Hannes Meyer

Hannes Meyer , 1889-1954, Swiss architect. Meyer was a lecturer and studio master at the Bauhaus in Dessau. He succeeded Gropius as its director (1928-30). Meyer is noted for his rejection of the concept of individual design in favor of designs produced by the collaboration of architects. He worked in Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, and the USSR. One of his best-known designs is the German Trades Union School at Bernau (1928-30).

Meyer, Hannes (1889–1954). Swiss-born Marxist architect, he began teaching at the Dessau Bauhaus in 1927 and succeeded Gropius as Director (1928–30). Meyer's Collectivist approach alienated many people (he made Marxism and Leninism essential studies), and his insistence that architecture had nothing to do with formal aesthetics caused friction with other teachers. Dismissed in 1930, he went to the Soviet Union where he was heaped with honour and privilege until the Stalinist demand for Classicism made him return to Switzerland (1936–9), after which he spent a decade in Mexico before retiring to Switzerland (1949). His best-known works are the Trade Union School, Bernau, near Berlin (1928–30), and the Toerten Housing, Dessau (1928–30).

Bibliography

Hays (1992);
H. Meyer (1989);
Schnaidt (ed.) (1965);
Wingler (1969)

Meyer, Hannes. See Bauhaus.