The Bauhaus - the most innovative art school of the modern age - was founded in Weimar. Today - 100 years later - the Bauhaus University Weimar is one of the hotspots of German and European universities where art, design and architecture are taught.

The Workshop and Exhibition Series Manifest of Practice presents contemporary positions from the Faculty of Art and Design and exemplifies the current dialogue between artistic and design disciplines at the university and beyond. This "Campus of Ideas" represents a model for international and interdisciplinary cooperation in the 21st century.

reset all visible, tangible, audible!

The international workshop series was started in the historic persian city of Isfahan, Iran, with six simultaneous five-day workshop formats and a total of 100+ participants. The workshop results were presented on-location in a two+ week exhibition.

Manifest of Practice Isfahan
13.– 18.05.2019
Safavi House, Beside of 31 Alley,
Khaqani Street, Isfahan, Iran

Manifest of Practice – International Workshop 1
Forming Bubbles – Generative Structures from Soap-Bubbles & Membrane Envelopes

Vertr. Prof. Kristian Gohlke
Christina Much, M.Sc. Architecture

The Workshop – inspired by the experimental work of German architect Frei Otto – explores how this principle can be leveraged to generate self-optimising membranes for lightweight constructions, complex forms and structures. Soap-films, -bubbles and textile-membranes will be used as the basic prototyping materials to develop new aesthetic perspectives for design, architecture and art.

The shape of most biological organisms emerges from a simple but essential principle: stretch-flexible membrane-structures are stabilized and (de-)formed by fluidic pressure differences across two sides
of a membrane. Such ‘fluidic membrane-envelopes’ (Frei Otto, 1976) can be regarded as the
fundamental structural elements of the living nature. Even the most complex shapes can be derived from this simple principle by stacking, clustering and combining individual membrane cells into larger superstructures, or combining them with additional elements such as tendons and external constraints.

Bauhaus 100 – Manifest of Practice, Team Isfahan:

Vertr. Prof. Kristian Gohlke
Christina Much, M.Sc. Architecture
Adrian Palko, Dipl. Designer
René Schwolow, Dipl. Designer
Anne Marx, BFA
Susann Paduch, MFA

Concept & Coordination:

Executive Producers & Curatorial Lead: Kristian Gohlke & Adrian Palko
Concept & Funding: Markus Weisbeck & Wolfgang Sattler
Exhibition Design: René Schwolow & Peter Schwartz
Communication: Sophia Gräfe
Administration: Elke Beilfuß