Songfacts®:

• Bauhaus Stairway, also known as "Bauhaustreppe," is a 1932 oil painting by Oskar Schlemmer. It depicts the iconic Bauhaus school building in Dessau, Germany, specifically focusing on the main staircase and the figures ascending and descending it.
  
  Painted in response to an announcement that, under pressure from the Nazi party, the school was going to close, the work is considered a response to this significant event. Schlemmer, who was a teacher at the Bauhaus, used the painting to commemorate the school and its ideals. The figures on the stairs, though anonymous and faceless, represent the diverse community of artists, designers, and architects who thrived at the Bauhaus.
  
  This song, which opens OMD's Bauhaus Staircase album, serves as a nod to Andy McCluskey,'s love of the Bauhaus era.
• The song uses the image of the Bauhaus staircase as a starting point for broader reflections on art, culture, and human connection.
  
  "When times are hard there is a tendency for Governments to look at cutting funding for creativity, just at the moment when the arts are most needed to nourish our souls," said McCluskey. "Thus, it seems appropriate that the song and its eponymous album were created during COVID lockdown."
• Bauhaus Staircase is OMD's second successive album that references an artwork. Their previous record, Punishment of Luxury, takes its name from an 1891 painting by Italian artist Giovanni Segantini.
  
  "In difficult times, politicians go, 'Cut back on spending on the Arts,'" McCluskey told Mojo magazine. "The reality is that when times are hard you most need the creative arts to feed your soul. Also, the bastard Nazis shut down the Bauhaus, so there's also a reference to, I want to kick down fascist art."
• The album was predominantly written, recorded, and mixed by both members – McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, COVID restrictions meant that the duo had to work remotely, via the internet. "I rediscovered the creative power of total boredom," McCluskey admitted of the project.
• Bauhaus Staircase met with positive reviews and debuted at #2 on the UK Albums Chart. It became OMD's highest-charting studio album in their home country, matching the peak of 1988's The Best of OMD.