­man, Lon­don: Lund Humphries, 1969. (in Eng­lish)
• 9. Kandin­sky, Punkt und Lin­ie zu Fläche: Beitrag zur Analyse der malerischen Ele­mente, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1926.
  • Point and Line to Plane: Con­tri­bu­tion to the Analy­sis of the Pic­to­r­i­al Ele­ments, trans. Howard Dearstyne and Hilla Rebay, New York: Solomon R. Guggen­heim Foun­da­tion, 1947, 200 pp. (in Eng­lish)
• 10. J.J.P. Oud, Hol­ländis­che Architek­tur, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1929.
• 11. Kasimir Male­witsch, Die gegen­stand­slose Welt, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1927.
• 12. Wal­ter Gropius, Bauhaus­baut­en Dessau, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1930.
• 13. Albert Gleizes, Kubis­mus, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1928.
• 14. Lás­zló Moholy-Nagy, Von Mate­r­i­al zur Architek­tur, Munich: Albert Lan­gen, 1929, 241 pp; fac­sim­i­le repr., Mainz and Berlin: Flo­ri­an Kupfer­berg, 1968.
  • The New Vision: From Mate­r­i­al to Archi­tec­ture, trans. Daphne M. Hoff­man, New York: Breuer War­ren and Put­nam, 1930; exp.rev.ed. as The New Vision and Abstract of an Artist, New York: George Wit­ten­born, 1947, 92 pp. (in Eng­lish)

And here are some key Bauhaus jour­nals:

1. bauhaus 1 (1926). 5 pages, 42 cm. Down­load (23 MB).
2. bauhaus: zeitschrift für bau und gestal­tung 2:1 (Feb 1928). Down­load (17 MB).
3. bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestal­tung 3:1 (Jan 1929). Down­load (17 MB).
4. bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestal­tung 3:2 (Apr-Jun 1929). Down­load (15 MB).
5. bauhaus: zeitschrift für gestal­tung 3:3 (Jul-Sep 1929). Down­load (16 MB).
6. 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.