Adolf Meyer
Biography
Behind the Bauhaus's only building in Weimar stands the man who actually ran the site: Gropius's office chief, teacher of technical drawing, and co-director of the works at Am Horn.
Gropius's office, from 1910
Born at Mechernich in the Eifel in 1881, Meyer was chief of Gropius's architectural office from 1910 to 1914 — the years of the Fagus factory of 1910 and the Werkbund exhibition buildings in Cologne in 1914, two of the buildings by which German architecture before the First World War is usually introduced. He came to Weimar in 1919 with the man he had drawn them with.
What he did at the school
From 1919 to 1925 he was at the Bauhaus as an assistant and extraordinary master for architecture, ran Gropius's private building office there, and from 1920 to 1925 taught technical drawing and construction — the practical half of an education whose reputation rests on its ideas. He co-directed the construction of the Haus Am Horn in 1923 and edited the book about it, Ein Versuchshaus, in 1924.
Out with the school
He left the Bauhaus on 1 April 1925, the day the Weimar school closed, worked for a time as a freelance architect in the city, and in 1926 became municipal building director in Frankfurt am Main. He died in 1929 at Baltrum, aged forty-eight.
Notable Works & Achievements
Fagus factory (1910, with Gropius)
the Werkbund exhibition buildings, Cologne (1914)
Haus Am Horn, Weimar (1923, works direction)
Ein Versuchshaus (1924, editor)
Connected Places in Weimar
Am Horn 61, 99425 Weimar
He co-directed the construction of the model house and edited the 1924 book about it.
Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 8, 99423 Weimar
He taught technical drawing and construction in the school's buildings and ran Gropius's building office there.
Historical Context
At the school from its founding year to the day the Weimar chapter closed.
The Bauhaus was founded in Weimar in 1919 and voted out by 1925 — time enough to change what a design school is, and not enough for the town that made it to keep it.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
1881
1929
German
In Weimar's history
In Weimar's history
The weeks in which the Bauhaus put itself in front of the public for the first time, in three buildings and one house it had to build first.
The house at the centre of the exhibition was built under his direction.