Otti Berger created fabrics that fundamentally changed the understanding of what textiles could
be and do. A core member of the experimental approach to textiles at the Bauhaus she was also
a female entrepreneur in the frenzied time that was the early 1930s in Berlin. Working closely
with architects of the New Objectivity movement such as Lilly Reich Ludwig Hilberseimer and
Hans Scharoun she designed upholstery and wall tapestries curtains and floor coverings that
responded to novel types of use and production methods and thereby redefined the relationship
between aesthetics and function¿with fascinating results. To date Berger's textile work has
only been explored in fragments. This book is the first comprehensive study of its complexity
and beauty and makes her hitherto unpublished treatise on fabrics and the methodology of
textile production accessible. Raum's research offers an entirely new perspective on Berger's
oeuvre. OTTI BERGER (1898-1944) was one of the most important textile designers of the 20th
century. Born in Zmajevac in the Austro- Hungarian Empire present-day Croatia she studied in
Zagreb and from 1927 at the Bauhaus in Dessau. Leaving her teaching post at the Bauhaus she
set up her own business in Berlin in 1932 to design fabrics for modern interiors but was
banned from working due to her Jewish heritage in 1936. Attempts to escape to England and the
USA failed. She was deported from Croatia to Auschwitz and was murdered there in 1944. In
cooperation with the Bauhaus Archive Berlin visual artist and art historian JUDITH RAUM
(*1977) has conducted intensive research in European and North American archives to complete
the first comprehensive study of Berger's scattered estate.
