Summary
The groundbreaking Bauhaus school of art and design was founded in Germany in 1919. It would go on to have a huge impact on architecture and design around the world, with the clean lines and minimalist elegance of its distinctive modernist aesthetic influencing everything from skyscrapers to smartphones.
In this interview from the BBC archive, Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius explains his goals for the school - and the challenges involved in setting it up.
(Photo: View of one of the wings of the Bauhaus building in Dessau, taken on 30 January 2019. Credit: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds just before this |
| 0:30.3 | BBC podcast gets underway here's something you may not know. |
| 0:34.4 | My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.3 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely |
| 0:46.0 | engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:54.2 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories. |
| 0:57.6 | And that's just a few examples. |
| 0:59.4 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 1:10.0 | Hi, thanks for downloading Witness History from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:14.0 | I'm Lucy Burns, and today I'm taking you back a hundred years |
| 1:18.0 | to the launch of a radical art school which would have a huge impact on 20th century architecture and design, the Bau House. |
| 1:25.0 | My idea was always we have to do something together. |
| 1:31.0 | We have to destroy the separations between painting and sculpture |
| 1:35.8 | and architecture and design and so on. It is all one. |
| 1:39.4 | This is Walter Gropius, a German architect with a vision for a new kind of creativity. He spoke to the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.