The Death and Life of the Total Work of Art – Henry van de Velde and the Legacy of a Modern Concept

Introduction
Carsten Ruhl, Rixt Hoekstra, Chris Dähne
This volume collects the lectures that were held during the 12 th International Bauhaus
Colloquium, organized April 2013 in Weimar at the Bauhaus-Universität.
While the focus of this book is on the contributions of the invited speakers in the
so-called plenum, we have also included some examples of the presentations held
by young scientists in the workshops.
The 12 th International Bauhaus Colloquium took the 150 th birthday of the Belgian
architect, artist, and designer Henry van de Velde (1863–1957) as an opportunity
to ask for modern conceptions of the Gesamtkunstwerk (Total Work of Art) in the
twentieth century, and its impact on current architectural discourse. As such, this
colloquium was dedicated to an important aspect of the Bauhaus’s history, and to a
key element of the modern conception of architecture in general. In addition, connections
were made to a larger discourse involving current discussions about the
experience of image and space, immersion, mediality, aura, and authenticity, which
were viewed from an interdisciplinary perspective.
The Bauhaus Colloquium is the oldest and most renowned conference on architectural
theory and history in the German-speaking realm. The first Bauhaus Colloquium
was organized in 1976, during the years of the GDR regime in Eastern
Germany. It was an outcome of the debate by scholars, architects, and the Socialist
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