Theresia Enzensberger studied Film and Film Studies at Bard College in New York and writes as a freelance journalist for the FAZ, FAS, ZEIT Online, Krautreporter and Monopol. In 2014, she founded the award-winning BLOCK Magazine. Blueprint is her first novel. Theresia Enzensberger lives in Berlin.

Copyright

Published by Dialogue Books

ISBN: 978-0-349-70080-9

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH & Co, KG, München 2017

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Translation © Lucy Jones 2019

Preface © Lois Innes 2019

Photo: Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin (original photo in black and white, re-colouring by Carl Elkins for Studio Mierswa Kluska) Lyrics from ‘The Lavender Song’, English translation © Jeremy Lawrence

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

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Preface

The Bauhaus led a brief, yet seminal life. Founded in Weimar by the pioneering modernist architect Walter Gropius, the German arts and crafts school was operational between 1919 to 1933, and is considered to be the most revolutionary artistic movement of the 20th century. With utopian visions for the future, the school was notable for its rejection of classical teaching methods, and radically sought to merge artistic practice with the emancipating advancements in industrial production.

It enrolled both male and female students alike, appointing Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, Gunta Stölzl, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Paul Klee amongst its most influential tutors. Despite varying in artistic approach, they came together in the pursuit of an all-encompassing art form, one which was no longer preclusive of interpretation, lofty or unattainable – but to be found in the fabric of everyday object.

After its three successive locations in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin, the school was eventually closed by the Nazi Party in 1933, who had denounced it a hotbed for fanatical, communist ideology. But they were much too late – the Bauhaus tradition had already reached the shores of the US, where many of its members had fled before the Second World War. Since then, the movement has become synonymous with both modernist design and theory, and stands as an enduring testament to the phenomenon of this short-lived school.

The central character in Blueprint is Luise Schilling, a young female student who is beginning her first day at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1921. She is from an affluent Berlin family who, despite being sceptical of her enthusiasm to study architecture, afford her the luxury of her own privately rented room. Luise’s privilege does not extend to any sense of self-importance, however, which is apparent in her relaxed, affectionate relationship with best friend and fellow student, Maria.

At the onset of the novel, Luise is presenting her portfolio to the school’s director, Walter Gropius, who is depicted as a distant, imposing figure – yet one she is nevertheless enamoured by. When he finally admits her to the course, she meets his rather impassive gesture with a brimming sense of pride. Here begins Luise’s most disquieting tendency, which is apparent throughout the novel: her holding-up of all self-worth in the eyes of men.

She becomes infatuated with the elusive Jakob, and quickly immerses herself amongst his cult of friends; Samuel, Sidonie and Erich. Distinguishable by their strict vegetarian diets and crimson monkish robes, the ‘cowl-wearers’ adhere to the spiritual doctrines of Mazdaznan; a mystical, pseudo-religion advocated by the Bauhaus’ preliminary course leader, Johannes Itten. This new-age movement was ostensibly concerned with the total purification of body and mind, and at first, Luise is subsumed into fairly innocuous rituals – meditation and spiritual excursions among them.

But as she grapples with the increasingly mercurial affections of her new friendship group, she engages in practices that become much more sinister – masochistic, even. In doing so, she unwittingly stumbles upon a truth most young women must reconcile with in their pursuit of acceptance: that is, to be desired is to necessarily punish oneself. After rejecting the ideology and rituals of the Mazdaznan community, Luise gradually distances herself. The supposedly enlightened group appear to her to be equally as unwavering as her Fascist-becoming brother, and on the order of her family, she leaves Jakob and Weimar for good.

The novel’s first section, contained in Weimar, and its second, in Dessau, both reflect the political and cultural shifts in the schools’ movement across Germany. These geographical locations and their spirits also serve to offset Luise; put simply, she is forever an outsider. When Luise returns to the Bauhaus in Dessau, determined to enter the newly formed architecture course, it’s now a well-oiled, municipally funded school, enabled at a time of rising economic fortune. But following her brother’s refusal for financial support, she must now tirelessly work to pay her own way. Her vulnerability is further highlighted with the introduction of her new, frenetically disposed partner, Hermann – his liquor-filled soirées feel both exhilarating and uneasy, as if he is yielding her towards his recklessness. The ambiguities that envelop their hedonistic relationship become clear when their passionate relationship reaches its peak.

Mercifully, Luise battles on, developing her own plans for a modern housing estate which she determines to present directly to Gropius. Despite her repeated relegation to the female domains of the weaving workshop, and the stubbornly persistent sexism she continues to endure within Dessau’s newly formed architecture course, Luise finds a personal resolve that is commendably unshakeable. For all its proclamations of equality and liberalism, the Bauhaus proves decidedly resigned in any attempt to subvert bipolar concepts in gender capability. Luise must find her own way under the glass ceiling that is all too familiar.

As a young female architect myself, I sat down to read Blueprint expecting to be more familiar with the contextual references. But, despite being separated by a century, Luise’s story felt similar – in fact, uncannily like my own.

In 2014, I was a twenty-year-old, image-conscious undergraduate who was just about to commence her second year of architecture studies at the University of Brighton. In common with Luise, I’d spent my first year living wildly, moving frenetically from one friendship group to the next, and with my newfound independence, I was caught up in a whirlwind of hedonistic distraction. But our long summer break had afforded me some downtime, and I reflected on what had been a distinctly uninspiring introduction to a course I’d waited so long to study. For everything that was going on around me – from the excitingly anarchic sounds of electronic music my new boyfriend had introduced me to, to the social-media-inspired watershed in mainstream feminism – my course felt comparatively stale, slow to react and decidedly male-oriented. To my lecturers, Le Corbusier seemed to be Modernism’s only poster child, and the rigid set squares and drawing boards we were tasked to use felt like inadequate, outdated tools in which to represent myself and the world I was experiencing. Fortunately, I had the wholehearted support of my family, and was certainly never subject to any physical abuse. But those particular feelings of erasure, inadequacy or generally having to make it by oneself ring very true to me – even to this day.

Indeed, Blueprint’s author, Theresia Enzensberger, has chosen to position this novel at an interesting time. 2019 will mark a century since the founding of the Bauhaus, and in this way, the novel is in part a celebration of its life and influence. Through the experiences of a student, Enzensberger is able to animate this world in such a way that gives substance to the Bauhaus legacy beyond simply the icons with which we are familiar. But it is also those same icons we are encouraged to reconsider. We’ve certainly arrived at the mass production utopia the Bauhaus had hoped to achieve, but in all its ubiquity and homogenous effect, have we also lost the ability to find beauty in everyday objects? The disposable tendencies of IKEA would certainly suggest so.

Perhaps the most lasting effect of Blueprint is linked, both then and now, to the disturbing emergence of far-right thought – and ultimately what this means to a new generation of young women. The likes of the Me Too and Stop Trump movements are encouraging demonstrations of feminist advocacy and suggest that we are much quicker to articulate or call out misogyny than would have been the case a hundred years ago. But in the pages of Blueprint – in our desperation for Luise to see sense – Enzensberger likewise encourages an introspection, also reminding us not to overlook those certain institutions we deem safe or exempt from prejudiced thought. In this way, Blueprint could not be more well timed.

Lois Innes

June 2019