A Room at the Bauhaus

Dessau isn't the most attractive town in eastern Germany. The British flattened it in the 1940s and the Soviets towerblocked it after the war. The city seems an unlikely destination for an architectural pilgrimage, but hidden away behind the station is one of the great buildings of the 20th century, the Bauhaus.

I booked a room in the Atelierhaus [student wing] of the Bauhaus for 25 euros a night. The room was high up on the third level of the building with a shiny crimson floor and a tiny lipped balcony. Internal walls were painted white to create the illusion of more space and furniture was sturdy and functional; just a bed, coat stand, storage unit and two Marcel Breuer chairs tucked under a table. Two spotlights threw shadows around the walls and I quickly tidied my possessions away. This wasn’t a room that would tolerate mess.

I remembered my own halls of residence in the north of England; the nylon carpet and the wonky shelves. Nothing like this. I used the balcony and the clear February night to chill my Riesling.

There are other Bauhaus buildings dotted around Dessau. Walter Gropius designed a low brick Employment Office and a whole suburb was built to a Bauhaus spec. Beautifully preserved are the four Meisterhausers Gropius added for the college teachers and their wives. These are now open to the public and restored closely to their original design. Beautiful as they are they appear more museum than house. Door handles are gleaming and the smell of fresh paint hangs in the stairwells. The clutter and spills of daily life have been removed.

My favourite building was the Kornhaus restaurant, a lovely sweep of glass designed by Carl Fieger in the late 1920s. I got lost in the woods looking for it and then discovered I only had eight euros in my pocket when I arrived. I ordered a salad and a fruit juice from the menu and hurried out after leaving a measly fifty-cent tip. It was the last of my cash!

Before I left Dessau, I bought a 1950s Wagenfeld cup and double saucer from the Bauhaus shop. It was so nice I bought the rest of the set from ebay for about £100 when I got back to London. A week later I was photographing some Bauhaus-inspired houses in Stanmore and found an identical set in a charity shop for £5.