Today is a special day – not only because it’s a lovely hot day in July, but because today is the day when I conclude the Bauhaus series that’s spanned over the last five Crates. In today’s Crate as a final step on the road, let’s take a look at the ‘children of Bauhaus’ – the new institutions it spawned all over the world after its closure in 1933, when its staff and alumni spread around the globe like dandelion seeds. So, without further ado, let’s get to opening this week’s Crate.

1. The direct descendant of Bauhaus, the New Bauhaus was founded in Chicago in 1937 as The Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology led by the former Bauhaus Master László Moholy-Nagy. IIT had first approached the former headmaster Walter Gropius who, however, was about to teach at Harvard and recommended Moholy-Nagy instead. A visionary educator, Moholy-Nagy modified the original Bauhaus system of segregated crafts and replaced them with three departments – product design, architecture and light workshop (advertising arts). And the Chicago New Bauhaus wasn’t the only chip off the old block – besides that, Bauhaus alumni and staff went on to establish a number of art schools like Ulm School of Design, Nieuwe Kunstchool in Amsterdam, Black Mountain College in North Carolina and several others.

2. Scared of the dentists’ drill? There might be a brighter future in sight, one where cavities can be fixed with no drilling at all.

3. I have talked about curious small islands before and here’s another one for the collection – Isola del Garda that in the course of times has housed pirates, monks, Dante Alighieri and San Francesco d’Assisi.

4. If one were to follow the media coverage it would be easy to get the impression of humanities as a useless pastime. But that’s not the whole story. Meet Project Cassandra – a plan to use literature to predict potential future wars.

5. Is the axe still the same axe after you’ve changed the handle and the head?

6. And to finish off for this week a little princess-frog comic from Wrong Hands.

And that’s it for this time. Happy reading and until next week!

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