The obscure modernist masters who brought Bauhaus to the Caribbean, Australia and beyond

Bauhaus was a crossroad on the starting line of the global 20th century modernist movement. It was not important just for its pedagogical methods and industrial and artistic research (taking place in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin between 1919 and 1933), but for spreading new design ideas. Following the rise of the Nazi regime, Bauhaus’ former teachers and students left Germany in the midst of the school’s forced closure, and set up new design cultures based on Bauhaus principles all around the world. Here are four not-so-obvious examples of the school’s alumni that show it in a different light. While they aren’t as well known, they are nevertheless responsible for inspiring a great deal of art and design produced in the 20th century.

THE FIRST AUSTRALIAN MODERNIST — Harry Seidler 

A pioneer of modern Australian architecture, Austrian-born Harry Seidler (1923-2006) had a complicated journey to his adopted home. Along the way he met three former Bauhaus masters who completely changed his perspective on the discipline. After his short stays in the United Kingdom and Canada, where he completed his studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg in 1944, he found himself at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, led by Walter Gropius, as well as at Black Mountain College, founded by former Bauhaus masters Anni and Josef Albers. Having finished studying he needed practical experience, so first he worked for Marcel Breuer in his New York studio. This former Bauhaus master had developed a new organic formal architectural language which influenced Seidler’s early projects. To explore different climate conditions, Seidler went to Rio de Janeiro in 1948, where he spent several weeks working at Oscar Niemeyer’s office. All these experiences influenced the house in Sydney that he created for his mother, Rose Seidler, who emigrated to Australia in 1946, two years before Harry arrived in 1948.

Rose Seidler House, which the architect completed in 1950, became the first iconic Australian Modernist dwelling and opened the way for the new postwar architecture boom that flourished in Australia during the Fifties. Featuring a wooden pavilion with a distinctive Bauhaus-style ramp and a glass wall, the building rests on a heavy stone base and contains a massive fireplace in its airy interior. Rose Seidler House follows this organic tendency, and adjusts Bauhaus principles to the specific climate of a new continent.

BAUHAUS GOES SURREAL — Carl Auböck

The history of the Auböck family is a great story of art, design and craft. It begins in 1912, when Karl Auböck opened a workshop in Bernardgasse 23 in Vienna’s Seventh District, producing bronze animal statues. In 1919, the founder’s son Carl (1900-1957) joined the workshop and started to shift its eclectic decorative output in a different direction.

Even though Carl died relatively young, he created many unique designs combining modernist ideas, traditional Viennese craftsmanship and picturesque, surreal qualities. The most significant part of Auböck’s body of work comprises small brass objects. One, a vase for a single flower, was created in response to the fact that flowers were extremely expensive after the war. Other objects include knives with wooden and wicker handles; newspaper and wine holders; bottle openers; pipe stands, and iconic candlesticks with polished horns that serve as a shade. Figurines comprise another chapter of his work, too. Perhaps the most famous example is his Optimist/Pessimist (1951) sculpture, which, by being turned, appears to change its expression from cheerful to sad.

The Carl Auböck Workshop, which still features 150-year-old vices and other precious artifacts, today is a unique source of Bauhaus principles. It also shows how its ethos changed and incorporated joy, dreams and humour – important parts of Bauhaus education. The family tradition continues with Carl Auböck IV, born in 1954, who manages the family company today and produces a range of its classical designs based on these three generations.

BAUHAUS IN THE CARIBBEAN — Clara Porset 

Bauhaus Masters like Walter Gropius, Josef Albers and Hannes Meyer had a massive influence on the work of Cuban- born furniture and interior designer Clara Porset (1895-1981), who belonged to a pioneering generation of designers in Latin America. In her youth, Porset was able to travel to the US and Europe where she gained her knowledge on progressive modernist tendencies. When Porset met her heroes from Bauhaus, Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer, they became friends and continued to influence
her work for many years.

Latin American modernist designers and artists were interested in adapting European design principles to their continent. Porset followed suit, and when she returned to Cuba in 1932, she presented an influential lecture entitled, ‘Contemporary Interior Decoration: Its Adaptation to the Tropics’, espousing her interest in Bauhaus and its potential application to Cuba’s culture, craft and climate.

Her Bauhaus experience did not end there. In 1934, Porset spent the summer studying in North Carolina with the Albers at Black Mountain College. The following year she was forced to move to Mexico due to her outspoken leftist political opinions. Here, Porset was finally able to realise her ideas on a bigger scale. During the Fifties, Porset became a star of Mexican modernism, creating furniture for companies and architectural commissions. In these designs, she combined functional design with local craftsmanship. Her furniture pieces were modern and elegant, yet vernacular and massive. They appeared in interiors of lavish Acapulco hotels as well as the houses of the Mexican architectural elite, including Luis Barragán, Max Cetto and Mario Pani.

Later, she returned to Cuba to collaborate with the Fidel Castro’s socialist government, designing school furniture. She influenced a generation of Latin American designers, and her name now decorates the Clara Porset Design Library in Mexico City, as well as the Clara Porset Design Prize, inaugurated in 1993. An upcoming exhibition on Mexican modernism, curated by Zoë Ryan at The Art Institute of Chicago, will hopefully change her relatively unknown impact on modern design.

FUTURIST BAUHAUS — Nikolay Diulgheroff

Bauhaus was a great opportunity for talented designers and artists from Central and Eastern Europe to start their artistic careers. One of these was Nikolay Diulgheroff (1901-1982) from Bulgaria, who in 1923 enrolled at the Bauhaus in Weimar having previously studied in Vienna and Dresden. During his studies, he became an admirer of the work of Johannes Itten, one of the most orthodox Bauhaus masters, interested in colour theory and spirituality. Arguably, both aspects of Itten’s output had a tremendous influence on young Diulgheroff, who subsequently settled in Turin in 1926. There, he quickly became an important figure of the interwar futurist movement, celebrating a new dynamic world by using rational and organic abstract forms. A true modernist polymath, he produced paintings, sculptures, commercial graphic design and even ceramics.

In the Thirties, Diulgheroff collaborated with the Italian ceramic factory Torido Mazzotti, where he created a unique collection of futurist ceramic pieces, including tea sets. Featuring elementary abstract shapes and dynamic graphic patterns, the Mazzotti factory still produces them today. As a true Bauhaus disciple, Diulgheroff did not limit himself. to particular mediums. Also an architect, he built a factory showroom for Mazzotti – a distinctive example of futurist building design.

Adam Štěch curates the creative collective OKOLO. You can follow him on Instagram here.

This article originally appeared in SLEEK 61, out now.