Bauhaus
at HomeSix rules from 1919
for a room in 2027
1919–1933
In 1919, the architect Walter Gropius opened a small art school in Weimar, Germany, with an unusual idea: that painters, weavers, metalworkers and architects should learn side by side, and that good design belonged in everyday life, not just in museums. The school was called the Bauhaus. It moved to Dessau in 1925, then to Berlin, and was forced to close in 1933. It lasted fourteen years.
A century later, you are almost certainly sitting near something it influenced: a tubular steel chair, a sans-serif typeface, a clean white kitchen, a rug in blocks of red, yellow and blue. As we head into 2027, our year of Modernism at cgk.ink, we wanted to go back to the source and ask a practical question. What would the Bauhaus tell you about the room you live in right now?
Start with what the room is for
"Form follows function" was coined by the American architect Louis Sullivan, but the Bauhaus made it a working method. Before choosing a color or a lamp, ask what actually happens in the room. Do you read here? Host? Work from a laptop on the sofa? Design for the real use, not the photo. A reading corner needs good light and a soft throw within arm's reach far more than it needs a statement sculpture.
Use primary color as punctuation, not wallpaper
The Bauhaus loved red, yellow and blue, and Wassily Kandinsky even surveyed students in 1923 to pair them with shapes: a yellow triangle, a red square, a blue circle. But look closely at Bauhaus interiors and you'll notice the color is concentrated. Walls stay neutral; the color arrives in one chair, one cushion, one blanket folded over the end of a bed. Pick one bold piece per room and let it do the work.
Choose geometry over ornament
Circles, squares, stripes, grids. Bauhaus designers stripped away decoration that didn't serve a purpose and found beauty in pure shape instead. At home, that might mean choosing a round mirror over a gilded one, or a graphic print over a busy floral. Geometry calms a room, because the eye understands it instantly.
Let materials be honest
Marcel Breuer famously took inspiration from bicycle handlebars when he bent steel tubing into furniture, and he didn't disguise it as wood. The Bauhaus believed a material should look like what it is. Let wood grain show. Let linen wrinkle. Let metal be metal. Rooms built on honest materials age gracefully instead of looking dated.
Take textiles seriously
The weaving workshop was one of the Bauhaus's most successful, led by Gunta Stölzl and home to artists like Anni Albers, who went on to become one of the twentieth century's great textile designers. They treated fabric as architecture: something that shapes how a room feels, absorbs sound, and holds color. A well-chosen throw, rug or set of cushions can change a space more than new furniture, and for a fraction of the cost.
Let every object earn its place
"Less is more" is usually credited to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Bauhaus's last director. It isn't a rule against owning things. It's a rule about choosing them. Before something comes into your home, ask whether it's useful, beautiful, or both. If it's neither, leave it on the shelf. Fewer, better objects is also a more sustainable way to live, which is something we think about every time we add a piece to our shop.
The Bauhaus,
a century on
The school was only open for fourteen years, but its teachers and students scattered across the world and took these ideas with them. That's why they feel so familiar. They aren't a style so much as a way of thinking: clear, functional, colorful where it counts, and honest about what things are.
Throughout 2027, we'll be exploring Modernism in all its forms, from the Bauhaus to the Delaunays and beyond.