Swiss architect Hannes Meyer led the Bauhaus between the giants of Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. As we continue our Bauhaus 100 series exploring the school's centenary, we profile the director with a marred legacy.

Meyer is referred to by some as the "unknown" Bauhaus director. Hidden between the immense shadows of Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus' origins, and Mies van der Rohe and its rapid demise, Meyer, the second director of the Bauhaus, spent just two years in the role before being dismissed, ostensibly for political reasons.
His tenure sheds light on the fraught internal politics of the Bauhaus, and its relationship to the wider politics of Germany. Prior to this however, and indeed Gropius' initial reason for hiring him, was to direct what many thought was a long-overdue addition to the Bauhaus: the architecture department. Swiss architect Hannes Meyer was hired to run the Bauhaus' architecture department
Meyer was born in Basel in 1889, training as an architect both here and in Berlin, before returning to Switzerland and opening his own practice in 1919. Early on in his career, it was clear that Meyer's interests lay more in town planning, urban design and the social value of architecture than buildings themselves.
At the end of the first world war, Meyer worked in Krupp's office in Essen, designing vast new housing estates. He had, some years before, been to visit the garden city of Letchworth, as well as Bourneville and Port Sunlight, which ...