Bauhaus

Schocken was an ardent connoisseur of design and architecture. He took special interest in the career of Walter Gropius, founder and first director of the Bauhaus School of Design. In 1926, Schocken traveled to Dessau, to visit the school and appreciate firsthand the hub of the Bauhaus revolution. Hosted by Gropius, Schocken met the artists Wassily Kandinsky and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and the architect-designer Marcel Breuer, inventor of the tubular steel chair.

Gropius and his colleagues introduced Schocken to a plethora of innovations: new uses of materials and colors, bold architectural ideas, and innovations in graphic design. Always keen on simplicity and functionality, Schocken hired some of the Bauhaus artists, in particular Moholy-Nagy, to design advertisements, signs, brochures, and price tags for the Schocken chain.

The Bauhaus School was shut down by the Nazis in 1933. Kandinsky and Moholy-Nagy fled Germany and relocated in Paris and Chicago, respectively. Gropius and Breuer relocated in Boston, where they continued their careers as prominent architects and professors at Harvard University’s School of Design.