Mini Version of the Bauhaus School Will Tour the World

In celebration of the Bauhaus school’s centenary, a bus designed to look like a miniature model of the German landmark will travel the world.

Designed by Berlin-based architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel, the bus, called Wohnmaschine, features the same gridded glass walls that encase the original structure in Dessau, in addition to the iconic lettering and a tiny version of the bright red door. Inside the bus is an exhibition space and a reading room lined with books about the history of Bauhaus movement.

The ten-month tour begins in Dessau and will then travel to Berlin before heading overseas to Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and, lastly, Hong Kong. Design collective Savvy Contemporary will host a series of talks and workshops that attempt to “unlearn” Eurocentric attitudes about modernity and to develop a more global interpretation of the school’s teachings.

The bus even features the famous lettering down the side. Photo: Savvy Collective

“This school will not be developed by the geopolitical west, but through the accelerated movement between deeply interwoven places,” Savvy Contemporary told Dezeen. “Design has power. It creates our environments, our interactions, our being in the world. For too long, practices and narratives from the global south have been kept at the periphery of the design discourse, been ignored altogether, or appropriated.”

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The school was conceived by its founding director, Walter Gropius, and built in 1919. It was in operation only until 1923, when the rise of the Nazis caused its closure. Today, part of the building is used as a research center for design, while the other part is used as a hotel. A museum dedicated to the Bauhaus is set to open on the Dessau campus later this year.

The Wohnmaschine bus is currently open to the public in Dessau, and Savvy Contemporary has four workshops planned before traveling to Berlin on January 24.