Bauhaus-Werkstatt-Museum Dornburg
About This Site
The Bauhaus-Werkstatt-Museum Dornburg occupies the former stable building where the Bauhaus ran its only ceramics workshop outside Weimar from 1920, and is the last Bauhaus workshop anywhere still standing on its original working site.
A pottery instead of a school building, 1920
Walter Gropius appointed the sculptor Gerhard Marcks as the workshop's form master and the local potter Max Krehan as its craft master, and set it up in Dornburg rather than Weimar: a stable building here stood empty and ready to convert into living and working space, twenty-five kilometres from the school itself.[1] Students learned the trade at a working potter's wheel, from someone who lived by it — the most literal version of the Bauhaus promise that craft and design would be taught together.
What is here now
The building holds the last workshop of the Bauhaus still preserved in situ, with its original working character and a collection of ceramics, tools and objects from the Bauhaus years.[1] A modern extension sets the Bauhaus potters alongside the other makers who worked here after them, from Krehan to Körting.
Questions visitors ask
- What is the Bauhaus-Werkstatt-Museum Dornburg?
- The Bauhaus-Werkstatt-Museum Dornburg occupies the former stable building where the Bauhaus ran its only ceramics workshop outside Weimar from 1920, and is the last Bauhaus workshop anywhere still standing on its original working site.
- Why was the Bauhaus's ceramics workshop in Dornburg rather than Weimar?
- Walter Gropius appointed Gerhard Marcks as the workshop's form master and the local potter Max Krehan as its craft master, and a stable building in Dornburg stood empty and ready to convert into living and working space, twenty-five kilometres from the school itself.
- Can I visit the Bauhaus-Werkstatt-Museum Dornburg?
- Yes. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 16:00 from November to March and 10:00 to 17:00 from April to October, with admission of €6.00 full price, €4.00 reduced, or €10.00 combined with the Dornburg castles and the Bürgel ceramics museum.
Sources
- Bauhaus-Werkstatt — Bauhaus-Werkstatt-Museum Dornburg, retrieved 30 August 2026
Connected Historical Figures
sculptor • Bauhaus master • head of the ceramic workshop
Gropius appointed him the workshop's form master in 1920, and this stable building is the one he ran it from — not the Weimar school's own buildings.
Visit Information
€6.00 full price; €4.00 reduced; €10.00 combined with the Dornburg castles and the Bürgel ceramics museum
Nov–Mar: Tue–Sun 10:00–16:00; Apr–Oct: Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00
Max-Krehan-Straße 1, 07774 Dornburg-Camburg
In Weimar's history
Historical periods
The school's only ceramics workshop, and the only one it ran outside Weimar entirely.
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.