

Bauhaus Ideology and the Future of Web Design - daspecster
http://colly.com/comments/bauhaus_ideology_and_the_future_of_web_design/

======
oscilloscope
If you're looking for architecture-inspired design manifestos for web and
software design, check out A Pattern Language:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language>

The ideas in that book helped create the notion of "design patterns" in
software and engineering. The book provides hundreds of insights into the way
people use their environment: marriage beds, child caves, dancing in the
streets, staircases as stages, sleeping in public, spaces for self-
governance...

Pattern Language is a more humanizing design philosophy than Bauhaus. It
brings the emotional and sociological aspects of design together with
technological complexity.

The concepts of vocabulary, syntax and grammar are applicable to programming
language and API design, as well as visual design and architecture.

------
eternalban
[http://www.amazon.com/From-Bauhaus-Our-House-
Wolfe/dp/031242...](http://www.amazon.com/From-Bauhaus-Our-House-
Wolfe/dp/0312429142)

I am generally sympathetic with the aesthetic choices of this school. But it
is necessary to note that Bauhaus's approach, as informed by socialist
ideology of its core members, is dehumanizing at scale. And when 'it' -- it
being the logical conclusion via Corbu et al -- was embraced (at scale), it
resulted in the backlash that was Post-Modernism and the rest of it.

Finally, it needs to be pointed out that the 'problem' that informed the
ideological 'solution' of Bauhaus maps far more sensibly to software
methodology rather than software manifestation.

~~~
tgrass
Not sure about the rest of the world, but in the southwest, LA to Phoenix, the
modernism of Bauhaus has more sway in contemporary starchitecture than post-
modernism.

~~~
eternalban
Because it is more profitable to build identical cookie cutter artifacts.

Postmodernism (in architecture) was an _academic_ reactionary movement:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Venturi>

[p.s.: This is the seminal critical retort that started it:
[http://designtheory.fiu.edu/readings/venturi_complexity_comp...](http://designtheory.fiu.edu/readings/venturi_complexity_complete.pdf)]

------
brudgers
"Form Follows Function."

The concept comes from the American Louis Sullivan, not the Bauhaus. His use
of ornamentation and references to forms from the past (e.g. the skyscraper as
a column with base, shaft, and capital) would have been rejected.

~~~
eternalban
Sullivan and Wright are not to be mentioned (except in passing) given that
they did not hail from Europe and do not share the _political_ ideology behind
Bauhaus and other related early 20th century movements in Europe.

------
camus
old and "mew" article (2010), trends are what they are and dont last long ,
especially in web design where any design trend gets outdated fast.

~~~
gdubs
While there's a trendiness to the superficial application of the
Bauhaus/International/Swiss style in graphical layouts, there's a timeless
value in removing the separation between engineering and design and fostering
cultures that encourage cross-disciplinary communication.

