Hi Klaus,
You make an interesting point. And, of course, the social context of ULM is relevant in any historical analysis of its contribution.
My own context, though, was not as you describe it. At the time I came across Ulm, I was in Sunderland College of Art in the UK, not Australia. It was my first job, fresh with a degree from Leeds University. I was also enrolled as a research postgraduate student at Durham University where I was investigating design methods in visual communication.
I was familiar with many of the post war issues in Europe and not unsympathetic to the generational transitions in Germany. I had met many German students on a number of working visits to Austria in the early sixty's. And where I lived in the UK, with 10% unemployment the norm, there was a lot of deep reflection about the actions of the previous English generations. Though I fancy we had a better sense of humour, as one local wit put it in the local vernacular:
> The only bloke what brought full employment t't North of England were Adolf Hitler.
My discomfort with what I read and saw of the Ulm work was that it seemed to be repeating many of the mistakes of the Bauhaus. Just as the Bauhaus uncritically adopted the scientism of its day, so too did Ulm. Pre-war Gestalt theory was replaced with post-war information theory, linguistics and semiotics. The continuation of a design tradition doffing its cap to abstract theory, even though the abstractions had changed, did not seem to me a step forwards. I found myself much more drawn to British pragmatists like Bruce Archer.
I am always discomforted by manifestos, assertions, and the absence of evidence.
I often quote Walter Benjamin on this matter
> There is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.(Illuminations, p 248)
One of the areas I was investigating at the time was the use of public information symbols. While there were many interesting ideas about visual rhetoric emerging from Ulm, in none of it did I see a link to my interest in helping confused and lost travellers in our cities, hospitals and campuses.
No, I took my lead from Bruce Archer and Moholy-Nagy, as I have written many times.
http://communication.org.au/product/information-design-an-overview/
Moholy-Nagy too was a product of the Bauhaus, but took a direction that is in many ways a much more deserving forerunner to today's 'design thinking'
Klaus, you also wrote:
> perhaps you as an australian may not appreciate the politics behind that period…wouldn't you agree that your own success is linked to the commercial environment that gives you the opportunities to make a difference?
As you will have gathered, I'm not a native born Australian, though it is my adopted nationality. But I fancy many native born Australians as well as many of us émigrés would take some offence at your suggestion, and no, I don't think it is the commercial environment per se that has made us successful, it is a far more pervasive cultural climate.
I wrote a blog about exactly this issue back in 2003.
http://communication.org.au/directors-notes-2/
Sadly, our current government is trying ween us off our sense of obligation to each other and turn us into something that is all too recognizable in Europe and the USA.
But, our Beautiful autumn weather continues! I'm off to do some gardening.
David
--
blog: http://communication.org.au/blog/
web: http://communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO • Communication Research Institute •
• helping people communicate with people •
Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
Phone: +61 (0)3 9005 5903
Skype: davidsless
60 Park Street • Fitzroy North • Melbourne • Australia • 3068
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