Haunted Bauhaus

In Haunted Bauhaus, we come to understand Bauhaus design as more than the machine aesthetic of its celebrated products... Otto's beautifully designed, lucidly written, and well-illustrated book restores the messiness of people, bodies, lives, and passions to the Bauhaus narrative, casting its serene geometries in a new light. -Barbara McCloskey, Journal of Design History Certainly it is not incorrect to discuss the Bauhaus as a model of rational modernism. Real-estate agents and antique dealers have long adopted the name of the school thus, as a pleasant catchphrase. But Otto pointedly reveals that which almost inevitably must be omitted from such a perspective: the approach of the Weimar- and then Dessau-based design school was more occult, spiritual, queer, and politically radical than can be expressed by the general formula, Bauhaus style. -Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Example after example, [Elizabeth] Otto expands our view of a legendary institution, finally freeing it from the limiting confines of a tired old narrative. It's about time, she convinces us, to widen and refocus the scope of scholarly inquiry into the Bauhaus in order to truly understand its contemporary significance. -The Brooklyn Rail Otto shows us that the dominant Bauhaus narrative erased valuable stories. One realizes that there cannot be one complete account of the non-compliant lives that passed through its doors. Yet, by tying these hidden and diverse stories together, the book provides a necessary starting point for future investigations into our marginalized pasts. -Paprika! The Yale Architecture Newspaper Haunted Bauhaus is as eye-opening as it is door-opening... Haunted by utopian aspirations and its own history, the Bauhaus helped remake (and unmake) the world in ways its founders could never have anticipated. -J. Hoberman, Artforum