In August 1930, Hannes Meyer was dismissed from the Bauhaus amid rising communist activism and his inability to control it. A 1931 caricature by Adolf Hofmeister humorously captures Meyer clutching the hammer and sickle, symbolizing his unwavering commitment to socialism. Despite his departure, Meyer’s Bauhaus legacy endures in photographs and memories, but his true passion was always for the revolutionary proletariat cause.

Shortly after leaving Germany, Meyer declared in a 1930 Pravda interview his conviction that architecture must serve socialism, prompting his move to the Soviet Union. There, from 1930 to 1936, he immersed himself in numerous projects that embodied his vision of a socialist culture in the making—a period so rich it inspired an entire book by Tatiana Efrussi. In this episode, she will talk about her research results.

This episode of bauhaus faces explores Meyer’s Soviet years and his subsequent attempt to support the socialist revolution in Spain. But Meyer’s story doesn’t end there. In the final part, Mexican art historian Raquel Franklin will reveal his later work in Mexico and his final years in Switzerland. Join us as we continue to unravel the complex life and enduring impact of one of the Bauhaus’s most politically charged figures.

SHOW NOTES
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PUBLICATIONS AND ARTICLES
Tatiana Efrussi: Hannes Meyer – Soviet Architect. Life and Work in the USSR, 1930–1936, 2025
Anja Guttenberger & Astrid Volpert: Praised, Sentenced, Forgotten, Rediscovered – 62 Members of the Bauhaus in the Land of the Soviets, Interview, 2019
Tatiana Efrussi & Yuri Palmin: Bauhaus in Russia – Haunted Houses, 2019
Adrian Rifkin: Meyer’s Russia, or the Land that Never Was, 2019
Ursula Muscheler: Das rote Bauhaus. Eine Geschichte von Hoffnung und Scheitern, 2016

BAUHAUS EXHIBITION, MOSCOW, 1931
Hannes Meyer: The Moscow Bauhaus Exhibition Catalogue, 1931, Translation
Tatiana Efrussi: After the Ball – Hannes Meyer Presenting the Bauhaus in Moscow, 2019

COVER PHOTO
Lotte Gerson-Collein, Portrait of Hannes Meyer, 1928, https://www.markanto.de/fotografie-hannes-meyer.html, © Ursula Kirsten-Collein

CHAPTER IMAGES
1 Adolf Hofmeister, Cartoon of Hannes Meyer, 1930, Source: hannes meyer mluví. Tvorba. Praha, roč. IV. 40. 8 říjen 1931
2/3 Natja Catalan, Tibor Weiner, Philipp Tolziner, Konrad Püschel, Margarete Mengel, Lilya Polgar, Anton Urban – members of the “Hannes Meyer architectural group” in Moscow, mid-1930s, https://thecharnelhouse.org/2013/05/30/hannes-meyer-and-the-red-bauhaus-brigade-in-the-soviet-union-1930-1937/581587_513757591971194_1666790961_n/
4 Hannes Meyer, Béla Scheffler und Arkadij Mordvinov in Moskau, 1930-31, in: AIZ, Vol. 1, 1931, p. 19
5 Exhibition Bauhaus Dessau: Period of Hannes Meyer’s Directorship 1928-1930 at Moscow State Museum of Modern Western Art (GMNZI), 1931, https://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/2083/after-the-ball
6 Hannes Meyer delivering a speech at WASI in the Soviet Union, 1930, https://thecharnelhouse.org/2013/05/30/hannes-meyer-and-the-red-bauhaus-brigade-in-the-soviet-union-1930-1937/hannes-meyer-delivering-a-speech-at-wasi-in-the-soviet-union-2/
7 Show trial with Hannes Meyer in the audience, in: Tatiana Efrussi: Hannes Meyer. Soviet Architect. Life and Work in the USSR, 1930–1936
8/9 Planning for Nizhni-Kurinsk on the Kama River in co-operation with a brigade of the Standardgor project, in: Claude Schnaidt: Hannes Meyer”, Bauten, Projekte und Schriften, Buildings, projects and writings, 1965, p. 67
10 Lotte Gerson-Collein, Portrait of Hannes Meyer, 1928, https://www.markanto.de/fotografie-hannes-meyer.html, © Ursula Kirsten-Collein
11 Exterior view of the Mümliswil memorial, photo by Markus Beyeler / Guido Fluri Stiftung, 2013, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=151638808