Bauhaus Architectures of Illness, Health, and Race: Johannes Itten’s Mazdaznan Teaching at the Early Bauhaus

Germany’s Bauhaus (1919–1933) is remembered for its minimalist modern design and globally influential art pedagogy. However, during its early years, in the wake of the First World War, the Bauhaus was also a hotbed of esoteric theories on spirituality and well-being that were central to the art and design produced there. The central figure in this Bauhaus reform movement was Johannes Itten, the influential founder of the Bauhaus’s preliminary course, the mandatory introduction required for all students. Itten centered his teaching on the ideas of Mazdaznan, a new religion that held the body as the key site for spiritual self-improvement and that dominated Bauhaus philosophy, art, and even diet. This talk explores how ideas of illness, health, and race played out in Bauhaus architecture and design of these turbulent, early years.

Elizabeth Otto is Director of the Humanities Institute and Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She is the author of Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics (MIT Press, 2019) and Tempo, Tempo! The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt (Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, 2005), and the coauthor of Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective (Bloomsbury, 2019). Her curatorial work includes the summer 2024 blockbuster exhibition “Bauhaus and National Socialism,” held in the German city of Weimar. She is currently working on a book on Bauhaus members’ work in National Socialist Germany.

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