The Bauhaus culture war: 2026 Edition

On August 20, the German politician and Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer drew up a new Bauhaus Manifesto. He signed it together with 13 other representatives of various German institutions ranging from culture, crafts, design, and architecture to church. Consisting of six bullet points, it starts with the simple sentence “We are proud of the Bauhaus” and concludes with “We reject anti-cultural nationalism.”

This manifesto, of course, is a clear nod to the “Bauhaus Manifesto” by Walter Gropius (read more about it in our detailed post about design manifestos here). Ironically, Gropius’s text was only dubbed “manifesto” in hindsight: Originally titled “Programme of the Bauhaus,” it was published as a brochure to attract new students. After all, manifestos have always been marketing tools. So why exactly does the conservative Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer feel the need to draft a “new” Bauhaus Manifesto in this day and age? And more importantly: What is it promoting?

Wolfram Weimer was appointed Minister of State for Culture and Media by Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor and chairman of the CDU, Germany’s main conservative party. So far, Weimer has become known for what could be called a series of ragebait controversies, mainly causing outrage among Germany’s left and literary scene. For example, he blocked three left-wing bookshops from receiving the German Bookshop Prize after his office obtained undisclosed “information of relevance” from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, even though an independent jury had already selected them. He also banned gender-sensitive language in his ministry while, at the same time, accusing the left of wanting to control language. This being said, it is hard for me to imagine Weimer at the forefront of fighting for “Bauhaus values.”

While the Bauhaus in Germany today is mainly represented by three (!) independent cultural institutions, the Bauhaus Stiftung Dessau, the Bauhaus-Museum Weimar and the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, the actual and historic Bauhaus stood for political values much more clearly than it does today. Not through a unified or official political agenda, but through its association with modern, progressive, experimental, and at times partly explicitly social ideas, making it a target for increasing political pressure from the right.

In Weimar, its founding city, conservative and right-wing parties drastically cut its funding, eventually forcing the school to leave the city. In Dessau, the city council voted, at the NSDAP’s request, to close the Bauhaus in 1932, with the crucial support of conservative and bourgeois representatives who were not part of the NSDAP faction.

However, the Bauhaus, and more specifically its first director, Walter Gropius, explicitly sought to keep the school free from “party politics.” In 1924, the Bauhaus masters even described their work as “consistently apolitical cultural work.” Which illustrates an interesting point: Progress and free creativity seem, per se, enemies of right-wing ideology, no matter how they are labeled.

But why is Weimer (the politician, not the city) putting out a new Bauhaus manifesto in 2026? An obvious reason could be: In Saxony-Anhalt, where the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau today takes care of a significant part of the historic Bauhaus legacy, the AfD, a party classified by the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution as confirmed right-wing extremist, could become the strongest party in the upcoming state election for the first time. In its current election program, the party argues that the Bauhaus never was, and therefore still isn’t, nationalist enough. More precisely, it criticizes the Bauhaus for having avoided any sign of “national rootedness” and proposes replacing Saxony-Anhalt’s #moderndenken (“think modern”) campaign with #deutschdenken (“think German”). To sum it up: The party doesn’t want the world to be interested in Saxony-Anhalt, or Germany at large, because of its openness or innovation. Instead, it wants its residents to derive pride primarily from a national identity, from being German (whatever that means).

A more optimistic interpretation could be: Weimer is genuinely interested in forming a broad and liberal alliance in order to protect cultural institutions of historic relevance from potential pressure by an extremist party. Maybe he is aware of the fact that the historic Bauhaus could only be forced to leave two cities because conservatives helped right-wing extremists do so. Maybe he, as a conservative today, feels genuinely responsible for not letting this happen again. Maybe.

Finally, let’s not forget what the Bauhaus really stands for, if not for a specific political framework. Let’s leave the party categories and manifesto marketing phrases behind for a moment and think about what makes the Bauhaus, both as a projection and a historical fact, still so attractive to us. I think it is a mix of freedom, creativity, and beauty. Classic aesthetic categories, if you will. But not only that. It also stands for community, living and working together while imagining the world, or maybe just everyday life, a little better than it is.

Today, I imagine the Bauhaus as a playground of creation, a space where fear is secondary and possibilities rule. Who do I want to be? How do I want to live? What do I desire? What is my purpose in life? Fundamental human questions like these can be asked without the fear of rigid frameworks boxing them in before answers are even formulated. A playground of joy that doesn’t thrive on simple answers, but on the complexity of life and lived experiences. Ideally with empathy and the willingness to understand the experiences of others as much as my own.

The Bauhaus was never entirely like this. But I think values like these are what we as humans are striving for: creation and self-expression, and a loving environment that helps us experience both. This, of course, is an ideal. An ideal for a space dedicated to curiosity about life and the fear of not knowing. And since the Bauhaus today is a projection from the past, this is my projection for a future Bauhaus.

• This text was originally published in our free newsletter “something is missing”.

• Design researcher Felix Kosok published a reel commenting on this manifesto too.

• Here you can read (and even sign) the 2026 Manifesto

• The exhibition Adler, Orden, Wahlurne. Redesigning Democratic Representation is currently on view at the Museum for Applied Arts in Frankfurt, Germany.

• Design Museum Gent reopens on October 3 after a four-year renovation and expansion, with Public Matter(s): Design and Democracy as its opening exhibition.