by David Jones

The founders of Unit Editions will be talking about their experiences of running a publishing company at a time when the book is under threat from electronic media. Who would start a publishing company in this climate? Brook and Shaughnessy explain why they think it’s a good idea and why the future of publishing is hybrid.

They will also be revealing the next two Unit publications.

–
D&AD North and
 Stockport College Design Department present:

Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy of Unit Editions

4 May 
2010, 6.30pm

The Print Works

The Odeon – Screen 18

27 Withy Grove

Manchester M4 2BS

Find out more

Bauhaus, Dessau

We were invited by a group of Bauhaus students to talk about Unit Editions as part of an annual student-organised conference called Dimensions of Arbeit. We arrived at Tegel Airport, Berlin, early one evening in December, and took a taxi to the Bauhaus in Dessau, about 100 miles south.

It was a long and expensive trip through the black German night. As we zoomed along the autobahn at 90mph, cars seemingly travelling at twice our speed regularly overtook us: I swear I could hear the motorik riffs of Kraftwerk in the sound of the tyres on the road surface.

The centre of Dessau was a surprise – a quaint town with cobbled streets and Hansel and Gretel architecture. In fact, most of its old buildings were destroyed by Allied air raids in World War II and were only restored after German reunification in 1990. In the dark of a December night, Dessau felt like an unlikely place to find the Bauhaus.

We assumed we’d be staying in the German equivalent of a Travelodge. Both Tony and I are used to anonymous hotels on lecturing trips; they all look the same – CNN on the TV, free shortbread and a trouser press not designed by Dieter Rams. So, we were delighted to find out that we were staying in the Bauhaus itself, in rooms reserved for guests.

The rooms were surgically clean and nicely austere in the best Modernist tradition. Not a trouser press in sight, and the light switches, door handles and furniture exuded the expected Bauhausian marriage of form and function. The absence of soft furnishings meant that the slightest sound boomed out like a fire alarm. In the night I was woken by a gun going off outside my room: turned out to be the guy next door putting his key in the lock, but it was loud enough to make me think the ghost of Walter Gropius had tried to shoot someone.

The next day we attended the conference. We had a 12pm slot followed by lunch and then a train journey back to Berlin to catch a 6pm flight to London. But before we left we made sure that we toured the building and visited the bookshop.

A recurring problem with many Modernist structures is that they are now showing their age. A building from say, 1920, is now ninety years old, hardly surprising therefore that many are looking shabby and slightly decrepit. Yet what struck me about the Bauhaus was how fresh it looked. This is because the original Walter Gropius-designed building was pretty much destroyed in bombing raids during the Second World War and the current building was extensively rebuilt.

The original Bauhaus had been founded by Gropius in the politically conservative city of Weimar in 1919. Gropius had been a soldier in World War I. He’d fought valiantly and was seriously injured on three occasions. Returning to civilian life in Berlin, he found a defeated and demoralised Germany. Revolution was fermenting: the workers were flirting with Communism; Socialism was threatening the old political order; and the Kaiser had abdicated.

But Gropius was a man with a vision. He saw the Bauhaus as a way of uniting art and craft in ‘the machine age’ to form a more humane society. In a pamphlet for an exhibition Gropius wrote that his goal was ‘to create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist.’

In 1925, on a rising tide of German economic growth, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau and become a municipally funded design school. Gropius resigned as director in 1928 and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe succeeded him in 1930. After the Nazis came to power in Dessau, the Bauhaus was forced to move to Berlin, where, under continuing pressure from the Nazis, it finally dissolved in 1933.

The Bauhaus remained closed until it reopened in 1986. In 1994 it became a public foundation with the objective of preserving, transmitting and studying the legacy of the historic Bauhaus, as well as solving the problems involved in designing today’s environment.

Standing under Herbert Bayer’s famous lettering, it is hard not to feel the historical force exerted by this exhilarating building. So much of what we do as designers – the way we think, the way we function – can be traced to ideologies developed at the Bauhaus.

After the Nazis succeeded in closing it down, its teaching staff went off to form their own versions of the Bauhaus – Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in Chicago, and Max Bill in Ulm – guaranteeing that the spirit of the Dessau school lived on. As one commentator noted: ‘the Bauhaus and Ulm schools exerted unprecedented international influence. It is an accident of history that an essentially German tradition now shapes the global designs of corporations from Philips to Sony.’

Yet perhaps the most lasting contribution made by the Bauhaus is the seeding of the notion that design need not be inferior to art. Over time this dangerous idea – despite the Nazis attempt to stamp it out – has gained acceptance. Without the Bauhaus it might never have gained a foothold.

To Hell with Books, London

No Jeremy Clarkson books. No Jordan autobiographies. No CDs by X-Factor winners.

Instead, books and records with soul and wit from Fuel Publishing, Unit Editions and Trunk Records – all at special prices.

For one night only we’ll all be offering our back-catalogues of intelligent books and records to friends, family and passing pagans celebrating the winter solstice.

We’ll have signed copies of the special edition of Studio Culture on sale. Jake Chapman will be signing copies of his latest novel. And there will be a bottle or two of beer.

9 December 2009, 6—9pm

To Hell with Books
10 Woburn Walk
London WC1H 0JL

Port of Amsterdam

BNO’s offices

Adrian Shaughnessy & Ben Bos

Anthon Beeke & Ben Bos

Haunch of Venison

(l-r) Patrick Burgoyne, Neville Brody, Tony, Adrian, Rick Poynor

(centre) George Hardie, Roderick Mills

Paul Bowman (LCC)

Georgina Lee, Adrian Shaughnessy, Michael C Place

Book signing

It’s official – Unit Editions is launched. Thanks to the generosity of the Haunch of Venison we were able to announce our arrival in high style. We were also helped by a glittering array of talent from all ends of the design spectrum – the great, the good and the just plain brilliant.

On a night when London was full of design and art events, it was wonderful to see so many friends and well-wishers. To everyone who came – a big thank you.

Thanks also to everyone who bought a copy of Studio Culture – and to everyone who helped make the night a success. Check Flickr for more photos of the night.