Bauhaus and Wolfgang Nordwig

13/8/2020 – Weimar – We cross the park opposite Haus Hohe Pappeln and follow the Ilm to go and see Haus am Horn. All of a sudden the path is blocked by barriers. We try to find our way through and stumble into a group of young people who cool down by wading through the Ilm. I ask how to get to the other side and a helpful migrant tries to explain but his German is too basic. Next to him, a tall, rebellious looking girl with a half shaved head says: ‘Ach, einfach die Schranke ignorieren und weiterlaufen!’. She is topless and rubs herself dry. We follow her advice and soon see Goethe’s Gartenhaus in front of us. Not far from there we see the white model house built for the Bauhaus Exhibition of 1923. After almost 100 years it still hasn’t lost its modern flair. It is cubic and has a flat roof. A wave of new ideas swept through the area, catalysed by Van de Velde and later by Walter Gropius. A cooperation between architects, engineers, craftsmen and artists led to a creative bubble. It burst when the Nazis started to hate it. We have to queue outside as Covid-measures limit the number of visitors. Inside, I don’t like the fact that you cannot look outside from the living room, which catches light through windows above eye-level. When we finish our tour, the sky breaks open and the guards let us seek shelter in the entrance. We start a conversation and find out they both come from Jena. The oldest is a sports freak with a melancholic look on GDR-sports. When I tell him I had a picture of the Olympic pole vault champion of 1972, Wolfgang Nordwig, above my bed, I become his friend. In his enthusiasm his face mask drops under his nose. All the German hammer and sickle athletes pass review. The biggest frustration for former East-Germans is that they are not allowed to be proud of anything. I hope I rectified it a little.

Haus am Horn, Weimar (1923)  - FDC