The Bauhaus Ideal Then and Now

Book excerpt: The Bauhaus Ideal is both a picture book and a guidebook to the fascinating and enduring legacy of modernist design, and to the continuing influence of Bauhaus on interior design—not just on architecture, but also on furniture, glassware, tableware, and kitchen utensils: the whole range of domestic arts. This unique volume introduces modern design principles and examines them from an historically critical perspective. It concludes with some ideas for melding modern solemnity with postmodern irony. And in each phase the illustrations speak as eloquently as the text—the whole serves as a beautifully illustrated design memo.