Between 1919 and 1933 the Bauhaus movement revolutionized architectural and aesthetic thinking and practice in the 20th century. The Bauhaus was a centre for new ideas and consequently attracted progressive architects and artists. The Bauhaus buildings created and decorated by the School’s professors (Henry van de Velde, Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, László Moholy-Nagy and Wassily Kandinsky) launched the Modern Movement, which shaped much of the architecture of the 20th century and beyond. The Bauhaus represents the desire to develop a modern architecture using the new materials of the time (reinforced concrete, glass, steel) and construction methods (skeleton construction, glass facades). The buildings located in Weimar, Dessau, and Bernau were inscribed on the World Heritage List as important contributions to the Bauhaus ideas of austere design, functionalism and social reform.

(Description adapted from http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/729/ under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0)