Bauhaus.Atelier | Info Shop Café

Built as a studio for Professor Albert Brendel, an animal portrait painter and director of the Weimar Art School, the building caused quite a sensation when it was presented to the public in 1886. Situated in the court of the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts, it was used by the class of animal illustrators and painters who benefited from the natural lighting, provided by the glass dome of its iron roof structure. However, parts of the sensational glass hip roof were closed off in 1904 when the small studio was transferred to the Prellerhof.   

When the State Bauhaus was founded, the glass studio played a central albeit different role for all the workshop classes. With the addition of a kitchen, the building became the central dining hall for the members of the Bauhaus from 1919 until 1925. 

When the Bauhaus was forced to leave Weimar, operations at the small dining facility also came to an end. The successor institutions used the former studio as a storage building until well into the 1990s. 

The Bauhaus dining hall was registered as a historic landmark by the Thuringian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in 1999. In recent years, the building had been used as a studio and storage facility for sculptures. It was then that the university's Executive Board considered redesigning the historic building to fulfil a new function.

After extensive renovation, the building was reopened in 2009 under the new name Bauhaus.Atelier | Info Shop Café and operated by the university - from 2009 to 2020 in cooperation with the BauhausTransferzentrum Design - as a welcome centre and contact point for guests as well as students, staff and lecturers.