Color and Architecture: Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus Wall-Painting Workshop in Collaboration, 1922-1926

The Bauhaus was rooted in the idea of collaboration between artist and craftsman and the visual arts and architecture. No medium was more dependent on this spirit of cooperation than painting. Instead of easel painting, Walter Gropius, an architect and the founding director, promoted wall painting. He involved the school’s Wall-Painting Workshop in many of his private and official Bauhaus commissions, however these collaborative relationships were never easy. This essay examines four projects involving Gropius and Bauhaus wall painters from 1922 to 1926: the Municipal Theater and Haus Auerbach, both in Jena; Gropius’s office in Weimar; and the Bauhaus building in Dessau. In these projects, the role of paint and color in architectural form emerged as a key issue and point of conflict between painter and architect. Wassily Kandinsky' 1924 memo on wall painting made it clear that color could emerge with form (Entstehen), accompany form (Mitgehen), or be in opposition to form (Entgegengesetzte) - a group of terms that might describe both the effects of wall painting and the nature of collaboration. Early on, painters such as Oskar Schlemmer and Alfred Arndt envisioned dynamic and colorful paintings in architecture. However, these transformative effects threatened to dematerialize the architecture itself, and as the 1920s progressed, Gropius increasingly rejected bold pictorial wall paintings or lively painting schemes, opting instead for restrained subordinate color. By 1926, Hinnerk Scheper, the leader of the Wall-Painting Workshop, used paint to subtly and functionally accentuate and enhance buildings. In their collaborations with Gropius, the Bauhaus wall painters transitioned from independent cooperators to subordinated collaborators, and ultimately they developed an approach in which color yields to the demands of architecture.