DESSAU-ROßLAU.- The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, navos create and Stadtmarketing Dessau-Roßlau are bringing hidden places in Bauhaus history to life digitally

The audio and video walk “Invisible Bauhaus Dessau” by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation has been nominated for the Grimme Online Award 2026. The nomination in the Culture and Entertainment category was announced on 10 October as part of the re:publica x New Fall Festival at the NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf. The Grimme Online Award recognises high-quality, journalistic and innovative online content; the nominees were presented during a dedicated session at re:publica.

“Invisible Bauhaus Dessau” focuses on places and stories that are often no longer visible in today’s cityscape, yet played a central role in the arrival and establishment of the Bauhaus in Dessau. The video and audio walk takes visitors to the first places where Bauhaus masters, students and key figures worked, lived and met following the move from Weimar to Dessau in 1925. It combines historical photographs and archive material – in the form of film narratives and audio recordings – into a digital journey of discovery through the city.

Using QR codes at selected locations across Dessau, visitors can access the content directly on site via their smartphones. Among other things, the project tells stories about the School of Applied Arts and Crafts, the Kunsthalle and the Seiler factory, Kavalierstraße, and the former building of the ‘Volksblatt für Anhalt’. Another audio walk follows in the footsteps of Paul Klee from the Kandinsky/Klee Masters’ House to the Georgium in Dessau.

“The nomination for the Grimme Online Award is a wonderful honour. With Invisible Bauhaus Dessau, we are expanding the museum space. Particularly in times of intense debate about democratic remembrance culture, this project brings history back to where it belongs: right at the heart of people’s everyday lives. It makes the Bauhaus legacy in the urban space accessible to everyone as a living, contemporary space for experience and discourse.” – Barbara Steiner, Director and CEO of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.

The project was developed in collaboration with navos create and in partnership with Stadtmarketing Dessau-Roßlau. The concept, design and production translate the academically grounded content into a digital, location-based narrative experience. In this way, the Bauhaus is presented not merely as architectural history, but as an integral part of the city, its everyday spaces and its social debates.

“For more than 100 years, the ideas of the Bauhaus have been an inexhaustible source of inspiration worldwide – not just for us as designers. With Invisible Bauhaus Dessau, we aim to make this fascination accessible to a wider audience and broaden the perspective on the places, history and people who shaped the Bauhaus in Dessau. If our project inspires others and sparks a desire for an open, positive future, that would be the finest tribute for us. That is why the nomination for the Grimme Online Award is a source of particular joy and recognition for us.” – Toby Mory, Head of Motion at navos create.

“Invisible Bauhaus Dessau” was created to mark the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus in Dessau. The project invites viewers to broaden their familiar perspectives on the Bauhaus: It tells of improvisation and new beginnings, of artistic production and economic ambitions, of the significance of the city of Dessau – and also of the political conflicts that led to the closure of the Bauhaus in 1932.