Bauhaus Inspiration

At first we had planned many instructions and challenges. We quickly realised that the Grimm’s material alone was far more powerful than any activity we had designed.

Little by little the instructions focused on living together, caring for the material and tidying up, and no longer on the discovery time itself. We let go and took an observing stance: listening, playing with the children, welcoming their words and stories without judgement.

Children know what they are doing: they are playing. They reveal themselves simply by being themselves. There is nothing to teach here; their creativity is awake, along with perseverance, trial and error, concentration, dialogue, cooperation, verbalisation and, above all, pleasure.

“The aim is that there is no aim”: freedom is born from there, a virtuous circle.

Where does the power of this material come from? How can children be so certain of their approach without instructions? What makes them so proud of their constructions? Why are their creations always aesthetically striking?

Colour is a decisive element. Lines and shapes guide the intention to build upwards or flat, side by side or stacked, as if the power of play itself gave rise to the wish to express an inner world.

The link with the De Stijl and Bauhaus movements soon became clear. The guide draws a parallel between Grimm’s toys and the Bauhaus school: its workshops, its revolutionary organisation, its new pedagogies, its concepts, its architecture and furniture, and the emblematic works of its teachers.

It also looks at Alma Siedhoff Buscher, Bauhaus artist and designer and a cornerstone of the world of play, whose 1923 Schiffbauspiel leads straight to today’s construction toys.

The guide proposes an artistic learning situation built around phases and actions: imagine, perceive, interpret, create, then review, share, present and argue.

It ends with six inspiring workshops, to be adapted at home, at school, in after school activities or in therapy settings.