The Bauhaus of Nature

In 1937 the biologist and ecologist Julian Huxley hosted a sumptuous farewell dinner party for Walter Gropius upon the occasion of his departure from London to become Chair of the Harvard School of Design. This major event took place at the fashionable Trocadero, Oxford Street, with a guest list that reads as a Who's Who in the English scene of modernist design.¹ Strangely, among the guests one also finds—besides Huxley—prominent ecological scientists and environmentalists, which raises the question of why they were invited to the festivity. After all, ecologists seem to be odd guests at a party in honor of a Bauhaus architect. Social gatherings are often telling indications of an intellectual climate, as Gropius' farewell dinner will illustrate. What brought Bauhaus designers and ecologists together, this article argues, was a shared belief that the human household should be modeled on the household of nature.

The importance of science to Bauhaus design hardly dominates the historical studies of the school.² What significance had the sciences in general and ecology in particular to modernist architecture? Rightly labeled by one of their contemporaries as "scientific architects," the following pages argue that Bauhaus designers saw science as a key vehicle for design development.³ Though some Bauhaus designers were inspired by biology while the school was active in Germany, this article holds that the fusion of biological reasoning in Bauhaus design took place during the process of trying to reestablish the school in London after its expulsion from Nazi Germany. This London interlude is often ignored by historians.⁴ The period was important for the school's development in terms of ecological reasoning. This article will first lay out where and how Bauhaus designers and scientists interacted in London. The next section will point to the importance of ecology to László Moholy-Nagy. The third section will discuss the Bauhaus design at the London Zoo, showing that the Zoo keepers thought the human household should be modeled upon the household of nature, as this was understood in their research. Finally, the last section of the article will explain how ecological sciences and Bauhaus design merged in H. G. Wells' utopian visions for a society in harmony with nature's economy.

1. The London Bauhaus

The arrival of former Bauhaus faculty members in London energized the city's designers and intellectuals. After fleeing from Nazi harassment, Walter Gropius (who arrived in 1934 and left in 1937), Marcel Breuer, and László Moholy-Nagy (who both stayed between 1935 and 1937) were able to meet regularly again as a group. They set forth to reestablish the Bauhaus school in London.⁵ The guest list at Gropius' farewell dinner indicates who responded favorably to their ambition. This party may be labeled "The London Bauhaus," and the following pages will explain who they were. What brought the interdisciplinary group of designers, town-planners, and environmentalists together was a shared belief that Bauhaus design could solve social as well as environmental ills.

The former Bauhaus faculty settled in the Hampstead section of London which at the time was a community of avant-garde designers, intellectuals, and artists. They moved into a brand new apartment complex, the Lawn Road Flats, which was the first modernist residence in London. Designed by Wells Coates, the building featured a common room (which Breuer redesigned into the Isobar Club in 1937), as well as laundry, cleaning, meal, and garage services. From his window Moholy-Nagy could enjoy overlooking a garden of "only trees, which is very peaceful, especially in London."⁶ The list of carefully selected tenants included a host of left-leaning intellectuals and designers enjoying what Gropius described as "an exciting housing laboratory, both socially and technically."⁷ Technically, the building was to be a true machine for living with state-of-the-art furniture and novelties like built-in cooking and washing facilities. Socially, the apartment complex was to promote collective life and liberate the tenants from the burden of personal possessions. Both Moholy-Nagy and Gropius suffered from the language barrier (the latter only spoke "three words of English").⁸ Yet they were...