The major exhibition The Bauhaus #itsalldesign, conceived by the Vitra Design Museum and the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundeskunsthalle) presents a comprehensive overview of design at the Bauhaus for the first time. It encompasses a multiplicity of rare exhibits from the fields of design, architecture, art, film and photography. At the same time, it confronts the design of the Bauhaus with current debates and tendencies in design and with the works of contemporary designers, artists and architects. In this way, The Bauhaus #itsalldesign reveals the surprising present-day relevance of a legendary cultural institution.

Bauhaus artists and designers featured in the exhibition include Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky and many more. Contemporary participants include the works of Olaf Nicolai, Adrian Sauer, Enzo Mari, Lord Norman Foster, Opendesk, Konstantin Grcic, Hella Jongerius, Alberto Meda and Jerszy Seymour.

The mission of the Staatliches Bauhaus, founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, was to educate a new type of designer. Students at the Bauhaus were to acquire artisanal and artistic foundations as well as knowledge of the human psyche, the process of perception, ergonomics and technology – a profile that continues to define the occupation of the designer to this day. Yet the concept of design at the Bauhaus also gave designers a comprehensive creative mandate: they were not to merely fabricate objects of daily use, but should take an active role in the transformation of society. With this approach, the Bauhaus sketched out an all-encompassing understanding of design, one that today finds itself embraced with new vigour. With such keywords as social design, open design or »design thinking«, we now see renewed discussions of how designers can place their work in a larger context and help shape society. Viewed from this present-day perspective, the exhibition regards the Bauhaus as a complex, multi-dimensional «laboratory of modernism» with close links to current design tendencies.