When you think of modernist architecture, Germany is probably the first country that springs to mind. Home to the Bauhaus — a school of art and design that launched an entire movement, celebrating it’s 100th anniversary this year — the country is punctuated with clean-lined modernist masterpieces, from the school’s home in Dessau to Stuttgart in the south. But if you think that this is as far as the Bauhaus architecture trail goes, then this photobook will make you think again.
Published in conjunction with a new exhibition of the same name at Berlin’s Willy Brandt Haus, bau1haus – the modern in the world compiles German photographer Jean Molitor’s sober, black and white architectural images of the Bauhaus movement worldwide. Travelling the globe for ten years, Molitor documented the international spread of the movement’s signature functional architecture in locations as diverse as London and East Africa. “It all started in 2009 when I was invited to Burundi [in East Africa],” Molitor explains. “Friends of mine had asked me to take some pictures of European, modernist houses there, to archive them in case they were destroyed.” But very soon they realised that Molitor’s photographs were more than just documentation materials. “We were all very impressed,” the photographer tells SLEEK, stating how the stark aesthetic of his photographs, untainted by the noise of human presence, allow the viewer to focus solely on the concrete, angular structures. This sense of pride lead Molitor and his friends to seek funding from the German and French embassies, and to host an exhibition of his photographs in one of the abandoned modernist buildings in Bujumbura, the former capital of Burundi.
Two years after these East African beginnings, Molitor caught the modernist bug once again, when he remembered that his friends had mentioned he could find buildings of a similar architectural style in the Congo and Uganda. But it didn’t stop there. Pretty soon, Molitor was flying all over the world, seeking out Bauhaus buildings in far flung places from Magnitogorsk in Russia to Cambodia and Indonesia. And although he can’t say what his favourite country to have photographed is, he does admit that “Guatemala was amazing. In the beginning I had no idea that I could find these kinds of houses there”.
Molitor believes that this spread of an architectural style conceived in central Europe proves that, contrary to popular belief, globalisation is not a new concept conceived in the past ten years. “It’s an old idea,” he tells us, citing how the early twentieth century inventions of ocean liners, telephones and the cinema made cultural sharing and a global mindset possible, without being a slave to the internet like we are today. The photographer admits, however, that discovering European-style modernist buildings in countries as diverse as Guatemala and Finland does have a potent cultural significance, which is why it’s so important for people to see his images. “When there are houses like this in colonial areas, we have to think about why they are there and what the political significance is, so we can understand more about our history.”
bau1haus — the modern in the world published by Hatje Cantz is out now. An exhibition of the same name is currently on view at Willy Brandt Haus through to 14 March.
All images courtesy of Jean Molitor and Hatje Cantz.