Chavez approach to design was heavily influenced  by the Bauhaus School of Design, Architecture and Applied Arts that existed in Germany from 1919 to 1933. Founder and architect Walter Gropius included the teaching of various crafts, which he saw as allied to architecture, the matrix of the arts. By training students equally in art and in technically expert craftsmanship, the Bauhaus sought to end the schism between the two. Students at the Bauhaus were required to take a six-month preliminary course before being admitted into workshops—carpentry, metal, pottery, stained glass, wall painting, weaving, graphics, typography, and stagecraft. They were generally taught by two people: an artist who emphasized theory, and a craftsman, who emphasized techniques and technical processes. After three years of workshop instruction, the student received a journeyman’s diploma. The Bauhaus included among its faculty several outstanding artists of the 20th century. In addition to the above-mentioned, some of its teachers were Paul Klee (stained glass and painting), Wassily Kandinsky (wall painting), Lyonel Feininger (graphic arts), Oskar Schlemmer (stagecraft and also sculpture), Marcel Breuer (interiors), Herbert Bayer (typography and advertising), Gerhard Marcks (pottery), and Georg Muche (weaving). A severe but elegant geometric style carried out with great economy of means has been considered characteristic of the Bauhaus, though in fact the works produced were richly diverse. Chavez greatly admired the ability cultivated at the school to develop design into a skillfully manufactured product. It was due to this appreciation for merging disciplines that he began nurturing his own proficiency in craftsmanship.