a strange link

I’ve become so obsessed with the concept of sustainable living that I’ve even managed to sniff out solutions to the global environmental problems in the principles of the Bauhaus style movement. Call me crazy, but while I was writing an essay on Bauhaus style recently, I suddenly saw solutions to global crisis! This is my unexpected find:
The Bauhaus movement was spurred on by a need to function, create and produce in ways which were economically proficient. Emphasis was placed on the functional, the appropriate, the efficient and the necessary. Minimal resources were used to satisfy a multitude of needs and desires. There was no waste. There was no squandering. There was no excess. Are there not principles here that we should be applying to contemporary life? The presiding principles of practicality and functionality, which the Bauhaus movement held up in exultation, have been smothered by consumerism and incomprehensible waste. Should we not be reverting to a more needs-based mode of consumption? Perhaps the Bauhaus movement can be blamed in part for its role in reconciling mass production with the individual artist’s spirited works. It just became too easy to overproduce once the mechanics to do so had been set in place by Gropius and his prodigies. Engaging in such debate is a great demonstration of the potential pertinence an age old design movement may still have in contemporary life. Yes, Bauhaus style is still evident in design, architecture, art and typography – but is it more than just that? Has the Bauhaus instilled the merits of mass production to the extent that we are all doomed to die wasting?

Or are its principles the very ones that we should be following to dig ourselves from the rubbish dump that has become our earth? The inherent contradiction in the Bauhaus principles is possibly amusing, but may be a valid way for us to live more sustainably in a society overrun with messages of over consumption.

What do you think?