Letter from a Bauhaus kolleg participant to the Bauhaus director, Prof. Oswalt

14/06/10

Dear Professor Oswalt,

I was one of the participants of Kolleg program 2009-2010. Due to the series of problems I decided to quit the program on the 26th of May and I felt the need to share some of these problems with you as I feel you should be aware of the reality in the Kolleg program.

- I personally came to this program with hope and reverence to the legacy created by Bauhaus over the years. I was very quickly disappointed on the quality of the course.
- As it is indicated in the agenda for Kolleg program, it's a post professional research program, but surprisingly participants are treated as UG students and advisors act more as teacher if not say as dictators to extend that among us Regina is called Bauhaus queen! Anything except "yes" to her lead you to the hell, she doesn't let participants or even the other advisors to express or do differently than her desire. This is unfortunate as there is absolutely no question of a collaborative relationship between the advisors and participants. Most of the decisions are enforced upon us and tolerance with contradictory dialogue is minimal. There is absolutely no levy towards adopting a different approach to the project. I expected much more from the advisors and is therefore disappointing

- The Kolleg program is an urban study program, but how is it that the principal advisors are
architects and socio-cultural specialists and not urban designers. This considering the fact that
majority of the participants is architects. Therefore the input taken from the so called expert
advisors does not hold much value. This is highly questionable.

- The pre-selection procedure for mid-term and final presentation is done only 3 days prior to the deadline. This is highly unprofessional. I was not here to present at the mid term because my
project was conceived as being too "controversial"'. I was simply stating facts and questioning
certain practices of the Open University. This actually goes against all that the legendary Bauhaus stood for – freedom of speech, revolutionary ideas and pushing the envelope.

- Even the critics invited to the midterm presentation were students of PhD, which is surprising as to how a "prestigious program" can invite PhD students as critics for a mid term presentation. Is it not better to get experts in the field to judge the participant's work? I wonder if this is done
deliberately so as to escape the inevitable question of incompetence put forward by an expert critic to the advisors, because of the poor quality of work produced by some of the participants, who surprisingly qualified to present at the mid term. This is beyond me.

- The first semester was consumed by the pointless intervention and not enough time was given to concentrate on our personal research. A lot of effort went into trying to make the intervention work even though we wanted to do it very differently. This fell on deaf ears as we were forced to play out a "role playing act" which fell flat as none of us had any acting experience. The intervention was a huge failure. We learnt nothing from it considering the amount of money and effort that was put into it. This was hugely disappointing as I we feel it would have been a lot more productive if I had spent more time on my research and learnt something new in the process.

- Sometimes the course seems amateurish when presentations made by the advisors are actually repeated in the second semester with different headings. It feels like they are running through the motions. This creates an extremely poor environment in the studio as motivation to produce good work continues to dip as the course progresses.

- I fail to understand as to how Stefan continues to be accepted as an advisor as he is unprofessional, arrogant and incompetent. He possesses negative body language and makes derogatory and demeaning personal comments. He has no qualities of an academician and has contributed nothing to my experience here at the program.

- As this is purely my opinion I would request you to please arrange for an anonymous evaluation of the advisors and the course in general from the participants. This is a common practice in all post graduate and offices, as you would know. You would be surprised with the results. I have been an architect for the past 4 years and run my own practice in Iran. I have won international competitions and achieved enough professionally up until now. My reason for joining the Bauhaus was not to collect an international degree, but more to be part of this great institution and broaden my knowledge. Most of the participants here are professionals who expect to be treated with respect and tolerance to a new way of thinking. If the program continues like this it will soon stagnate and tarnish the image of the Bauhaus, as word spreads fast. It is a pity.

My purpose for writing this letter is purely to express my disappointment over an institution which I had great respect for. I feel responsible to put this across to you as I feel you can make a positive difference and regain the true Bauhaus legacy that is so admired and revered around the world.

Best Regards

Kolleg Participant – (2009-2010)

Bauhaus Kolleg - the best travel agency in Europe for unemployed graduates!

Bauhaus School is a one-year postgraduate program, which is offered annually by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. Mostly architects and urban planners from around the world take part in it.

You pay nothing, receive a generous work desk with Macs in the world heritage building of the Bauhaus Foundation and an apartment in the Heidestr. for only 60 € a month. Including a weekly cleaning lady. What more could you ask for? Some of them, like me, even receive a scholarship.

The Bauhaus Foundation pays for all material and travel expenses. All students and teachers have the opportunity to travel around the world. This year was Mexico and the United Kingdom for two Weeks. There, we analyze, and intervene.

Finally, a research is made out of it, which consists of many colorful diagrams, transparencies, arrows, boxes and circles distracting from a weak scientific content. Important ist that it is incomprehensible to ordinary people. I know this method quite well, I myself have a Master in Civil Engineering and a Master in Architecture.
After the first semester I got out of it. Like three other participants this year.
Why do students come here? "All my fellow students in India know about the poor quality of this program, we nevertheless join in to obtain a visa and to travel around Europe and because the name Bauhaus for many does look good on their CV. "(one of the Bauhaus Kolleg participants from India).
Some participate because they are unemployed, because they wish a break from their normal lives or others, the minority, because they believe in the quality of the Bauhaus program: To my knowledge 3 out of 20 participants. 2 of them gave up, me included.


The participants have very little contact with the Dessauer inhabitants. The Bauhaus team, almost all commute from Leipzig and Berlin. Bauhaus Dessau Foundation seems to have turned their backs to Dessau. That was certainly not the goal of its founder, Walter Gropius, who was interested in joint events and programs with Dessauer residents and students. Which is also desirable. Citizens must be informed about what is happening in their city and in their country. Democracy thrives on active involvement of its citizens. Education is essential in this sense. It allows people to open their perspectives and thoughts and to filter information. Particularly important in an age in which we are flooded from extremely different opinions of a hundred television channels, radio, newspapers, blogs, You tube and so on.
If Bauhaus wants to develop an elite, it must reckon with isolation. The arrogance and exclusivity in education is a mistake made by the ancient Greeks and from which we hopefully learned something.

In a city like Dessau, struggling with budget cuts, Saxony-Anhalt continues to invest in the Bauhaus Foundation, which in turn spends the money for an education program for students who are the most time occupied with leisure travels, resume updates, chat, YouTube, Facebook and other projects outside the Program itself. From time to time they do work on the postgraduate program.
The lessons for the students are for us architects and urban planners hardly out of a new content and they sometimes repeat the presentations 1 to 1. The interventions abroad, according to the majority of the students, are embarrassing. Tardiness, lies and secrecy are normal within the Bauhaus Kolleg organization team.

Education is far too important and expensive to allow such programs to go on like this.
The only short-term benefits of this course are for the teachers and for the organizing team: salaries, funded trips and often the publication of a book with their names tagged as book authors, which happily pumps up their CVs. Who cares that the content has been pieced together by the students.

Pedro Aibéo
June 3, 2010

Bauhaus Kolleg – das günstigste Reisebüro Europas für Arbeitslose!

Bauhaus Kolleg ist ein einjähriges postgraduates Programm, das jährlich von der Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau angeboten wird. Es werden jedes Jahr ca. 20 Architekten und Städtebauer sowie Postgradiuerte anderer Fachrichtungen aus der ganzen Welt angenommen.

Man zahlt nichts, erhält einen großzügigen Arbeitstisch mit Mac-Rechner im Weltkulturdenkmalgebäude der Bauhaus Stiftung und einen Wohnraum in der Heidestrasse für nur 60 Euro im Monat. Inklusive einer Reinigungskraft, die wöchentlich für Ordnung sorgt. Traumhaft! Manche bekommen sogar ein Stipendium, so wie ich.

Die Bauhaus Stiftung übernimmt alle Material- und Reisekosten. Alle Studierenden und Lehrkräfte haben die Möglichkeit weltweit zu reisen. Dieses Jahr ging es nach Mexiko und Großbritannien, jeweils für zwei Wochen. Dort wird analysiert und interveniert. Zum Schluss wird eine Forschungsarbeit abgegeben, die aus vielen bunten Grafiken, Pfeilen, Kästchen und Kreisen besteht, die vom schwachen wissenschaftlichen Gehalt ablenken sollen. Hauptsache es ist für Normalsterbliche unverständlich. Ich weiß das sehr gut, da ich selbst Diplom-Bauingenieur und Diplom-Architekt bin und an diesem Programm teilnahm. Nach dem ersten Semester stieg ich aus. Wie einige andere. Dieses Jahr waren es schon drei.

Warum kommen Studenten hierher? "Alle meine Kommilitonen in Indien wissen von der schlechten Qualität dieses Programms, trotzdem machen wir es mit, um ein Visum zu erhalten und durch Europa zu reisen und weil der Name Bauhaus für viele einfach nur gut im Lebenslauf aussieht." (ein Teilnehmer des Bauhaus Kollegs aus Indien).

Einige kommen weil sie arbeitslos sind, weil sie eine Auszeit vom ihrem normalen Leben brauchen. Andere, die Minderheit, kommen, weil sie an die Qualität des Bauhaus Programms glauben. Meines Wissens waren es dieses Jahr 3 von 20 Teilnehmern. 2 davon gaben auf, mich inklusive.

Die Teilnehmer haben kaum Kontakte zu Dessauer Einwohnern. Aus dem Bauhaus-Team sind fast alle Pendler aus Leipzig und Berlin. Bauhaus Stiftung scheint Dessau den Rücken gekehrt zu haben. Das war ganz sicher nicht das Ziel von dessen Gründer, Walter Gropius, der an gemeinsamen Veranstaltungen und Programmen mit Dessauer Einwohnern und Studenten interessiert war. Was auch erstrebenswert ist. Bürger müssen darüber informiert sein, was in ihrer Stadt und ihrem Land passiert.

Demokratie lebt von der aktiven Mitbeteiligung dessen Bürger. Bildung ist in diesem Sinne essenziell. Sie ermöglicht Menschen ihre Perspektiven und Gedanken zu öffnen und Information zu filtrieren. Besonders wichtig in einem Zeitalter, in dem wir von unterschiedlichen Meinungen von hundert Fernsehkanälen, Radio, Zeitungen, Blogs, YouTube, usw. überflutet werden. Wenn Bauhaus sich elitär entwickeln will, muss es mit Isolation rechnen. Die Arroganz und Exklusivität in der Bildung sind ein Fehler, den bereits die alten Griechen gemacht haben und aus dem wir hoffentlich etwas lernen können.

In einer Stadt wie Dessau, die mit Haushaltskürzungen kämpft, investiert Sachsen-Anhalt weiterhin in die Bauhaus Stiftung, die wiederum das Geld für ein Bildungsprogramm für Studenten ausgibt, die sich die meiste Zeit sich mit Urlaubsreisen, Lebenslaufupdates, Chatten, Youtube, Facebook und anderen Projekten außerhalb des Programms beschäftigen. Ab und an auch mit dem postgradualen Programm selbst. Die Vorträge für die Studenten zeigen uns als Architekten kaum etwas Neues und wiederholen sich inhaltlich teilweise 1 zu 1. Die Interventionen im Ausland sind, laut Studenten, peinlich. Unpünktlichkeit, Lügen und Geheimnistuerei stehen bei dem Team des Bauhaus Kollegs an der Tagesordnung.

Ich persönlich möchte nicht schweigen um den Namen „Bauhaus“ in meinen Lebenslauf schön und makellos zu erhalten. Bildung ist viel zu wichtig und viel zu teuer, dass wir uns so ein schlecht aufgebautes Programm erlauben könnten. Die einzigen kurzfristigen Vorteile dieses Kurses sind für die Lehrkraft und das Organisationsteam die Gehälter, Finanzierung interessanter Reisen und häufig die Veröffentlichung eines Buches, das sich im Lebenslauf gut macht. Wen interessiert das schon, dass der Inhalt von den Studenten zusammengestückelt wurde.

Pedro Aibéo

03 Juni 2010

Is urban planning a discipline of science?

It is clear that urban planning is NOT a discipline of science by use of the scientific method. The assumptions made by urban planners can not be scientifically tested.

Even not being able to, one should still ask oneself if urban planning should follow the scientific method anyhow? The use of the scientific method, uses a reductionist approach to knowledge. This reductionist approach is one in which the whole is broken up into little parts; it is the belief that isolating and dissecting bits of nature will allow one to understand the whole. This context, in which the scientific method is used, implies that nature can be disassembled and reassembled under man’s control. This approach denies the innate relatedness of systems; it avoids the truth that the whole possesses more than the sum of its parts.

Reductionism has led to spectacular discoveries and advances in scientific knowledge. However, this approach is not effective for all types of problems, especially not for problems that are not specialized.

Cities are holistic systems and a study approach requires more than just the current reductionist approach of the scientific method. This would allow scientists to see each level in the development of a mechanism.

But we know we aren’t going to get anywhere as an urban planner if we are not reductionist. We’ve got to chop it into little pieces and look at it so we’ll understand the whole system. We are a part of the system which we try to understand and to influence, urban planning, as well as science, does not work logically and impersonally, we all bring our expectations, interests and personal beliefs into our work. Maybe one day we will manage to cope with this interrelated amount of information. Urban planning is a challenging discipline.

Pedro Aibéo

2009