The Bauhaus master house building designed by architect Walter Gropius in 1925, Dessau, Germany.

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Meisterhäuser

Top choice in Central Germany


You’ll find the four surviving Meisterhäuser – Gropiushaus, Haus Feininger, Haus Muche/Schlemmer and Haus Kandinsky/Klee – on leafy Ebertallee, a 15-minute walk west of the Hauptbahnhof. The leading lights of the Bauhaus movement lived together as neighbours in these white cubist structures that exemplify the Bauhaus aim of ‘design for living’ in a modern industrial world. The ticket price grants entry into all four buildings.

Originally there was a stand-alone home for Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, plus three duplexes, each half of which provided a live/work space for a senior staff member and his family. Gropius’ home was destroyed in WWII, along with one half of the neighbouring duplex (at the time of research both Gropius’ home and the duplex were being reconstructed using original plans). In the febrile environment of the 1920s, you could sit at home here with the Kandinskys, on furniture donated by Marcel Breuer, and with the possibility that Paul Klee or László Moholy-Nagy might drop by for tea.