The Bauhaus School: An Historical Account of Transdisciplinary Practice

Abstract

This chapter explores how innovation occurred in a transdisciplinary workplace by examining the case of the German Bauhaus school (1919–1933). Examining the Bauhaus makes it possible to relate transdisciplinary innovation to themes emerging from literatures and theories about innovation, discussed in Chap’s. 2 and 3) in an arts context. But this context also illustrates how the benefits of hindsight surface effects well beyond the school. This helps to clarify how the interrelationships between learning-through-working and transgression are implicated in innovation. The effects of learning-through-working on innovation rest on three interacting dimensions identified – the environment and organisation of work, learning in practice and the workplace culture-order. Analysis of the case shows how Bauhaus innovation rested on the ways it addressed these dimensions together, and how they unfolded through the Bauhaus and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. This examination suggests that transgression becomes apparent relative to the culture-order of the workplace and the society. Divergent views within the Bauhaus, in Germany, and in the relations between the two produced transgressive practices that generated innovation. The case shows how epistemic diversity produced conflict but also how boundaries were used to manage the social and workplace order. This chapter highlights how the relation between innovation and transgression can become visible through an examination of workplaces across time and space. The chapter also reveals surprising commonalities between the Bauhaus approach to innovation and contemporary thinking about supporting innovation which are relevant to education, particularly transdisciplinary STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education, and workplaces today.