0064 "Ein großer Vorsprung gegenüber Deutschland"

Die niederländischen Architekten auf der Bauhausausstellung von 1923 in Weimar

Abstract

This article discusses the Dutch contribution to the International Architecture Exhibition that was part of the Bauhaus Manifestation in 1923. The Dutch architect J.J.P. Oud, together with the director of the school in Weimar, Walter Gropius, decided which architects would be asked to participate and send in works. Oud selected the works of these architects according to his own criteria. He had a specific agenda that was dictated by the position he had in the Netherlands and abroad as an advocate of modernist architecture. His interest was not to show what was really going on in general in the Netherlands but to illustrate that there was a strong movement in the country towards the development of a new architecture based on the use of new materials. The article positions this radical attitude of Oud and confronts it with how German architects, who were particularly informed, looked at the situation in the neighbouring country.