Bauhaus Gittertülle

Judith Raum performs at her lecture performance at the temporary Bauhaus archive in Berlin, Photo: Mara Trübenbach

Lecture performance by Judith Raum Fabrics in revolt: Otti Berger and the feline

In November 2022, Judith Raum introduces her lecture performance at the temporary Bauhaus archive in Berlin with Peruvian lace doilies depicting feline creatures. Raum then explains how textiles shaped architecture during the Bauhaus era and beyond. There is something, she says that is difficult to comprehend nowadays. When restoration work is done today, there are no textiles to be seen afterwards. Judith Raum’s aim is to shed light on the different functions a textile, especially the Gittertülle (eng. lattice grommet) by Bauhaus weaver Otti Berger, can have and the knowledge it contains. The Bauhaus fabrics are characterized by consistent and surprising choice of materials and woven structure. To ensure that the audience and Raum have a common ground to work with tonight, she has brought a suitcase with pink and white ropes as well as a lattice-like fabric.

Suitcase from Judith Raum, Photo: Mara Trübenbach

Raum stops speaking and begins to unpack the vintage suitcase. A voice over, Judith Raum’s recorded voice, from offstage begins to read out her text while the slide show continues. The white rope drags on the floor and I listen to the material. A horizontal line is stretched in front of the audience, accompanied by vertical lines. The ropes are attached to each other with pins, symbolising a reweaving of a special fabric by Otti Berger, whose production method is explained from the voice in the background.

Now Raum tells us that the Bauhaus weaver acquired mutual knowledge through exchanges among themselves. And also, that Otti Berger liked to use very shiny yarns, artificial silk made from spruce (similar to today’s viscose). The more information the audience receives, the more the visual presentation slides are filtered by a slowly ever-growing oversized structure of a woven pattern of white and pink ropes, which is given a finishing layer of a translucent and iridescent fabric. The former Bauhaus director Walter Gropius and his wife Ise Gropius used a fishnet as a bathroom curtain in their house in the US. It is reminiscent of an enlargement of the lattice grommet by Bauhaus weavers and could be interpreted as a quote to remind us of the importance of textiles in architecture. Just as Judith Raum has done with her thoughts spread out and woven before us. There are various approaches that shape different attentions. The awareness of these different understandings is crucial to get an overall sense of what materials can do.