Cradle Cradle

Peter Keler's cradle design dates from the early days of the Bauhaus, from 1922.‎ A work of blue circle, yellow triangle and red rectangle, it makes tangible the influence that the synaesthetic colour theory of teacher Wassily Kandinsky had on Peter Keler.‎ At the same time, it embodied the first idea of a floating, swinging and rolling object that became a symbol for the Bauhaus.‎

Originally, it was part of a furniture competition based on Walter Gropius' brief for a bed design for a man, woman and infant.‎ The man's bed had rectangular head and foot sections, the woman's bed drew a soft semicircle.‎ The child's cradle complemented the two geometric shapes with the triangle.‎

Axel Bruchhäuser had the very first contact with Peter Keler and his cradle in 1975, when he asked to be allowed to produce the cradle.‎ Together with Peter Keler, Tecta produced the reedition of the famous Bauhaus cradle based on Wassily Kandinsky's idea, true to the original, but industrially.‎

Today, the cradle is considered an icon.‎ Peter Keler himself described it as a work that "became a symbol of the Bauhaus.‎" Keler, who studied painting, colour design and carpentry at the Weimar Bauhaus, uses it to refer to the formal language and the guiding principle of the Bauhaus: the revival of arts and crafts and the dissolution of the distinction between artist and craftsman.‎

The Bauhaus Archive in Berlin only approves true-to-work and licensed reeditions of the original Bauhaus models.‎ These are marked with Oskar Schlemmer’s signet, which he designed for the Weimar State Bauhaus in 1922.‎ Even today, Tecta's Bauhaus models are based exactly on the proportions of the originals.‎