Bauhaus Auditorium Seating

The auditorium seating in Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus Main Building caught my attention as I toured the Dessau Foundation office.

According to the host the building is located in Dessau since 1926; “a long-established icon of Modernism, the manifestation of a complex idea in steel, glass and stone.” The auditorium seating is a masterpiece of ingenuity in terms of functionality and production. It is clear that the parts were manufactured in the shop, brought to the site and assembled without any on-site welding. It appears to me that the seating is made up of four parts. The two vertical supports complete with the arm rests are attached to the floor, while the horizontal members span half way to either side of the seats, and connected to each other by tongue inserts and screws. The rotating pivoting seat is the other entity that is secured to the vertical supports. Finally the canvas sling back completes the makeup of the seating.

The design seem to follow Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel armchair (1926), nickel-plated, tubular steel and fabric seating.