Reithaus
About This Site
A riding house in the ducal park where, for two years, the Bauhaus taught the course every one of its students had to pass.
Where the preliminary course was held, 1923–1925
The city's register of Bauhaus sites records that the school used rooms here from 1923 to 1925 for the teaching of the preliminary course. That is the whole of its Bauhaus history and it is not a small thing: the Vorkurs was the school's one universal experience, and for its last two Weimar years it happened in a converted riding house in a landscape park rather than in the studio building.
Whose course it was by then, 1923–1925
The dates matter for who was teaching. Johannes Itten, who built the course, left in March 1923; László Moholy-Nagy was called in the same month and led the preliminary course until the school moved to Dessau in 1925. The Reithaus therefore holds the years in which the Bauhaus's first-year teaching turned from Itten's exercises towards Moholy-Nagy's.
In use, and still a hall
The building belongs to the European Youth Education and Meeting Centre today, which describes the Reithaus as its main hall and puts it in the park in immediate proximity to the Stadtschloss and the Duchess Anna Amalia Library. It takes up to 400 people. A room where the Bauhaus taught its beginners is a working conference hall in a political education institution — a continuity the city does not advertise and probably should.
Questions visitors ask
- What is the Reithaus's Bauhaus history?
- The school used rooms here from 1923 to 1925 for the preliminary course — the Vorkurs, the one universal experience every student had to pass, taught here in a converted riding house rather than in the studio building for the school's last two Weimar years.
- Who taught here?
- László Moholy-Nagy, who was called to the school in March 1923 — the same month Johannes Itten, who had built the course, left — and led the preliminary course here until the school moved to Dessau in 1925.
- What is the building used for today?
- It belongs to the European Youth Education and Meeting Centre, which describes it as its main hall, taking up to 400 people.
Connected Historical Figures
artist • photographer • Bauhaus master
He led the preliminary course through the years the school taught it in these rooms.
Visit Information
Park an der Ilm, 99423 Weimar
In Weimar's history
Historical periods
One of the city's Bauhaus sites: the preliminary course was taught here from 1923 to 1925.
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.