Biografia
Alma Buscher was born on the 4th of January 1899 in Kreuztal in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
In 1917, she started her studies in the Reimann School of Berlin, and after that in the Unterrichtsanstalt des Kunstgewerbemuseums Berlin, ancient school of applied arts that was a department of the Museum of Decorative Arts of Berlin (Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin).
She was heavily influenced by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, a Swiss pedagogue from the 18th and 19th century, by pedagogical ideas of Friedric Fröbel, who boosted kindergarten by the end of the 18th century, and by her contemporary humanist, Maria Montessori.
Buscher began her studies in the Bauhaus school, in Weimar, in 1922. At first, she attended the preliminary course directed by Johannes Itten and the classes of Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, as her classmates did. Afterwards, she was accepted in the knitting workshop, directed by Georg Muche, but in 1923 in a wooden sculpture workshop led by Josef Hartwig. In 1923, she took part in the first Bauhaus exhibition, by designing furniture for children in the Haus am Horn in Weimar, as well as a puppet theatre and other toys by applying innovative ideas on interior design for children. Bauhaus school lasted for only 14 years, from 1919 to 1933, when the Nazi regime closed it. In the Bauhaus school, there were more than 1250 students from 29 different countries, and only 24 women were graduated. Its students made a wide range of designs, from metal ashtrays, ceramic cups, tapestry, stained glass windows to lams, wooden or steely furniture, architecture buildings... Everything having the spirit of the modern movement of which they were an integral part.
The majority of women were textile graduates, since they were appointed to the sewing factory workshop after passing induction training. However, many of them were not satisfied with this workshop and went on to make their way in the architecture, metal work, photography or carpentry workshops, among others. They stood out in more art and design fields in the school: typography, photography, metalwork, carpentry, architecture, glass, painting, ceramics, furniture design, interior design, industrial design, etc.
Alma Buscher was hugely successful at designing furniture for children. She took into account children, and thought about how their imagination could be stimulated in functional and creative spaces without forgetting practical, economical and formal exigences.
In the prototype of the children's room, Alma incorporated washable walls that served as blackboards, furniture was transformed into play elements, such as a cupboard whose door could become a puppet theatre or drawers that served as tables or chairs.
The 1923 Haus am Horn represented a revolutionary prototype for modern life. In 1924, when Buscher was still a student, the Zeiss Kindergarten in Jena was equipped with the furniture designed by her. That year, her furniture and toy designs were exhibited in a congress in Jena for kindergarten teachers, youth leaders and childcare providers, and also at the exhibition Youth Welfare in Thuringia in Weimar. In fact, one of the most known citations of Alma is:
"Children should, if at all possible, have a space where they can be what they want. Everything in it belongs to them – their imagination shapes it, they are not bothered by external inhibition, without the warning 'don't touch it'. Everything suits them, the shape corresponds to their size, practical purpose does not hinder the play possibilities. Light and bright colours to create an agreeable and funny environment. I designed this space based on these premises" said Alma Buscher in 1926.
She married the actor and dancer Werner Siedhoff (1899-1976), and when the Bauhaus was moved to Dessau, in 1925, they moved too.
She was graduated in 1927 and stayed in Dessau until 1928.
She had two children with Siedhoff, Joost , in 1926, and Lore, in 1928.
Alma Siedhoff-Buscher died during a bombing in World War II in Buchschlag, near Frankfurt, on the 25th of September 1944.
Lotte Brendel, the main fictitious character of the film from the German television Lotte am Bauhaus, broadcasted from the first time in ARD on February 2019, is based on Alma Buscher's life.
