Dear Alain and Bernhard,
Thank you for your comments, additional insights on the context and
complementary references. This is very helpful.
Lesley-Ann
Lesley-Ann Noel
LinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/in/lesleyannnoel>
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Personal website <https://lesleyannnoel.wixsite.com/website>
On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 9:54 AM iCloud <
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> 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/>
> >>
> >> Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
> >> CEO • Communication Research Institute •
> >> • helping people communicate with people •
> >>
> >> Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
> >> Phone: +61 (03) 9005 5903
> >>
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> >>
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> >>
> >>
> >>
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