October 2025 until October 2027
The exact locations of the picture banks can be found on the map on the exhibition page.
If you have any questions, please contact the Tourist Information Dessau.
Downtown
Open Space Gallery
Take your time for a walk through the city and discover the most beautiful places of Dessau-Roßlau as photo impressions on an approximately 3.5 km long circuit between the train station and Kavalierstraße.
In this interesting format, the temporary exhibition presents appealing topics such as urban development, urban history and urban culture.
The current open space exhibition invites you to get to know personalities from the Bauhaus era in Dessau. On the tour you will meet directors, masters, students and supporters of the Bauhaus, whose work has shaped and carried forward the ideas of modernism.
The picture benches tell their story in text and images and make the diversity of the Bauhaus period in the urban space tangible.
Click here to go to the exhibition page.
Tue – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm
kunstHALLE Dessau
Ratsgasse
06844 Dessau-Roßlau
Anhaltischer Kunstverein Dessau e.V.
Hobuschgasse 5
06844 Dessau-Roßlau
Mail: info@anhaltischer-kunstverein.de
Exhibition in the kunstHALLE
Porcelain | Meat | Silicone
This exhibition at the KUNSTHALLE Dessau serves as a contemporary reflection on the expanded concept of material in the 21st century. Part of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation’s anniversary program, the exhibition focuses on three materials that embody distinct aspects of our present reality: porcelain represents fragility and memory; flesh stands for transience and living physicality; and silicone signifies artificiality, transformation, and a technological future.
The invited artists—Maria Volokhova, Reiner Maria Matysik, and Lev Khesin—create work that operates at the intersections of art, craft, biotechnology, and research. Their pieces open up new perspectives on processes of growth, shaping, and transformation, while challenging traditional notions of material, design, and sculpture.
The exhibition was conceived and realized as a teaching project within the Department of Design at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, guided by Katia Klose and Esther Hoyer in collaboration with Katrin Günther and the Kunsthalle. As part of their seminar, the students developed the exhibition project, visited the participating artists in their studios, and engaged deeply with questions of materiality, space, and curatorial design. Entering into a dialogue with the Bauhaus motto “An die Substanz” (To the Substance), the exhibition expands upon the material-aesthetic inquiries of Modernism by incorporating contemporary themes such as physicality, hybridity, and post-human transformation.
14.06.2026 – 29.11.2026
We – Sun 10.00 a.m. – 05.00 p.m.
City History Museum
Schlossplatz 3A
06844 Dessau-Roßlau
City History Museum
Schlossplatz 3A
06844 Dessau-Roßlau
City History Museum
The Bauhaus Comes to Town – Dessau in the 1920s
To mark the Bauhaus centenary in Dessau, the Dessau Museum of City History invites visitors on an exciting journey back in time. The special exhibition reveals the city that the Bauhaus members encountered in 1925–26: a Dessau in transition, shaped by the aftermath of World War I, political upheaval, and economic challenges.
Despite limited funds, cultural figures, politicians, and industrialists embraced new ideas. They pinned high hopes on the Bauhaus, envisioning a modern image for the city and solutions to pressing issues such as housing construction. Yet this new beginning was not without controversy; critical voices also accompanied the new “School of Design.”
Original artifacts—drawn primarily from the museum’s own collection—shed light on life in 1920s Dessau. They tell stories of urban development, political debates, and cultural impulses. The exhibition also guides visitors to the locations across the city where the Bauhaus members lived and worked.
Complementing the special exhibition, the permanent exhibition offers further insights into the 1920s. Highlights include the innovative “propeller furniture” from the Junkers model workshop.
Experience a compelling history that continues to inspire today. On June 14, Rainer Höhling of the German Ido Society will launch the exhibition’s accompanying program with a lecture titled “The Constructed Language Ido as a Testament to the Cosmopolitan Atmosphere of 1920s Dessau.”
19.06.2026 – 09.08.2026
We – Mon 10.00 a.m. – 05.00 p.m.
Orangery of Anhalt Art Gallery of Dessau
Puschkinallee 100
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Anhalt Art Gallery of Dessau
Puschkinallee 100
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Orangery of Anhalt Art Gallery of Dessau
Fritz Winter. Bauhaus Painter
In cooperation with the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie, the Anhaltischer Kunstverein Dessau is presenting an exhibition project dedicated to Fritz Winter—a painter whose artistic evolution and career are inextricably linked to the Bauhaus—to mark the Bauhaus centenary in 2026.
The exhibition traces his development from his early work and the pieces created during his studies at the Bauhaus (starting in 1927)—which reflect the influence of Bauhaus masters, particularly Paul Klee—through the formal experiments of the early 1930s to the works of the immediate post-war period, a time when he emerged as a key figure in West German post-war art.
In addition to the exhibition’s chronological structure (sections: The Dessau Years / Discovering Form / Works Created in Seclusion / Artistic New Beginning), special attention is paid to the recurring motifs in his art, which can be traced back to his training at the Bauhaus. For even as he increasingly emancipated himself stylistically from his teachers, he was already developing fundamental concepts and preferences regarding his understanding of art and the nature of his work, as well as his choice of themes. The Fritz-Winter-Haus in Ahlen is a cooperation partner for this project.
28 Mar 2026 – 10 Jan 2027
Mon – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Mar – Oct)
Tue – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Nov – Feb)
Bauhaus Building
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Bauhaus Building
Glass I Concrete I Metal
Walter Gropius once called iron, concrete and glass the new industrial materials that would “supersede” the old natural ones. The Bauhaus Building itself is a testament to numerous material innovations that emerged in industry and in the construction sector of the 1920s. This three-part exhibition is dedicated to the materials the building is mainly made of and with which Bauhauslers experimented in the Bauhaus workshops.
When the Workshop Wing of the Bauhaus Building opened in Dessau on 4 December 1926, it radiated like a glass cube – an architectural manifestation of Neues Bauen (New Building). The fascination but also scepticism of more than a thousand visitors resulted not only from the unusual, windmill-like ground plan but also from the innovative building materials used by Walter Gropius and explored in the designs by the school’s’ workshops.
Nearly a century later, the exhibition Glass | Concrete | Metal in the historical Workshop Wing looks at precisely these materials. It examines the close ties of work at the Bauhaus to the industrial history of the early twentieth century and asks about the often-overlooked material, economic, and technological foundations of the iconic Bauhaus Building and its workshop production.
28 Mar 2026 – 27 Sep 2026
Former Zeeck department store
Kavalierstraße 72
06844 Dessau-Roßlau
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Former Zeeck department store
Algae I Debris / CO2
The former Zeeck department store in downtown Dessau is the point of departure for the exhibition Algae | Debris | CO2. Opened in 1908 and expanded in the 1920, the building is an outstanding example of modernist department-store architecture, and its material layers tell a story of the city lasting more than a century.
The exhibition makes this history visible: Within the framework of the exhibition, so-called time windows at the stairs, floors, pillars, and ceiling provide views of the material history of the building. What seems unchanged at first glance reveals on closer inspection a sensitive approach to the historical building fabric. Flaking plaster is removed, holes are filled, whatever can be repaired is repaired or renovated – for example, old windowpanes or the panels of the Hetaflex aluminium façade, which were removed when the façade was renovated in the spring of 2025. Additions such as the ceiling lighting system and repairs of the floor covering in the 1980s follow the principles of reusability.
28 Mar 2026 – 27 Sep 2026
Open Air Presentation
Interior spaces not open to the public.
Historic Employment Office
August-Bebel-Platz 16
06842 Dessau-Roßlau
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Historic Employment Office
Bricks I Roof I Power
The Employment Office in Dessau, built in 1928–1929 based on designs by Walter Gropius’ office, is considered an important example of functionalist modern architecture. With its yellow brick façade, the building contrasts with the radiantly white Bauhaus buildings and forms a tie to the materials of the Fagus factory, which Gropius designed with Adolf Meyer (1911). The origin of the yellow bricks has yet to be determined.
The area around the historical Employment Office is turned into a performance space – redefined by us as an “Office of New Work”. In addition to the more prominent materials of modernity – such as steel, glass and concrete – a material comes to the forefront which is ever-present but often overlooked: brick. In “Bricks | Roof | Power”, brick, among other things, becomes the starting point for the installation “Superbricks – Pink Elements” by the Copenhagen artist group SUPERFLEX. Part of the performative programme is the production of special bricks in the “Superbrick Factory”. Numerous events, performances, guided tours, workshops, day excursions and a colloquium are part of the programme.
28 Mar 2026 – 28 Feb 2027
open air presentation
Steel House
Südstraße 5
06849 Dessau-Roßlau
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Steel House
Sheet I Membrane I Porthole
The presentation Sheet | Membrane | Porthole at the Steel House shows the example of the experimental building constructed primarily from sheet metal in 1926 in the Dessau-Törten Housing Estate. The Bauhaus master Georg Muche designed it with the architect Richard Paulick with support from the Carl Kästner steel-house factory in Leipzig. The uncompromisingly modern construction of custom profiles offered spatial modules that could be expanded flexibly. But their rust protection and insulation turned out to be inadequate. A renovation has restored the Steel House to its historical appearance.
The Steel House combines Bauhaus visions with their industrial implementation during an innovative construction boom. The presentation shows how Dessau became a centre of experiments with metal, which ended with the rearmament for war after 1933.
28 Mar 2026 – 28 Feb 2027
open air presentation
Junkers Lamellenhalle
Boathouse of the Junkers Paddling Club Dessau
Leopoldshafen 4
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Junkers steel slat hall
Slats I Purlins I Knots
The Steel-Slat Hall in Dessau that is now used as a boathouse was built in 1930 and is one of the few surviving examples of the system patented by Hugo Junkers. Its characteristic curved steel roof is based on a modular construction system that was an international success because it used many prefabricated elements, was easy to transport and quick to assemble, and was made of robust materials.
The presentation Slats | Purlins | Knots shows this system using the concrete example of the steel-slat hall of the canoe club Junkers Paddelgemeinschaft Dessau e.V. and tells the story of its adventurous exporting: Beginning in 1926, the Junkers delivered a complete aircraft factory with eleven steel-slat halls, furnishings, machines, and know-how from Dessau to Kayseri in central Turkey.
05.12.2025 – 31.01.2027
Tue – Sun, 10 am – 6 pm (March – Oct)
Tue – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Nov – Feb)
Bauhaus Museum Dessau
Mies-van-der-Rohe-Platz 1
(at the Kavalierstraße)
06844 Dessau-Roßlau
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Bauhaus Museum Dessau
Bakelite | Glaze | Colour
Since the Bauhaus Museum Dessau opened in 2019, more than 3,000 objects from over 150 donors have been added to the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation’s collection – ranging from art, design and everyday objects to photographs and elements from the building’s construction period, such as historic Bakelite light switches.
The exhibition presents a selection of these objects and shows how diverse the gifts are that enrich the collections of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in material, historical and narrative terms. The stories of the donors are also told: their personal motives and memories bear witness to their lively relationship with the Bauhaus in Dessau – both then and now.
permanent exhibition
Tue – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Nov – Feb)
Mon – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Mar – Oct)
Bauhaus Building
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Exhibition in the Bauhaus Building
Yun Yang. More than real
In his work More than real, Jun Yang presents famous Bauhaus furniture of various origins in the historic Bauhaus building. The Vienna-based artist uses various rooms with a precise selection of furniture produced true to the original, translations and free imitations. It addresses the further developments and changes that the design heritage of the Bauhaus, specifically furniture design, has undergone over the past decades. Jun Yang’s work for the Bauhaus Dessau is about interpretations and transfers: from industrial furniture to design icons, to fetishes, to copies and to works of art. With the selection of furniture, Jun Yang rejects a strict concept of authenticity and at the same time invites people to continually renegotiate ideas of authenticity. What is authentic that needs to be preserved?
On the occasion of the centenary of the Bauhaus in Dessau, Tecta and Jun Yang are starting the experiment of developing a new, completely recyclable Wassily edition. The name “Wassily” was introduced in the 1960s by Dino Gavina as a marketing name for the Breuer B3 armchair. Tecta produces the foldable armchair under the name D4.
permanent exhibition
Tue – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Nov – Feb)
Mon – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Mar – Oct)
Bauhaus Building
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Exhibition in the Bauhaus Building
The glass facade at the Bauhaus
The striking steel and glass facade of the workshop wing was a novelty when it was completed in 1926 and for a long time stood for modern building. Since its destruction due to the war in 1945, there have been repeated changes to the building. One of the most important was the reconstruction of the facade as an aluminum-glass construction in 1976. During this time, people learned to appreciate the Bauhaus again. It became (again) a place for design and architectural questions.
The exhibition traces the eventful history of the famous facade. Historical photographs show the interior and everyday life of the training center from the 1920s to the 1980s. Contemporary witnesses from different generations have their say in images and sounds.
permanent exhibition
Tue – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Nov – Feb)
Mon – Sun, 10 am – 5 pm (Mar – Oct)
Bauhaus Building
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Exhibition in the Bauhaus Building
Bauhaus learning place
The former architecture classroom becomes an exhibition and place for visitors to stay with the “Bauhaus Learning Site”. Against the background and context of the historic Bauhaus Dessau as a school (1926–1932), current forms of learning that are practiced today in the two departments of the Academy and the Curatorial Workshop of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation are presented here. This includes research and teaching on history and critical reflection of modern and current design discourses as well as mediation and playful-speculative reinterpretations of historical exercises, materials and ideas.
Using a selection of presented projects, visitors to this location are invited to take part in the multi-voiced conversations of these teaching programs, workshops, publications and other formats on the discourse and practice of design.