Bauhaus Dessau Mini - Entrance architectural model

This architectural object is inspired by the Bauhaus Dessau — the building Walter Gropius designed in 1926 to house the most influential art and design school of the twentieth century, and one of the founding monuments of modern architecture.

This model captures the main entrance elevation: the compressed, vertical face where the school's administrative bridge meets the ground, the glazed stair tower rises beside it, and the building first presents itself to the visitor arriving on foot. 

Read the full Bauhaus Dessau architecture guide

 

The entrance elevation, distilled into form

 

The Bauhaus Dessau's entrance is the pivot point of Gropius's pinwheel plan — the place where the building's different wings meet and where its geometry is most concentrated. The administrative bridge passes overhead, the stair tower anchors the composition vertically, and the entrance canopy projects at ground level to receive the visitor. Everything is purposeful, nothing is decorative.

This façade model captures the elements that define the entrance elevation:

• the vertical emphasis of the stair tower, contrasting with the horizontal character of the rest of the building
• the relationship between solid rendered surfaces and glazed panels
• the entrance canopy projecting at ground level — the building's threshold, precisely expressed

At this scale, the entrance elevation reads as a study in the Bauhaus principle of honest construction: structure and function made directly visible, with no ornament intervening between the two.

 

Craft, materials, and finish

 

The Bauhaus Dessau Mini – Entrance is cast in fine plaster and finished by hand in our studio in West Sussex. The finish is intentionally restrained, allowing light and shadow to articulate the projecting canopy and the recessed glazing in a way that echoes the crisp, undecorated surfaces of the original building.

The model can be displayed on a shelf or desk, or mounted on the wall.

 

Product details

 

• Subject: Bauhaus Dessau, Dessau-Roßlau, Germany — main entrance elevation
• Architect: Walter Gropius
• Completed: 1926
• Architectural style: Bauhaus / International Style
• Designed and made by: Chisel & Mouse

Also available: Bauhaus Dessau stair block façade

The Bauhaus Dessau captures the southern stair block façade — the BAUHAUS lettering extruded vertically down its side — and is available in two sizes. Displayed alongside the entrance model, the two pieces together give a sense of the building's very different faces and its refusal of any single dominant elevation.

 

Learn more about the Bauhaus Dessau

 

For a detailed exploration of the building's architecture, history, and influence on modernism, see our in-depth guide:

Bauhaus Dessau Architecture: Walter Gropius and the Building that Defined Modernism