European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 31, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Design standing though torten itself has lost its distinctive character and is now a mix of styles. The bauhaus designed apartment buildings feature outdoor corridors which designers believed would encourage communication among neighbors. Most of the bauhaus buildings in torten Are in disrepair. Administrators at the Dessau school Are trying to buy the most significant of them formerly a grocery store with three apartments above 3s a Center from which to map the neighbourhood and draw up a plan for its renovation. The preservationist s greatest heartache in Dessau is Likely to come on Sud Strasse not far from torten where two once charming bauhaus buildings stand. One of them built by Gropius s partner Carl Fieger in 1926 As his own Home is now the office of a contracting firm whose advertising signs cover the facade. The other known As the Stahlhaum steel houses unoccupied rusted and near collapse. The Stahlhaum was a prototype for the Ideal of comfortable but inexpensive one family Homes built by welding prefabricated steel pieces onto a Metal Frame. The demands of the German War machine for steel made it impossible for the projected workers settlement to be built and today the Stahlhaum is almost All that remains of the idea. Even while the school was winning International acclaim it continued to face political opposition at Home. Gropius quit under pressure in 1928, and the Rise of nazi Power soon made the school s survival impossible. In 1932 the doors of the Dessau building were closed. Its last director Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe tried unsuccessfully to take the school to Berlin. The bauhaus was dissolved in july 1933, following an extraordinary creative outburst that had been compressed into less than 15 years. A Many bauhaus figures emigrated to the United states among them Gropius who became head of the architecture department at Harvard University. Partly As a result of his influence the Busch Reisinger museum at Harvard has built up a substantial collection of bauhaus objects. An array of original creations Are also displayed at the bauhaus archives museum in Western Berlin. The museum building alongside a canal at 14 Klingelhofer Strasse was designed by Gropius. One of his last works built in the late 1970s, it is a striking distillation of the ideas he spent his life refining. Inside Are a research Library a cafe an auditorium and four Public exhibition rooms filled with Fine examples of bauhaus furniture fabrics architectural models and artefacts. The gift shop offers not Only cards and Cata logs but also wooden toys lamps ashtrays and chess sets. The museum mounts several special exhibitions each year. Until aug. 30 there is one devoted to the work of Marcel Breuer who directed the innovative bauhaus furniture workshop. Berlin is full of bauhaus buildings. Some ate important Public centers like the Glass fronted new National gallery on . The bauhaus style design for the gallery is by Mies Van Der Rohe who Bast d it on his plan for the Bacardi rum Headquarters in Santiago Cuba. Bacardi officials decided that 1958 was not a Good year to be building corporate offices in Cuba and the design Lay in Mies files until he was commissioned to build the gallery in the mid-1960 s. Among other exemplary Sites in Berlin Are distinctive apartment houses like those at 25 Kaiser Damm designed by Hans Scharoun and Georg la Kobow Itz and the one that towers Over Insbrucker Platz by Paul Mebes and Paul Emmerich As Well As remarkable office buildings like Emil Fahrenkamp s curved Shell Haus at 60-62 . Several of the most Aust rely Beautiful private Homes in Berlin were designed by bauhaus architects in the 1920 s and 30 s. A group of them Are clustered around the Corner of Hee Strasse and am Rupe Nhorn including two spectacular ones at 161 Hee Strasse and 24 am Rupe Nhorn. In Berlin visitors May also walk through several Large settlements designed by bauhaus architects As part of their projected solution to the problems of Urban crowding and alienation. The largest in the southwestern part of the City is Onkel Toms Hivitte named As a sign of Solidarity with Blacks in the United states. Walking along argentin sche Allen and the smaller streets that run through the settlement is like taking an advanced course in bauhaus architecture with details of color and landscape reflecting As much i Are As the design of the buildings themselves. Other important bauhaus structures can in seen in towns near Berlin. Two of the most unusual tie the expressionist influenced Einstein Tower in Potsdam by Erich Mendelssohn 1920-2 1and the sprawling Trade Union school in Bernau by Hannes Meyer 1928-30. There Are More in Stuttgart and other German cities. The buildings in Western Germany Are far better kept than those in the East and Western museums have treated bauhaus paintings and artefacts with much greater respect. Unification Means not Only that tourists Are Able to travel the entire Quot bauhaus Trail but that the Rich legacy will perhaps within a few years be freely accessible to All who seek to understand its influence on 20th-Century life. The bauhaus movement influenced everything from advertising above to chairs. De Cernier 31, 1992 stripes Magazine 11