Ulm and Braun
Bauhaus & German Design
Course 1 · Chapter 9 · After the War: Ulm, Braun and Divided Design
After 1945 Germany was in ruins and then divided in two. Design had to be rebuilt in both halves, and the Bauhaus, closed twelve years earlier, was a contested inheritance: celebrated by some, distrusted by others. In the West, a new school at Ulm and a company, Braun, turned some of its ideas into a recognisable post-war German style. In the East, the Bauhaus was at first condemned and later reclaimed. This chapter follows those stories and asks, as before, how much of what is credited to the Bauhaus really belongs to it. Names, dates and attributions are from general knowledge and flagged for checking.
Rebuilding
A discredited past
After the Nazi years, the modern design movement of the 1920s could look like a way of rebuilding a clean, honest culture, and some of its refugees returned or visited (check the examples and attitudes).
A West German project
The Federal Republic set up bodies to promote "good form", including the Rat für Formgebung (a design council) in the 1950s (check the date and aims).
A divided inheritance
The Dessau building lay in East Germany, and the school's archive and many of its people were in the West or abroad, so the legacy was split along the border (Chapter 10).
The Ulm School of Design
| Element | What it was (check each) |
|---|---|
| Founding | The Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm opened in 1953, founded by Inge Scholl, Otl Aicher and others, with Max Bill, a former Bauhaus student, as the first rector (check the date and the roles). |
| Link to the Bauhaus | Deliberate: it used a foundation course, workshops and the idea of design as a social task, and Bill brought Bauhaus teachers' methods (check how closely it followed them). |
| Change of course | Bill left in the late 1950s after disagreements, and the school moved towards a more scientific, methodical approach, with subjects such as semiotics and systems thinking, under figures such as Tomás Maldonado (check the details). |
| Closure | It closed in 1968, after funding was withdrawn by the regional government and the school itself was divided (check the reasons). |
| Legacy | Its graduates and teachers shaped industrial and graphic design in Germany, including the corporate design of airlines and the pictograms of the 1972 Munich Olympics, by Otl Aicher (check the attributions). |
Braun and Dieter Rams
- The firm. Braun, a Frankfurt electrical company, was led from 1951 by the brothers Erwin and Artur Braun, who set out to make well-designed consumer products (check the dates and the people).
- The link with Ulm. Teachers from Ulm, such as Hans Gugelot, worked with the company, and the radio-phonograph known as the SK 4 of 1956 is credited to Dieter Rams and Gugelot (check the credit and the date).
- Dieter Rams. A designer at Braun from the mid-1950s and head of design from 1961 (check), known for plain, ordered products and for a phrase that sums up his approach, "less, but better" (check the German and its use).
- Ten principles. Rams later listed ten principles of good design, including that good design is innovative, useful, aesthetic, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting and as little design as possible (check the list and when it was written).
- The legacy. Braun's products are often cited as an influence on later consumer electronics (check the claims, which are frequently exaggerated); the link to the Bauhaus is one of ideas, not of staff.
East and West
| Side | Attitude to the Bauhaus (check each) |
|---|---|
| West Germany | Gradually embraced as a model of democratic, modern design; the Bauhaus-Archiv was founded in 1960 and later moved to Berlin (check), and Ulm and Braun drew on its ideas. |
| East Germany, early 1950s | Officially condemned as "formalist" and cosmopolitan, in favour of a style based on traditional forms (check the policy and the examples such as the Stalinallee in Berlin). |
| East Germany, later | Partly rehabilitated; the Dessau building was restored in the 1970s and reopened (check the date), and industrial design was supported by state design bodies (check their names and roles). |
| Everyday objects | East German products ranged from plain, well-made household goods to cars such as the Trabant, made in part of a plastic called Duroplast (check), and the quality and design were uneven. |
- Different schools. In the East, schools such as the arts schools at Berlin-Weißensee and Burg Giebichenstein in Halle kept design teaching alive, with Bauhaus-linked teachers at times (check the names and dates).
- Reunification. After 1990 the divided legacy was brought back together, and the Bauhaus sites became a shared heritage (Chapter 10).
- A caution. Describing East German design only through the Trabant, or West German design only through Braun, would be unfair to both. Both sides produced plain and ornamental objects, good and bad.
Exercises
Describe the Ulm School of Design: when and by whom it was founded, how it related to the Bauhaus, and how it ended.
Explain Dieter Rams's "less, but better" approach, give one example of a Braun product, and add a caution about attributing it to one person.
Compare the attitude to the Bauhaus in West and East Germany after the war, and say why the East's attitude changed.
Quick Reference
- Ulm: opened 1953, Max Bill's Bauhaus-inspired school, later more scientific, closed 1968 (check)
- Braun: company led by Erwin and Artur Braun from 1951; designs by Gugelot, Rams and teams (check)
- Rams: "less, but better" and ten principles of good design (check)
- West: embraced the Bauhaus as a democratic modern model
- East: condemned as formalist in the early 1950s, later partly reclaimed, Dessau restored in the 1970s (check)