
Chao-Lee Kuo Founder, Taiwan Alliance for Arch Modernity
DH Café (No. 153, Section 3, Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei City)
One lecture for $500, including special snacks (sandwiches, desserts, drinks), and 10% discount on event book purchases.
Wang was fond of the arts, and in the past, he often invited the arts and crafts community at the time when he built his home in Nanchou and Honglujia. Like Bauhaus, he organized a small society called “Chimera” (named after a lion and lamb-tailed hybrid monster from mythology). Those who frequented the time included Hui Changhui (music), Guo Lianghui (literature), Yang Yingfeng (sculpture), Lang Jingshan (photography), Sidi Dejin (painting), and others. Wang, who initially founded the association, described his efforts with the subtitle “A Bauhaus Organization in Free China”, and can be seen to be deeply influenced by the likes of Grobetz and Mises.
This year marks the centenary of Bauhaus 1919-2019, a special theme, “Chimera and Bauhaus,” will introduce the relationship between the two as the beginning of this series of literary activities. The first lecture was “Bauhaus in Weyma”.
The Industrial Revolution made mass production possible. However, the flood of poorly made goods prompted people to reconsider how to strike a balance between aesthetic value and efficiency. Various new ideas and movements emerged—including the British Arts and Crafts Movement (1880–1910), the Viennese Secession (1890–1910), the Deutscher Werkbund (1898–1927), Italian Futurism (1909–1913), Russian Constructivism (1917–1930), and De Stijl in the Netherlands (1918–1924), among others.
Among these, Belgian Art Nouveau leader Henry van de Velde, with the support of the Grand Duke of Weimar, founded the Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar. Unfortunately, due to changes in the political climate, Van de Velde was forced to resign because of his foreign nationality. He recommended Walter Gropius as his successor. In 1919, the Staatliches Bauhaus (commonly known as the Bauhaus) was established in Weimar through the merger of the School of Arts and Crafts and the Weimar Academy of Fine Art. The school aimed to eliminate the divide between artist and craftsman and to create designs that combined artistic value with industrial production.