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DESIGN FOR ALL Contributors

Bradley W. Johnson The Bauhaus school of modern design, whose 100th anniversary is Steven K. Dickens, AIA, LEED AP
now upon us, might seem at first to have little direct meaning for
(“Breath of Fresh Air” and “Goal!”),
our lives today. But if you own a smart phone or have shopped for
is senior associate with Eric Colbert
furniture or housewares at a store like IKEA, then your life has been
& Associates.
affected by the legacy and continued influence of the Bauhaus.
Founded in Germany by architect Walter Gropius, the
Peter James, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Bauhaus movement melded art—a field previously associated
(“A Seat at the Table”), is an associate
with the upper classes—with craft and mass production, with the
aim of producing functional, beautifully simple, and affordable with Perkins Eastman DC.
designs for society as a whole. The Bauhaus’s key message was
that art and design—including architecture—are for all. Deane Madsen, Assoc. AIA
Washington’s leading example of Bauhaus-influenced civic architecture—the (“Responding to a Growing Need”), is
Martin Luther King, Jr., Public Library—was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a writer and architectural photographer
who had been the last director of the Bauhaus before it was shut down by the Nazis based in Washington, DC, and founder
in 1933. When the library opened in 1972, it was a controversial addition to the city’s of the informal architectural appreciation
otherwise neoclassical stock of public buildings. The library’s current renovation,
society Brutalist DC.
which is being overseen by Washington-based OTJ Architects as executive architects
and the Dutch firm Mecanoo as consulting design architects, will provide much-needed
G. Martin Moeller, Jr., Assoc. AIA
upgrades to the building’s interior and add a new terrace level on top.
(“Freshened Fish Market” and
“Designing for Dignity”), is an
Welcome! independent curator and writer,
as well as senior curator at the
National Building Museum. He is
the editor of ARCHITECTUREDC.

As noted elsewhere in this issue, public libraries are a quintessential expression Ronald O’Rourke (“The (Quiet) Life
of American democracy—buildings that, by design, are there for the betterment of all
of the Neighborhood” and “A Church
individually and as members of a democratic society. The significant investment that the
Leans In to the City”) is a regular
city is making in renovating the MLK library building and in constructing or renovating
contributor to ARCHITECTUREDC. His
branch libraries in other parts of town is a vote of confidence in that democratic tradition—
father, Jack O’Rourke, was an architect in
a gift we give to ourselves, and to our children. As with the Bauhaus movement, the
vision animating this effort is that these buildings are there for all of us. San Francisco for more than four decades.
From its inception, this magazine has pursued a similar vision. ARCHITECTUREDC
could easily have been a vehicle for architects to talk to one another. A number of the
magazines published by local chapters of the AIA are professional publications of that kind.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but rather than taking that route, ARCHITECTUREDC
was instead conceived as a vehicle for connecting the public at large to architects and
architecture. The magazine’s mission is to help make the craft of architecture more legible
and understandable for everyone. The civic and institutional projects reviewed in this
issue have a particular connection to that mission, because they are buildings that are
designed for, and can be accessed by, the public at large.
To quote William Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” And so it
is with the Bauhaus. The school that gave rise to the movement was disbanded in 1933,
but its influence lives on all around us. You experience it every time you type out a
text message on your smart phone, use a lever-style door handle to enter a room, or
prepare your dinner with a stainless-steel bowl. Today, 100 years after its founding, the
Bauhaus as a formal organization is gone. But it’s not dead, and it’s not even past. Its
message is with us now.
We hope you enjoy this issue’s focus on civic and institutional buildings—structures
that are meant for us all. As always, we love to hear from you, so please feel free to
contact me with your comments.

Mary Fitch, AICP, Hon. AIA
Publisher
mfitch@aiadc.com
@marycfitch

WELCOME 5