Reflecting on the nature of studio life and returning to more recent events, the question arises, how can atmosphere be created or experienced when there is no longer a building within which to generate it? How can we teach interior design when the interior only exists within the personal confines of a screen? Online delivery during the pandemic raised this question to the forefront.

Returning full circle to the Bauhaus, I entered into a unique collaboration with the research academy to evaluate student engagement during online delivery of the academy’s Vorkurs module. The aim was to encourage ‘anticipation over ambivalence’ and to question whether the legacy and credibility of an iconic institution could be translated effectively and with the same success, without physically occupying the Bauhaus building in Dessau by creating an equivalent atmosphere online. This demanded new ways of presenting, of ‘teasing’ students and of evaluating. Understanding student expectations and perceptions was key, and the most valuable data collected was by sensory ethnographic methods using video stimulated recall, where recordings of online workshops prompted recall and interpretation of student behaviours and emotions.

These two-way discussions, just as with the conversations relayed here with former students of King’s College, were more genuine and responsive than static one-way questionnaires and allowed us to rapidly respond and react, interjecting with interim workshops and amendments to module delivery style and programming, injecting aspects of our own personality with nudges and prompts promoting motivation and commitment. Despite the successes gained, the sense of isolation and separation imposed by the lockdown was compounded by the absence of the physical building in Dessau and its digital replacement. This ultimately generated a nostalgic sense of loss.

Post-lockdown, on a recent visit to the department of fine art in Newcastle in September 2021, I bore witness to the impact of the King’s College building. Although it was the summer break, and empty studios were devoid of students and work, it was easy to picture the vibrancy of former times, when the Bauhaus-inspired exercises would smother the walls from floor to ceiling. The photo capturing Matt Rugg climbing on to the sink to mount the paintings and drawings ever higher had transitioned into the present, and I was standing in Room 2 faced with bare walls. But this is the nature of the cycle of education where our environments shift between ‘teaching museums’ and empty spaces. It doesn’t mean that history has faded but the historic images captured, coupled with the oral histories of students who experienced this building and the atmosphere generated within, remind us that there is more depth and explanation to them than what we see before our eyes.

Rooms of departure: From teaching museums to empty walls