Material Everyone is talented.

[…] Every-
one is equipped by nature to

Literacy receive and to assimilate sensory

experiences. Everyone is sensi-
tive to tones and colors, everyone
has a sure ‘touch’ and space
reactions, and so on. This means
by that everyone by nature is able
to participate in all the pleasures
Ann-Sophie of sensory experience, that any
healthy man can become a musi-
Lehmann cian, painter, sculptor, or archi-
tect, just as when he speaks, he
is ‘a speaker.’ That is, he can
give form to his reactions in any
material.

László Moholy-Nagy
20
In: Bauhaus Zeitschrift Nr. 9 "Substance" (2017): 20-27.
http://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/de/stiftung/publikationen/zeitschrift-bauhaus-9.html
(1929)
 Ann-Sophie ‘Everyone is talented […] and can
Lehmann give form to his reactions in any
material.’ 1 This quote summa-
is Chair of Modern rizes the core of László Moholy-
and Contemporary Nagy’s seminal book Von Mate-
Art at the University rial zu Architektur. Published
of Groningen, the in 1929 in the Bauhaus series
Netherlands. In her and translated with revisions into
research she devel- English as The New Vision a
ops a process-based couple of years later, the book is
approach to art based on five years of teaching
and visual material the Bauhaus Vorkurs (preliminary
culture and includes course), a format that Johannes
old and new media, Itten had developed in order to
ranging from oil provide the students who entered
paint and clay to the school from diverse cultural
aniline dyes and soft- and societal backgrounds and
ware. Together with experiences, with a common
Imke Volkers she ground. The prefix ‘vor’ (pre-)
curated the exhibition designated a pre-discursive, pre-
Object Lessons. skilled position, in which expert
The History of Mate- language and craft-related knowl-
rial Education in edge did not yet matter. The
8 Chapters at the course created a unifying experi-
Werkbund Archive – ence through the exploration
Museum of Things of materials. The interaction
in Berlin in 2016, with a wide variety of materials—
which then went on wood, glass, metal, wool, paper,
to be shown at the etc.—enabled students indeed
Gewerbemuseum to ‘form experience in any mate-
Winterthur in 2017. rial’ and resulted in countless
Materialstudien (material studies),
only a couple of which survived. 2
1)
In Moholy-Nagy’s text, the micro-
Object Lesson Box, level of pedagogy (the sensory
a box from the human-material interaction)
Werkbund Archive – effortlessly dovetails with a
Museum of Things macro-level of societal critique
with more than a (the material world at large): he
hundred materials, condemns the established edu-
which dates back cational system that focuses on
to the Pestalozzi specialized skills, thereby gener-
educator Elizabeth ating a mass of experts, each
Mayo, ca. 1850 (?). one a fragmented human being
(‘der sektorhafte mensch’). The
holistic Vorkurs approach, on
the other hand, would further an
education and thus a society in
which science, art, economy,
technology and pedagogy func-
tion as interconnected elements,
enabling an ‘organic system
of production whose focal point
is man, not profit’. 3
Moholy-Nagy’s manifesto-like
style reads like a blueprint for
contemporary discourses on
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22
Zeitschrift Nr. 9 "Substance" (2017): 20-27.
sustainability and their inherent
http://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/de/stiftung/publikationen/zeitschrift-bauhaus-9.html
intentions to change the world 1)
for the better. This ideal (prone
to abduction by commercial inter-
ests) often resurfaces when
materials are at stake. Materials,
of course, are always at stake,
because everything in and around
us is material. But there are
certain periods in history when
materials seem to gain a more
prominent presence and visibility
and instead of only one ‘material
turn’ today, at least two earlier
turns can be pointed out. The
first happened after 1800, anti-
cipating industrialization and
its inherent development of syn-
thetic materials, which trans-
formed organic substances and
following from that entire modes
of production. Another turn
occurred around 1900, when
the full impact of industrialization
becomes palpable and materials
are perceived as powerful agents
that shape society, culture and
economy. The critical views issu-
ing from these debates informed
the Arts and Crafts movement,
the Deutscher Werkbund and,
eventually, the Bauhaus. Today,
globalized industrialization, the
brutal exploitation of the environ-
ment and the perceived demate-
rialization of the social through
the digital again instill a feeling
of being quite literally ‘out of
touch’ with the material world.
And just like before, this feeling
fuels a collective urge to grasp—
intellectually and physically—the
substances of which this world
and the things within it are made.
This urge is channeled into a
call for material literacy, a term
that denotes a broad sensitivity
to materials and their diverse
meanings. As such, material liter-
acy differs from the deep mate-
rial knowledge of craftspeople or
the highly specialized and exclu-
sive expertise of the materials
scientist, because it is potentially
inclusive and accessible. 4
Just like in Moholy-Nagy’s Von
Material zu Architektur, material
literacy is invested with the prom-
ise that concrete human-material
interaction can influence the 23
2) 2) larger workings of the material
world. Many contemporary advo-
Material knowledge cates of material literacy stress
as a basis for this relation. Hella Jongerius in
responsibly-minded her manifesto Beyond the New
design: base material for instance, draws a straight
for a carpet devel- line from knowing the ‘tactile and
oped as a cradle- expressive qualities of materials’
to-cradle design to becoming a socially aware and
for the airline KLM, responsible designer. 5 The Swiss
Hella Jongerius, Material-Archiv, which combines
2013. tactile material sample collections
at eight institutions (a museum,
3) universities, art academies and
art production sites) with an inter-
View of the material connected, publicly accessible
collection showcased database, also ties the material
in the Material knowledge provided through
Archive at the ETH each individual sample to large
Zurich, 2014. societal issues such as sustain-
ability and recycling. 6 Both these
4) initiatives emphasize the relation
between material and education.
Cubes made from Jongerius wrote her manifesto
diverse materials, together with the head of the MA
MaterialSTUDIO program at the Design Academy
of the HFT Stuttgart, Eindhoven, and five of the eight
2016. institutions that house a branch
3) 4) of the Material-Archiv are educa-
5) tional in nature. Increasingly,
therefore, material—long per-
Material study: ceived as merely a dull prerequi-
Scrap metal mounted site to the far more important
on a plywood sheet, notion of ‘form’—is returning to
Vincent Weber, creative curricula as a meaning-
1920 / 1921. ful agent. In the MaterialSTUDIO
for instance, an initiative of the
6) faculty of architecture and design
5) at the Stuttgart Technology
B-10 Space University of Applied Sciences,
Modulator, László first-year students take a material
Moholy-Nagy, of their choice and produce a
oil color and plexi- 125 cm3 cube from it, exploring
glass, 82.9 × 67.6 cm, its properties and the tools and
1942. procedures the material requires:
a cube poured from bitter choco-
late, a cube cut from the wood of
a white willow, a cube crocheted
from grey cotton thread, cubes
made of sponge, bronze, poly-
6) mer clay (FIMO), sugar, volcanic
rocks and many more materials. 7
In the process, the students learn
about the material’s origin, his-
tory, and cultural significance,
often drawing from their personal
relation with a certain material.
They ‘follow the materials,’ as
the anthropologist Tim Ingold
In: Bauhaus Zeitschrift Nr. 9 "Substance" (2017): 20-27. has called it, because materials,
http://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/de/stiftung/publikationen/zeitschrift-bauhaus-9.html
which have not yet congealed
into things are on the move. 8
They are harvested in one place,
refined in another, are changed
and exchanged, treated, worked,
combined with other materials
and therefore have the ability
to pull you along and across geo-
graphical, historical and cultural
borders, often to unexpected
and exciting places. And as the
students do not only engage
with their own material, but also
observe others follow their mate-
rials, they learn this lesson about
many substances and can ideally
apply it to all they will deal with
in the future. Just like the Materi-
alstudien of the Vorkurs, the
results—here standardized by
the 125 cm3 format—are beauti-
ful and unpretentious, but in
fact merely a trace left by the
actual goal of the exercise: to
become materially literate (mate-
rialgebildet). Just like after 1900,
materials provide the starting
point for creative expression,
connecting the very small to the
very large.
Also when the tradition upon
which the Vorkurs was built is
traced into the past, the single
material sample and the world
as a whole appear to be con-
nected through teaching. Moholy-
Nagy himself lists the pedagogi-
cal lineage of the Bauhaus:
Johann Pestalozzi, Friedrich
Fröbel, Maria Montessori and
others. All of these were well-
known reformers who based their
methods on the sensory interac-
tion of a child with its environ-
ment. Yet this list is more than
a general homage to reform
education, because the parallels
on the micro-level are striking.
In his pedagogical treatise Men-
schenerziehung (Education of
Man, 1826), for instance, Fröbel,
a pupil of Pestalozzi and godfa-
ther of basteln (crafting, tinkering,
and in Dutch actually called froe-
belen), describes how a child
develops its cognitive capacities
by collecting, sorting and com-
bining colorful, round stones,
delicate paper scraps, firm pieces
 Glossary of of wood, fine straws or miniscule to carry them out. She also Through pedagogy, materials 1 ) Moholy-Nagy, László,
The New Vision: From Material
M grains of sand; poetic descrip- developed the accompanying became critical substances that to Architecture, translated by
Daphne M. Hoffman, New York
Aluminium Artificial silk / a tions that conjure up the Material- Object Lesson Boxes that con- connected the elements of the 1930. Expanded and revised
viscose t studien of the Vorkurs students. 9 tained the very things and mate- Pestalozzian triad, head, heart edition as The New Vision
and Abstract of an Artist, New
In the 20th century, e Also the dialogical setup of rials to be used in teaching. and hand. York 1947, p. 17.
aluminium already Artificial silk is a fibre r Froebel’s lessons that prompt the The objects were to be passed 2 ) Siebenbrodt, Michael;
Schöbe, Lutz, Bauhaus
had a wide range of that is industrially i children to say which materials around, touched, smelled and Maybe an echo of this spiritual- 1919–1933, New York, Paris
applications in indus- produced from cellu- a and tools they would encounter even destroyed, if this enhanced critical dimension of materials 2009, p. 40.
3 ) Moholgy-Nagy, The
try. Due to its high lose. It was enthusi- l in a workshop, a manufacture, or the understanding of particular still informs today’s material liter- New Vision, p. 17. For a recent
discussion of his cognitive
strength-to-weight astically received in s a Materialhandlung (a shop sell- material properties, for instance acy. This would certainly explain pedagogy, see Stephanie
ratio, as an alloy the textile industry in | ing materials) remind the reader the inflammability of Indian rub- the historical robustness of the D’Alessandro, ‘Through the
Eye and the Hand: Constructing
aluminium played the early 20th cen- | of Moholy-Nagy encouraging the ber. A handful of these boxes notion that knowing about materi- Space, Constructing Vision
a particularly impor- tury. Its production | Bauhauslers to find their materi- survived the intensive teaching als potentially sensitizes humans in the Work of Moholy-Nagy,’
in Witkovksy, Matthew S. Eliel,
tant role in aircraft was associated with | als in all possible places. Even method and one has recently towards their environment, thus Carol S.; Vail, Karole P. B.
construction, for the desire to gain | Moholy-Nagy’s brief exercise in been acquired for the collection evoking change. It would also (eds.), Moholy-Nagy: Future
Present, New Haven and
example in the devel- independence from | material terminology resembles of the Werkbund Archive – explain this notion’s adaptability London 2016, p. 61–68.
4 ) Lehmann, Ann-Sophie,
opment of the first the import of raw A Froebel’s, who neatly lists the Museum of Things in Berlin. 11 to reform movements, regardless ‘Objektstunden. Vom Material-
all-metal airplane materials such as | manifold possibilities of material Another chapter in the rich his- of their religious, political or sci- wissen zur Materialbildung’,
in Kalthoff, Herbert; Cress,
by Hugo Junkers in wool or cotton. Artifi- | appearances: smooth, rough, tory of material education, the entific origins. Torsten; Röhl, Tobias (eds.),
Dessau in 1916. At cial silk is glossier | porous, solid, splintery, fuzzy, boxes underline the notion that Materialität. Herausforderungen
für die Sozial- und Kulturwissen-
the Bauhaus, the and cheaper than | jagged, shelly. Moholy-Nagy, a stone, a needle, a grain of Just like its ethical undercurrent schaften, Paderborn 2016,
material was utilised natural silk and as a | by the way, dismissed language rice, a piece of charcoal can cannot be tied to one particular p. 171–193.
5 ) www.beyondthenew.
in the manufacture result it became an | in favor of photography, a far provide indispensable informa- ideological flavor, material liter- jongeriuslab.com
6 ) www.materialarchiv.ch/
of tableware and important material in | more precise descriptor of mate- tion about the world. One of the acy should not be restricted to 7 ) www.facebook.com/Material
lamps. Some of the the 20th century. | rial, because ‘the exact, sharply objects, a little cube of wood a particular class of materials. STUDIO.HFTStuttgart
8 ) Tim Ingold, ‘The Textility of
lamp models were Artificial silk was also | defined photograph is the best that served to explain not only In contrast to the historical notion Making’, in Cambridge Journal
mass produced highly-prized in the | approach to a new education in the properties of this substance of Materialgerechtigkeit (truth to of Economics, 34 (2010),
p. 91–102.
and installed in the weaving workshop of | materials, since its concentration but also the principles of geome- materials), Moholy-Nagy explic- 9 ) Fröbel, Friedrich, Die
rooms of the Bau- the Bauhaus, where | of emphasis offers a quick, though try, is a proper precursor to the itly included industry and technol- Menschenerziehung, die Erzie-
hungs-, Unterrichts- und
haus building in it was used for the | an indirect approach to actual material exercises in Stuttgart. ogy in the holistic Bauhaus para- Lehrkunst, Leipzig 1826,
Faksimile, Bad Liebenstein,
Dessau. ‘At the time, production of both | experience with the material.’ 10 digm and for his own artistic work 2013, p. 21–23 and 88.
people thought alu- individual pieces and | It could be an uncomfortable indiscriminately mixed natural 10 ) Moholy-Nagy, The New
Vision, p. 26.
minium was deadly, fabrics available by | While Moholy-Nagy probably realization for contemporary with synthetic materials. In the 11 ) Lehmann, Ann-Sophie;
so we sometimes the yard. Lis Beyer- | shaped photography into a advocates of material literacy biographical statement Abstract Volkers, Imke, ‘Object Lessons.
Material begreifen in 8 Lek-
also spray-painted Vogler, for example, | unique Bauhaus tool for material that the concept of the macro in of an Artist (1944) he described tionen. Eine Ausstellung im
the lamp shades’, made a dress from | education, two English contem- the micro, the entire world poten- how he applied one of the most Museum der Dinge, Berlin‘,
Museumsjournal 6/2016,
recalled Marianne cotton and artificial | poraries of Fröbel developed a tially present in each tiny scrap traditional artistic media imagina- p. 54–55.
12 ) Keene, Melanie Judith,
Brandt later. Her affin- silk which was one of t unique object-based tool for this of material, was also informed ble—oil paint—to a thermoplastic Object Lessons: Sensory
ity for the material the few articles of o purpose. According to Pestaloz- by what is generally perceived support. Well aware that ‘it may Science Education 1830–1870.
Thesis (Ph.D.), University of
was also expressed clothing to be made | zian philosophy, children would as the very opposite of the mate- take decades until we really Cambridge, 2009.
in the Metal Party of at the Bauhaus. | develop ‘heart, head and hand’, rial, namely a religious dimen- know the material’, he scratched 13 ) Moholy-Nagy, The New
Vision, p. 84. For a recent
1929, for which she | i.e. ethical, cognitive and creative sion. From today’s viewpoint, the ‘hundreds and thousand of very technical analysis see Salant,
designed a head- | faculties when taught through clear, modernist division between fine lines into the plastic to be Johanna; Barten, Julie; Casadio,
Francesca; Kokkori, Maria;
dress and necklace | a direct interaction with their Darwin and God is easily pro- painted, hoping they would hold Pozzi, Federica; Stringari,
Carol; Sutherland, Ken; Walton,
made from alumin- | environment. In order to observe jected onto the 19th century, yet the pigment’. 13 The minute de- Marc, ‘László Moholy-Nagy’s
ium. | this method on-site, the English there were many intermediate scription of the making and pur- Painting Materials: From Sub-
stance to Light,’ in Leonardo
| minister and teacher Charles positions, which were critical of pose of these lines occurs only 50/3 (2017), p. 316–320.
| Mayo spent three years at Pesta- prior doctrine, without abandon- a few pages after stating that all
| lozzi’s school at Yverdon. How- ing belief as such. 12 Fröbel, the art is political. Serving as con-
| ever, he found the teaching prac- Mayos and reformers before nector between the familiar and
| tice rather chaotic. Back in Eng- and after them integrated a reli- the less well-known substance,
| land in 1822, Mayo developed gious into a scientific worldview the lines appear as ‘critical’,
| a systematic approach to object- through the medium of educa- maybe even political scratches:
| based learning together with his tion. In their ensuing pedagogical marks that reflect what materials
Asphalt flooring | sister Elizabeth. In 1830 Eliza- philosophies, materials come can do and why we need to know
Brick | beth Mayo published Lessons to act as prime mediators: they them intimately, be it in order to
| on Objects, a book containing afforded knowledge about the produce art, craft and design or
–> | one hundred lessons on every- world, a scientific perception to change the world.
page | day things and materials includ- of the environment, but also
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32 Z ing precise instructions on how awe of artifice and nature alike. x 27

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