Dear Lesley-Ann,
Dear all,
Since you ask for feed-back and in order to react to the thematics of
the genesis of design research and the future of design education
currently discussed on the list, here are some comments.
The value and relevance of your draft on Ulm cannot be appreciated
unless you tell us more about what your research question is. As such,
your paper cannot be considered as a “significant and original
contribution to the discipline” of design history since you rely, as
Nigel Cross has mentioned, merely on secondary and tertiary sources and
therefore add nothing new to what scholars already know and have written
on this subject. If this were your intention, you would obviously want
to consult the substantial literature that is available in German on the
subject, spend some time at the HfG Archive, and conduct interviews with
former students and faculty members. If however your intention were, for
instance, to contribute to the issue of future design education, then
your paper would indeed constitute a helpful introduction.
To be more concrete, let me add the following comments:
1) To my knowledge, the first course in semiotics in a design school was
held at the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937 by no other than one of its
main theoretician, Charles Morris himself. The former students I had a
chance to interview were all unanimous: " The course sounded interesting
and important, but no one understood what Morris was saying" (!). More
noticeable was the fact that Morris was charged by Moholy to help
realize the "intellectual integration" of the curriculum. Morris had
previously edited George Mead's /Mind, Self, and Society/(1934) and
published his scientific standpoint in/Logical Positivism, Pragmatism,
and scientific Empiricism /(1937)/. /Together with Rudolf Carnap and
Otto Neurath, he also published the /International Encyclopedia of
Unified Science /(1938), a 'bible' of logical positivism, that included
his /Foundations of the Theory of Signs/, which actually constituted the
basis of his course at the New Bauhaus. On Morris’ recommendation,
Moholy-Nagy also met John Dewey in New York in 1938 to get his support
after the closing of the New Bauhaus and its continuation under the name
of School of Design in Chicago. In a letter to Morris after this
meeting, Dewey shared his excitement about Moholy-Nagy's project, in
which he could see an incarnation of his own philosophy. In
Moholy-Nagy's personal library Iaccessedsome 30 years ago, I couldn't
find whether the book Dewey gave him after their meeting was /Art and
Experience/(1934) or /Experience and Education/he had just published (1938).
The missing link between the Bauhaus and the HfG is indeed the New
Bauhaus/School of Design/Institute of Design, the curriculum of which
included a set of scientific courses, conceived by Morris as "/The
//I//ntellectual Program of the New Bauhaus/" (a 6-page typescript now
in the Institute of Design Archive), the theoretical principles of which
he justifies in his1939 major article "Science, Art, and Technology"
(The Kenyon Review,1, 4, 1939, pp. 409-423).The list included both
Natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, optics, acoustics,
electricity, mechanics, anatomy, technology) and Humanities (social
sciences, cultural and intellectual history, aesthetics, art history,
contemporary literature). Some examples: physicist Carl Eckart,
coordinator of the Natural sciences program, was the first translator of
Heisenberg in the U.S.; physiologist Ralph Gerard promoted a
systemic/ecological approach to life sciences along the lines of Ludwig
von Bertalanffy; physicist Aaron Sayvetz and mathematician Edgar Richard
taught mathematics and geometry, including planar topology; social
sciences and humanities included economics by Maynard Krueger, sociology
by Louis Wirth and Lloyd Warner, semantics by I.S. Hayakawa, literature
by Leslie Lewis.
Indeed, this ambitious program couldnever be carried out completely, due
to a difficult context, especially during the war years.
By the way,in Chicago, the specific educational and philosophical
approach inspired by the Bauhaus spirit, under the directorships of
Moholy-Nagy (from 1937 until his death in 1946), followed by Ivan
Chermayeff(until 1951) lasted only 14 years (just like the Bauhaus and
the HfG!). After a short parenthesis, Jay Doblin took over the Institute
of Design and turned it into a strict, straight, and successful
professional school, raising Walter Gropius' severe disavowal
("Statement", open letter, 1955, Bauhaus Archiv).
Now, to come back to the current discussion on the list, one cannot say
that design research had actually taken place in Chicago. However, there
was undoubtedly a general intellectual atmosphere that would have lead
to such activity, had the economic, institutional, and ideological
conditions been more favourable. In the very last pages of his
posthumously published intellectual and educational legacy /Vision in
Motion/- still worth reading today - Moholy-Nagy calls for the creation
of a "Parliament of Social Design", "an international cultural working
assembly [...] composed of outstanding scientists, sociologists,
artists, writers, musicians, technicians and craftsmen". He charged John
Kewell to draw the plan of thebuilding, to be equipped"with modern
working conditions for research" (pp. 358-61). Moholy-Nagy even sketches
out the correspondingscientific program, intendedto "serve as the
intellectual trustee of a new age in finding a /new unity of purpose/"
and to "translate Utopia into action".
2) It is unfair and erroneous to restrict and reduce the German Bauhaus
to a mere Arts & Crafts institution. I think this prejudice results
fromhavingrelied too muchon the amount of glossy photographs and
illustrations that have been widely published on the Bauhaus and its
achievements. Serious research into the texts and the correspondence
reveals that the underlying project was much more ambitious. In one of
his BBC talks (1968), later published and translated into Italian and
Spanish, historian Joseph Rykwert stated that there was a "Dark Side of
the Bauhaus" that needed to be elucidated, a task I have ventured to
undertake in my research. Some of my - still conditional - conclusions
were first published in a series of 3 articles in /The Structurist /(see
references below). I also analyzed the structure of an ideal design
curriculum, based on Charles Morris' ternary model 'Science, Art, and
Technology', and came to the conclusion that respectively the Bauhaus,
the New Bauhaus, and the HfG never managed to concretely implement such
model (see comparative analysis of corresponding models in Findeli,
1999). I believe this model still constitutes a valid, challenging, and
fruitful basis for contemporary and future design education.
Furthermore, it is not only worthy but necessary to be clear about the
"dark side" of any design institution, more precisely about its
underlying philosophy of education, its implicit philosophical
anthropology, and of what one could term its cosmology; in short, what I
termed its "extended human ecology" (Findeli, 2012, p. 294). In a recent
keynote lecture including a chapter titled"Concerning the spiritual in
design, in particularin social design", I describe more specifically
the metaphysics of the Bauhaus (its "dark side") as being relatedto the
Manichean spiritual tradition, a worldview that invites to consider
phenomena and situations in dynamis polarities, the famous Bauhaus
principle « Art & Technology : a New Unity » being one of them. Recent
research on the « esoteric » aspect of the Bauhaus seem to confirm such
hypothesis (see references below).
Its time to conclude this long reply but too brief commentary. There are
obviously many design schools and programs that have been influenced by
the HfG and the Bauhaus lineage, but if I had to point one initiative
that, from my point of view, embodies what future design education
could, indeed should, aim for, it would definitely be Otto Scharmer’s
proposals, namely: his “Theory U”, a challenging and original theory of
the design project, the MOOC “Leading From the Emerging Future“ that
runs every year since 2015, and the projects carried out at the
Presencing Institute.
*Some complementary references*
_On the HfG_:
- The “Recent Literature” published in 1988 by Robin Kinross in the
/Journal of Design History/(1, 3/4,pp.249-56) obviously needs to be
updated but still constitutes a valuable starting point.
- René Spitz’s“Design Becomes an Issue in Germany” (/The Design
Journal/, 8, 3, 2005, pp. 2-12) has a long chapter on the HfG.
- Tomas Maldonado presented the HfG in a long lecture held (in German)
at the World Fair in Brussels on September 18, 1958, titled “Neue
Entwicklungen in der Industrie und the Ausbildung des Produktgestalters”
(New Developments in Industry and the Training of the Designer). It was
then published in 3 languages (D, E, F) in issue 2 of /Ulm /(pp. 25-40,
October 1958)/, /the “Quarterly Bulletin of the HfG”, a journal
published by the HfG irregularly from 1958 to 1968 (21 issues). /Ulm/is
indeed a required first-hand reference (The complete collection is online).
- Some design magazines and journals published their special issue on
the HfG: /Archithese /(#15, 1975), /Casabella/(#435, 1978),
/Rassegna/(VI, 19/3, 1984).
- One recent monograph extensively describesthe Information Department
of the HfG: Oswald, D., Wachsmann, Chr. & Kellner, P. (2015).
/Rückblicke. Die Abteilung Information an der hfg ulm,
/Schriftenreihe//club off ulm e.v./, /200p. This series also includes
monographs on the departments of Building (2001), Product Design (2008),
Visual Communication (2010), and Film (2012).
- /Ulm and evidence/and /Request ‘Son of Rittel Think’ & design
thinking/threadson this list, May 2014.
_O__n the “dark side” of the Bauhaus_:
- Rykwert, Joseph (1968, reprinted 1982). /The Dark Side of the
Bauhaus/, BBC talk published in /The Listener/, 80, 2, October 3, 436-7,
published as chapter 3 of /The Necessity of Artifice/, Milan, Rizzoli.
- Lübcke, Gustav (ed.) (2009). /Esoterik am Bauhaus/, Christof Kerber
Verlag.
-**Beyne, Klaus von & Bernhard, Peter (ed.) (2009). /Johannes Itten –
Wassily Kandinsky – Paul Klee: Das Bauhaus und die Esoterik/, Schnell &
Steiner Verlag.
_My articles on the Bauhaus legacy_:
- «La tradition du Bauhaus peut-elle nous instruire aujourd'hui?»,
/in/Morrison R. (ed.), /Common Ground. Contemporary Craft, Architecture,
and the Decorative Arts/, Ottawa, Institute for Contemporary Craft,
1999, pp. 29-44 (with a 1-page abstract in English and the comparative
models of the Bauhaus, the New Bauhaus, and the HfG).
- “The Bauhaus Project: An Archetype for Design Education in the New
Millenium”, /The Structurist/, 39/40, 1999-2000, pp. 36-43.
- "Bauhaus Education and After. Some Critical Reflections", /The
Structurist/, no. 31/32, 1991/92, pp. 32-43.
- "The Bauhaus : Avant-garde or Tradition?", /The Structurist/, no.
29/30, 1989, 56-65.
- "Design Education and Industry. The Laborious Beginnings of the
Institute of Design in Chicago in 1944", /Journal of Design History/,
IV, 2, Summer 1991, 97-113.
- “A Tentative Archaeology of Social Design”, keynote lecture atICDHS
Conference, Barcelona 2018, /Back to the Future/(proceedings),
http://www.publicacions.ub.edu/release/08927_backToFuture.pdf, pp. 37-40.
_On Otto Scharmer_:
- Scharmer, Otto (2008). /Theory U. Leading from the Future as it
Emerges. The Social Theory of Presencing/, San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler.
- Scharmer, O. & Kaufer, K. (2013). /Leading from the Emerging Future/,
Oakland, Berrett-Koehler.
- Scharmer succinctly but very clearly and convincingly presents his
educational and pedagogical principles in a 2015 published interview by
Kathryn Pavlovich: “Exploring transcendental leadership: a
conversation”, /J. of Management, Spirituality & Religion/,12, 4, 2015,
pp. 290-304.
- MOOC on Theory U: /u.lab: Leading From the Emerging Future. An
introduction to leading profound social, environmental and personal
transformation
/(https://www.edx.org/course/ulab-leading-from-the-emerging-future-15-671-1x-1)
I hope this was relevant and helpful,
Best, Alain
Le 2019-02-18 à 01:05, Lesley-Ann Noel a écrit :
> Dear David,
>
> Thank you for sharing my draft on the relevance of the curriculum of the
> Hfg Ulm on contemporary design education. I'd love feedback on the article
> from other list members who are familiar with Ulm.
>
>
> Lesley-Ann Noel
> Ocean Design Teaching Fellow
> <https://dschool.stanford.edu/news-events/2018-19-teaching-fellows>
> d.school Stanford University
>
>
> LinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/in/lesleyannnoel>
> Academia <https://sta-uwi.academia.edu/LesleyAnnNoel>
> Personal website <https://lesleyannnoel.wixsite.com/website>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 17, 2019 at 2:41 PM [log in to unmask] <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> https://www.academia.edu/38360255/The_Ulm_School_of_Design_and_its_relevance_to_contemporary_design_education_.docx?email_work_card=view-paper
>> David
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> blog: http://communication.org.au/blo <http://communication.org.au/blo>g/
>> web: http://communication.org.au <http://communication.org.au/>
>>
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