Well educated today means accumulate useful experience among historical and present ones. So far all right, but why, I ask you, has the specialist always to think down his cannel?
Age of conveyor belt, of disintegrated part, of screw driven into machine of which purpose and function he doesn´t know.
Books we should be friends one should get to, to find a rounded-up existence, not only as an excellent basis for specialized education …
You speak: words, sounds, in joy, in horror. Are you a speaker? Oh no, you´re just a human being. One day you notice that sound is not only loud, it´s beautiful. You try again and it makes you feel happy. Your ability to make sound beautiful liberates you… You organize your ability to make sound, refine it, find pattern, watch effect. And you´re a speaker, a writer, an actor… My little daughter wouldn´t walk. Why should she? We carry her anyhow. But then she discovers red. Across a lawn are red toys she wants, and she walks because red forces her to take action. Now you who can already walk, you find that color means a life beyond food, drink, sleep. Pleasant, I know, I love to eat. But there´s more. Everyone can buy it, without money, with openness of eyes, openness of feeling, readiness to learn. You understand? Everybody is talented…
We don´t want to add to the art-proletariat that already exists. We don´t teach what is called „pure art“, but we train what you might call the art engineer. It is a remodeling of art-meaning we are undertaking. If our students become artists – this is their own job. We know that after they have learned to use materials, to understand space, to see color, they´ll be better artists no matter how far removed they think they are from practical life. But to you – the industrialists – we offer our service for research. We shall work on your problems. In our workshops we shall provide research possibilities for synthetic fibers, fashion, dying, printing on textiles, wallpaper design, mural painting, to use of varnishes, lacquers, sprays and color combinations in decorating; we shall explore for microphotography, motion pictures in color and black-white, commercial art in posters and ture, and all other architectural structures from a prefabricated bungalow to a factory; and we shall work with stone, glass, metal, wood, clay, and all plastics in the product design and the sculpture classes…
The lecture was given by Laszlo Moholy Nagy in Chicago, September 23 1937 for the beginning of “The New Bauhaus, American School of Design”.
It´s taken from hans winglers book called Bauhaus.