Alma Siedhoff-Buscher
1899 - 1944
AN UNUSUAL CAREER AT THE BAUHAUS: CHILD-ORIENTED FURNITURE AND TOYS FOR SUCCESS
The “Small Ship-Building Game” is still a popular toy today. It was developed by a woman who had an unusual career at the Bauhaus: Alma Siedhoff-Buscher. Only a year after she was accepted to the Bauhaus in 1922, she was given the opportunity to switch to wood carving, and shortly after that was requested to collaborate in designing a children’s room in the “House am Horn” building in Weimar.
Alma Siedhoff-Buscher also demonstrated an excellent awareness of children’s needs in the Bauhaus workshops in Dessau. There she met her future husband Werner Siedhoff, dancer and actor on the Bauhaus stage. After their marriage and the birth of their children, she settled in Dessau and moved with her family to an attic apartment in an estate house on Herman-Löns-Straße. But after Walter Gropius refused to hire Alma Siedhoff-Buscher permanently, the family left Dessau. In 1944, Alma Siedhoff-Buscher was killed in an air raid in Frankfurt am Main.
When Bauhaus celebrates its 100-year anniversary next year in 2019, this famous Bauhaus member will also be commemorated, 120 years after her birth. Without a doubt, the “Small Ship-Building Game” will be particularly in demand then. It is still produced today and on offer in the Bauhaus design shop in Dessau.
