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The ulm: method and design. Ulm school of design

2014-03-11

The ulm: method and design. Ulm school of design

The exhibition focuses on research into, and visualization of, the "Ulm Model," exploring its effects up to the present day. Using large-format photos, text panels, an illustrated synopsis, models, graphic works, draft designs, products, a "tower of books," and videos, it shows the great variety of intellectual approaches, procedures, and results of the school's work. The exhibition is divided into clearly delineated sections: background and contemporary history, details of the building and biographies of founding members, theoretical principles and results, visual communication, industrial design, building, developmental groups, film, and interviews with former teachers and students. The school's influence on students around the world will be shown through examples of design study programs in Latin America and Asia.

For the period it existed from 1953 through 1968, the Ulm School of Design was one of the most important contemporary design academies. It saw itself as an international institution for teaching, research, and development in the field of design. Students from many different countries were drawn to Ulm, attracted not only by the interdisciplinary aspects of the training program, but also by the names of founders and teachers such as Otl Aicher, Inge Aicher-Scholl, Max Bill, Max Bense, Hans Gugelot, Tomás Maldonado, and Gui Bonsiepe. The special methodology used in Ulm is still internationally influential today in design teaching. Known as the "Ulm Model," it has helped define what it means to be a professional industrial designer. Systematic thinking and logically-argued design processes offered rational, technically-oriented solutions to a modern mass society, made possible by scientific and technological progress in new materials, media, and techniques. By the late 1950s close cooperation with business had already been established. The Ulm School of Design, beset by political and financial problems, began to decline from 1966 on. In 1968 its members decided to close the institution.