The European Bauhaus: A new cultural deal for the EU?
When the clocks ticked over from 31st December, for many of us the dawn of a new year felt less cathartic than usual. We already knew the grim realities of 2020 would be following us over to 2021.
Not just the pandemic—an economic and health crisis rolled into one—but also climate change, disinformation, as well as the after-effects of Brexit on the cultural sector.
So perhaps there has never been a better time for Europe to look to the future and rally itself with a fresh, bold idea.
Enter the New European Bauhaus.
The concept was first introduced by EU cultural leaders all the way back in 2018 at the annual Davos summit: a “high-quality built environment”—or Baukultur—that would serve as a path towards a more green, more sustainable Europe over the coming decades.
Support for the movement, which falls under the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), has been forthcoming from the very top of EU institutions. President von der Leyen, for example, made a point in her most recent State of the Union speech to address the idea of Bauhaus as a “a co-creation space where architects, artists, students, engineers, designers work together” to “match style with sustainability”.
But how can Bauhaus—a short-lived, century-old school of art—be reimagined for the 21st century? And more importantly, how can it be repurposed to help deliver the ambitious project that is the European Green New Deal?
“There has never been a better time for Europe to look to the future and rally itself with a fresh, bold idea.”
Bauhaus, rebooted
To understand what a “new” Bauhaus might look like, let’s briefly revisit the original concept.
An influential German experimental school, Bauhaus brought together creatives from diverse fields to produce works combining aesthetics with everyday function. In other words, creations were to look good, but also get the job done. No wonder then that the movement retains a sense of cool, even a full century on.
The EU seems to be building heavily on this positive mental association with the original art movement. What triggered it the first time round—post-WWI—was a desire to make the most of scarce resources and materials. This is obviously not the case now. But the allure of “doing more with less”, as well as striving towards both function and elegance in an interdisciplinary way has no doubt struck a chord with EU policymakers looking for a fresh direction (or an old one that can be dusted off, and presented as new).
Putting the principles of the movement into practice, though, might be a challenge in itself.
How will it work?
A lot of planning and deliberation has to go into making a vast initiative like the European Bauhaus a reality. In this case, implementation will be carried out in three major phases over 3 to 4 years, using a bottom-up approach.
The consultation and co-design phase, which kicked off in January, has set out to explore what the focus of the European Bauhaus should be, specifically how culture and design methods can be put in service of climate solutions.
In a smart move that is sure to draw interest from the target audience of this initiative, the Commission is also launching the Bauhaus Prize (€30,000) this spring. It will award existing buildings, as well as methods and practices of design and sustainability.
Delivery will follow in 2022: five New European Bauhaus projects will be launched across EU Member States. The call for projects will go out later this year, but some ideas are already circulating as to what the EU will be looking for. These include projects focusing on natural building materials, energy efficiency, demographics, future-oriented mobility and resource-efficient digital innovation.
Publicising these projects will of course be vital, which is where the dissemination phase will come into play. When the Bauhaus projects are ready for the public eye, there will be a huge push to promote them across Europe and beyond. Harnessing the latest technologies like big data and AI, platforms and creative spaces—like the “Bauhaus knowledge hub”—will be created to engage stakeholders and citizens alike.
The European Bauhaus is clearly a huge, innovative and politically ambitious project, and, as for all initiatives of this scale and design, the critics are never far behind.
“The Commission is also launching the Bauhaus Prize (€30,000) this spring. It will award existing buildings, as well as methods and practices of design and sustainability.”
The stumbling blocks to embracing a new idea
The biggest detractors are focusing on the issue of financing. Some, especially those who feel that securing the promised 2% of the Next Generation budget for the cultural and creative sector should be the priority right now, were dismayed to hear President von der Leyen put so much emphasis on the new European Bauhaus as a key source of cultural funding in the coming years.
The concern is made worse by the fact that EU Ministers have yet to announce where the Bauhaus funding will be allocated from, although there have been assurances that established cultural funding pillars like Creative Europe will not be touched.
Others take issue with how the initiative will be carried out, fearing top-down decision making from EU institutions, where a German model will be imposed upon the rest of Europe, homogenising the “look and feel” of European architecture. As some CCS professionals and academics have pointed out, Bauhaus carries a strong Western and Eurocentric tone, which could hold back true inclusivity and diversity.
Speaking of inclusivity, other, more historical critiques have also been levelled at the EU for trying to make Bauhaus “happen” again. For one, even at its peak, the movement was not particularly inclusive of women, and some of its original members went on to collaborate with the Nazi regime.
These points are hard to deny, but they miss an important aspect of the idea. As European Commissioner for Culture Mariya Gabriel stressed, the term “Bauhaus” was adopted mainly to highlight the use of a multidisciplinary approach that can cross borders. She went on to clarify that the New European Bauhaus is “not an invitation to reproduce what we did 100 years ago, but to consider art and culture a fundamental tool for transformation”.
That sounds pretty good to us. And we’re not the only ones. The New European Bauhaus has received strong support from European associations of architects and space planners, as well as European cities keen to be at the forefront of sustainable development.
“The New European Bauhaus is not an invitation to reproduce what we did 100 years ago, but to consider art and culture a fundamental tool for transformation”
Our take on Bauhaus
Given how the pandemic has decimated economies and societies throughout Europe, it’s perhaps more fitting than ever to reimagine and adapt a movement that emerged in a post-world-war European nation struggling to rebuild itself.
Furthermore, the original ideology of Bauhaus was synonymous with interdisciplinarity, an approach that will doubtlessly be required for 21st century Europe looking to deal with towering issues like tackling climate change. The New European Bauhaus will not only take on this huge issue, it will do it in a way that will promote vast educational and project funding opportunities for the next generation of European creatives, nurturing benefits that will be reaped in both the short- and long-term.
While a cultural movement alone can’t address the challenge of sustainable development, the legacy of Bauhaus can be employed to revolutionise ways of thinking and behaving in a more inclusive, multidisciplinary way going forward.
In this, it’s imperative for us in the cultural and creative sector to contribute to the New European Bauhaus design process, sharing ideas and visions that will drive the initiative forward and make it the next big ‘cultural deal’ for Europe.
Maureen Blache has been a junior consultant at TrueMotion since February 2020. Over the last three years, she has been gaining experience in grant writing and managing EU projects with a strong social and cultural focus.