Bauhaus bus challenges the legacy of western design

To mark the Bauhaus’ 100th anniversary, a motorized replica of the Dessau Bauhaus building will be travelling from Berlin to Hong Kong to divulge new ways of teaching design and learning. Using the familiar imagery of the famous German design school, Savvy Contemporary questions the dictat of western design teaching, raising questions around heritage, property, urbanity, conviviality, visibilities and invisibilities.

“We recognize the Bauhaus not only as a solution, but also as a problem,” says the collective.

“The Bauhaus aimed to educate a new generation of designers, makers and thinkers that would face the challenges of their ‘now’. We will create a school of design that has what it takes to tackle the challenges of our ‘now’.” The moving bus hides a 15 sqm apartment open to the public where to host debates, workshops and exhibitions.

The moving truck is part of the Spinning Triangles long term project curated by design curator Elsa Westreicher and founder Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, dedicated to the Bauhaus centenary celebrations with chapters in Dessau, Kinhasa, Berlin and Hong Kong. Savvy Contemporary, whose mission is to “create spaces for epistemological diversity and articulate knowledges as a means of decolonising the singularity of knowledge”. It tries to revive different perspectives on knowledge, celebrating epistemic systems from Africa and the African diaspora, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, but also Europe and North America through alternative means such as body, music, storytelling, food/eating and performativity as for instance dance, theatre, performing and performance art and so on.

“These are our chosen means to swim against the Enlightenment conception of reason,” it states.