Ästhetik der Einfachheit
Texte zur Geschichte eines Bauhaus-Programms
[Aesthetics of simplicity. Texts on the history of a Bauhaus program]

Simplicity plays a key role in modern art and architecture. Since the mid-twenties, representatives of the Bauhaus have developed a comprehensive program that has fundamentally changed the field of design. Its roots lie in antique rhetoric which centered around the demand for clarity. During the Enlightenment, the demand for simplicity became a central idea of literary and architectural theory. Simplicity can take on different forms depending on the object or art form, but it always happens to be the outcome of a creative process, with the result usually being its only perceptible element. Among its basic components are the limitation to the essential and the creation of clarity. So far, the history of the idea has not yet been presented in a comprehensive way. This anthology, which features almost 40 texts, contributes to this process by providing necessary building blocks from antiquity to the present. The volume begins with an introduction by the editor that delineates the idea’s historical contexts and concludes with fragments of and aphorisms on simplicity.