The main thing making Bauhaus dystopian is its alienation of humans from nature. In contrast, wabi sabi emphasises connection with nature, which creates a very different effect, while still being minimal.
Edit: another difference is approach to irregular shapes. Bauhaus bans them, while wabi sabi embraces them. I think that too makes the first dystopian and the latter human.
Isn't that a large ornament of a bird right on top of that house?
I'd argue that scene has _many_ design elements that are there only the sake of aesthetics. Whether you consider them ornamentation or not I guess depends on your perspective, but if you look closely you'll see lots of shapes and textures that would have required significant effort purely to add beauty. Japanese aesthetics also tend to value the uniqueness of hand crafted objects, and architecture that is built with care by a skilled tradesperson.
Whereas Bauhaus and much of modernism in general were often about stripping all non-essential design elements away, whether ornamentation or otherwise. Essentially: the minimum manufacturing effort to produce a building that meets the functional requirements, ideally in such a way that can be mass manufactured. The end result of a lot of Bauhaus designs isn't particularly visually minimalist. Indeed, there are often a lot of contrasting shapes and colours and often lack of symmetry.
Both are a form of minimalism, but very different in philosophy.
The problem is the Bauhaus was school of education not a movement. Bauhaus was totally focused on trying to figure out how not to lose humanity in the machine age.
The Foundation program that was developed for first year students at the Bauhaus is the same Foundation program that I went through in 1987 at my Art university.
Individual instructors had all sorts of ideas that were bananas. The resulting curriculum has stood the test of time for training young minds to deal with new materials and experiences.
I see design as the philosophical use of resources. One can create any aesthetic values one wants. The ultimate design measure from my point of view is the extent the artifact represents a waste of resources.
I think that if you made something look like the Japanese wabi sabi design, but while using industrial materials and methods, a Bauhaus person would probably consider it to be "ornamentation", because they hate everything that hides instead of reveals, and would rather have unnatural things look unnatural.
If a 3D printer makes an irregular shape, it's because it was specifically designed that way for appearance and no other reason, which they would probably consider lying, and the old school Japanese architects might too...
Even if you did make a building however they did in Japan 100 years ago, I would imagine a Bauhaus person might think you were just being extra, and your choice to do that was just a giant unnecessary performance piece, because you didn't just take the shortest path to pure function.
I'm not exactly sure why people all of a sudden really started caring about philosophy in 2009, but it seems to coincide with the rise of the red pill forums and such.
Before that it seemed like there was a lot more things imitating more organic shapes and traditional materials with modern methods, or hiding modern things behind old things.
I'm also not sure why people even like the entire concept of simple functional things, in the digital age. They take active effort to even remember they're there, the shortest path is just to chop the garlic with a knife and take notes on a phone.
In the article Art Déco is presented as an explicitly non-naturalistic style with decorations there being based on geometric shapes. Yet, I don't think it's common to describe Déco as a dystopian style.
The main thing making Bauhaus dystopian is its alienation of humans from nature. In contrast, wabi sabi emphasises connection with nature, which creates a very different effect, while still being minimal.
Edit: another difference is approach to irregular shapes. Bauhaus bans them, while wabi sabi embraces them. I think that too makes the first dystopian and the latter human.