Students in Cindi Hodgdon’s German class welcomed Dirk von Manteuffel on Monday. Von Manteuffel is a designer and a member of the German Design Museum Foundation.
He gave a presentation on the German Bauhaus style, its cultural roots in the Weimar Republic, and the “form follows function” design principles that Bauhaus architects like Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe later applied to the construction of skyscrapers in the United States.
After the presentation, students were invited to explore Bauhaus design principles to construct a chair using only paper, paperclips, and plastic straws as raw materials. Their various designs were later presented to the class, in German, and cataloged by von Manteuffel.
The “Discover Design—Discover Bauhaus” workshop is part of the Year of German-American Friendship. This initiative is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, implemented by the Goethe Institut, and supported by the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
