The work federation (Werkbund), which was founded in Munich in 1907, advocated the practicality of use of everyday devices. The Bauhaus (founded in 1919) was a pioneering force in the effort to unite crafts, technology and industry in order to give all the arts (including architecture and design) a new aesthetic quality.

In the period of the Weimar Republic, the objective of porcelain manufacturing in Berlin was also reformulated with the aim of creating exemplarily designed and affordable consumer porcelain. Such contemporary artists as Gerhard Marcks and Ludwig Gies set the tone for the modern range.
The designer Trude Petri was awarded numerous prizes for her Urbino table service, which she created in 1931.

In the world of painting, Christian Schad, Otto Dix and Georg Grosz represented the New Objectivity movement. In literature, Lion Feuchtwanger, Alfred Döblin and Erich Kästner stood for a realism that had freed itself from the ideals of the 19th century.
The term "New Objectivity" was coined in 1923 by the German art historian Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub (1884-1963).