Henry van de Velde Forms the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts

Deeply influenced by William Morris’s Arts and Crafts philosophy, Belgian architect and designer Henry van de Velde combined the Arts and Crafts School and the Academy of Fine Arts of Weimar to form the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts. Van de Velde would be rather short-lived in his tenure due to the approaching WWI. The impact of the school on human history, however, was profound. The school sought a harmonious solution to the problems posed at all levels of a rapidly modernizing life, specifically the machine-artisan-art triad. The school also attempted to articulate a socially committed, scientific aesthetic. Walter Gropius would later succeed van de Velde who was forced to resign in 1915, one year into WWI, due to his Belgian heritage. In 1919, the school, under Gropius, would become the Bauhaus.