Founded in 1919 in Weimar Germany amidst unparalleled economic and political chaos, the Bauhaus design school broke down barriers between fine arts, crafts and industry. British art historian Whitford here gathers Bauhaus participants' diaries, letters, manifestos and essays from journals, exhibition catalogues and newspapers, including much material never before translated into English. Through writings by Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Gunta Stolzl, Mies van der Rohe, Anni Alberts, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and others, we witness the clashes of personality and of ideas that fueled the institute's creative ferment and follow its continual struggle for survival, which ended with the Berlin branch shut down by the Gestapo in 1933. More than 230 illustrations re-create the Bauhaus's innovations in painting, architecture, lithographs, typography, textiles, kinetic sculpture, metalware, furniture, pottery and costume design.