Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is a centre of research, teaching and experimental design. In addition to conserving, researching into and passing on the Bauhaus heritage the Foundation focuses on cities – their contradictions and cultural strength in the face of demographic developments, globalisation and the technological revolution. The new Bauhaus consequently addresses contemporary urban challenges, examines options for the future and elaborates drafts and models in architecture, design and the performing and plastic arts. In doing so, the Foundation sees itself as a workshop in which participants from different disciplines devise and develop projects from theory through to practice.
Since 1997, the Foundation organises the Bauhausfest, the origin of which lies in the historical Bauhaus of the 20ies where elaborate festivities served as a vehicle for the exchange between masters, students and Dessau's citizens. The Bauhaus celebrated birthdays, farewells, christmas and other occasions with speeches, concerts and performances in spectacular costumes. The Bauhaus festivals were used for self-expression and simultaneously gave the city of Dessau a cause for celebrating itself. At today’s annual Bauhausfest, experimental projects, complex room setups, performances, music and dancing provide a very special event throughout the city – from the Anhaltisches Theater to the main station and further to the Bauhaus building itself.

www.bauhaus-dessau.de

PHILIPP OSWALT- BAUHAUS DESSAU FOUNDATION- DIRECTOR

Philipp Oswalt, born 1964, is an architect and publicist from Berlin. He was appointed director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in 2009 and has been Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Kassel since 2006. Prior to that he was, among other things, employed in Rem Koolhaas' Office, edited the magazine Arch+, and was chief curator of the research and exhibition project "Shrinking Cities".

BURGHARD DUHM- BAUHAUSFEST DESSAU- CURATOR

Burghard Duhm, born in 1961 in Dessau, Germany, studied forestry at the School of engeneering Ballenstadt and Cultural Studies at the Humbold University Berlin.
Currently, Duhm works at the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau as a member of the academic staff, focussing on the Bauhausbühne and festival culture.