Edmonton and the Bauhaus

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Edmonton and the Bauhaus, 2019

In celebration of the Bauhaus School’s unparalleled and enduring impact, Harcourt House Artist Run Centre organizes and presents the exhibition “Edmonton and the Bauhaus” to commemorate this landmark birthday during the 2019 Design Week at Harcourt House and the 2019 Alberta Culture Days.

Bauhaus had a decisive influence on international Modernism and is regarded as one of the most important educational institutions of the 20th century. The German school represented the quintessence of modernity and the functionalist ideal. Its impulses are still at work in today architecture, industrial design, and in the curricula at post-secondary visual arts schools around the globe. 

The Bauhaus and the International Style principles in design played a critical role in the post-World War II architecture in Edmonton.  Curated by Jacek Malec, Harcourt’s Executive Director, “Edmonton and the Bauhaus” provides a tangible link to Bauhaus’s key principles in Modernist architectural design through the examination of four Bauhaus-influenced architectural projects in Edmonton designed and built in the 1950’s and 1960’s by Rule Wynn and Rule Architects, and Dennis & Freda O’Connor Architects, two of Edmonton’s avant-garde architectural firms. 

Drawn from the impressive collections of the Canadian Architectural Archives at the University of Calgary and the Edmonton-based Maltby & Prins Architects (successors of Dennis & Freda O’Connor Architects), the exhibition showcases rarely seen architectural drawings, photographs and other archival material of these Edmonton’s iconic buildings, and the examples of the iconic furniture designs by the architects and designers associated with the Bauhaus School and the International Style, including: Gerrit Rietveld, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Eileen Grey, and Le Corbusier. 

The official opening of the exhibition “Edmonton and the Bauhaus”  will be taking place on Friday, September 20, 2019 from 7 pm to 10 pm. Many of the representatives from architectural and design communities will be in attendance. The Curator’s Remarks by Jacek Malec will take place at 7:30 pm. A wine & cheese reception (cash bar) will follow the official opening. Admission is FREE.