Editorial

When the Ulm School of Design was closed in 1968, it was more than the just end of an educational institution. The widely held assumption that Ulm was some sort of "reform school" for good design is probably the most misleading conception concerning the school.

Our interest in the Ulm School of Design arises from the fact that it was the last institution to assemble under one roof artists and academics from the world of design who had one important thing in common: they sought to bring about profound changes in modern society. It cannot be said that these individuals achieved their goals. However, it should be noted that no other institution of design in Germany has since managed to come close to exerting as much influence on the development of the theory and practice of design.

What made this school so appealing? Perhaps it was its curriculum, which focussed on exploring new directions for society. Or was it that the institution widened the intellectual horizons of design, transforming the school into a mecca for leading academics and theorists from around the world? Or was it simply that modern society – although its prosperity depends entirely on constant changes in aesthetic appearances – rejects all proponents of fundamental changes to our way of life and pushes them to the fringes of our social order where, given the right historical circumstances, they can briefly flourish?

Inge Scholl met with Otl Aicher and Hans Werner Richter shortly after the Second World War to discuss the establishment of a new institution of higher learning. She did this in part out of a sense of duty to her siblings who were executed by the Nazis for their activities in the "Weisse Rose" resistance group. Given the atmosphere in Ulm, she saw a great need for the public to be politically well informed so as to prevent fascism from once again taking root on German soil. The new school was initially intended to educate politicians, journalists and writers. However, when Max Bill agreed to join the project, the design of objects and spaces, which until then had been of only minor importance, suddenly took on a major role in the curricular plans for the school. At the time, Bill was building a reputation for himself with large, international exhibitions, and he saw the project as an opportunity to connect his name with the foundation of a successor school to the Bauhaus. He had studied at the Bauhaus and he knew that a highly autonomous concentration of high-calibre, aesthetically progressive designers could create wide-ranging opportunities for creative work and development. He wrote to Walter Gropius, who had become an influential architect in the USA, and received documents on the concept of the New Bauhaus, a school inspired by the Bauhaus that Laszlo Moholy-Nagy had founded in Chicago. Gropius advised Bill to push out the wordsmiths (i.e., the writers, the philosophers, and the journalists) so that they were no longer the intended focus of the new school. It quickly became clear that Bill was a man with little patience for discussions and debates, and in the end all that remained of the efforts of Scholl, Aicher, and Richter to educate the public was a department responsible for "information design". Hans Werner Richter, one of the initiators and the secretary of the "Group 47" as well as a proponent of "humane socialism", and anything but a tame writer, left the project shortly thereafter.

To finance the school, Inge Scholl was offered a grant of one million marks. The money was to come from a fund for cultural and political development in Germany that was chaired by the US High Commissioner for Germany, John J. McCloy. Inge Scholl was to receive the money only if she succeeded in finding matching funds in Germany amounting to one million marks. This support was far from altruistic. The US was well aware of a latent and at times open anti-Americanism in Europe whose source could not be clearly identified. However, following the liberation of Europe from fascism, American foreign policy makers were even more concerned with limiting the influence of socialist and communist ideologies. A broad programme of cultural and political activities was rapidly launched, funded by the US government and numerous private sources, and coordinated by the CIA with the aim of containing pro-Soviet influences, particularly among European intellectuals. The strategy was to win support for American policies among leftists who had become disillusioned with the Soviet Union as a result of Stalin\'s reign of terror. To attain these objectives, the CIA created an official consortium of non-profit foundations, companies, and private individuals who helped to cover up and even finance the agency\'s covert operations in Western Europe.

The extent of this consortium has only gradually come to light. Today it has been verified that at least 170 foundations knowingly transferred CIA funds to conceal the true nature of its intelligence activities in Western Europe. These include non-profit organisations such as the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation. Although there are no known directives relating to the Ulm School of Design, the institution was founded in the context of such operations. The financing received by the school was more than just another aspect of the nationwide re-education programmes of the day, and it fulfilled a purpose that went far beyond the denazification that was common in West Germany at the time and had been experienced firsthand by Inge Scholl and Otl Aicher.

Inge Scholl received the check for one million marks directly from John J. McCloy, the US High Commissioner for Germany, a former US Assistant Secretary of War, a former President of the World Bank, the new Chairman of the Ford Foundation and Chairman of Rockefeller\'s Chase Manhatten Bank since 1953, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Wall Street lawyer who represented seven large oil companies and sat on numerous supervisory boards.

A photo taken during the construction of the school shows a member of the board of trustees of the Geschwister-Scholl-Stiftung (the foundation that bears the name of the Scholl siblings), Hermann Josef Abs, at the head of the team of observers.

The school never achieved the level of autonomy that was absolutely essential for conducting extensive experiments and formulating theoretical treatises; its independence remained an objective that could only be attained by combating forces in the outside world.

Most of the protagonists had very little idea of the complicated nature of the machinations behind the scenes. Nonetheless, these complexities are an indication of the explosive socio-political nature of a project that brought together important figures from the world of design whose aim was to lead modern civilisation away from imperialistic wars and murderous technology.

The historical dimensions of the Ulm School of Design extend far beyond provincial squabbling of anti-fascists in the school with arch-conservative reactionaries in the administration of the city of Ulm, many of whom refused to accept that the project to design a modern society was in effect an open challenge to their political as well as aesthetic ideas and beliefs.

This issue of form + zweck documents certain aspects of the history of the Ulm School of Design. It does not set out to review events chronologically or acknowledge the school\'s merits from a current perspective by playing down conflicts within the institution. We have conducted interviews aimed at getting to the root of disputes among staff and students, in which the protagonists were fully or only partially conscious of their motives. In addition to the school\'s founding father, Max Bill, Tomás Maldonado was a key figure in the history of the institution. He introduced a new curriculum based on scientific theory and methodology. Was this change in course a means of forcing out Bill, the headmaster with the Bauhaus background, whose commitment to his duties had continued to wane?

Claude Schnaidt is one of the few who has (nearly) experienced the entire existence of the school firsthand. He is familiar with all aspects of the institution because he was a student and then later a member of the teaching staff. Schnaidt is also one of the most politically active persons associated with the school – a man who early on realised that his actions play an integral role in greater global political events.

We also interviewed Claudia von Alemann, who has the keen observational talents of a professional cinematographer, and thus proved to be an invaluable source of information on student life at the school. In addition to her observations from a student perspective, she spoke of the special role played by the Film Department with regard to other departments at the school.

There is much about the Ulm School of Design that we still do not fully understand. As a result, the history of the school cannot be convincingly summed up in words or images. This is clearly reflected in the letter from Gui Bonsiepe at the beginning of this issue. Nevertheless, we believe that the three interviews and a number of previously unpublished documents provide new insights into the nature of the school.

The texts by Otto Karl Werckmeister and myself aim to illustrate that the radical nature and the continued importance of the problems and questions that were addressed at the school can only be understood within the broad historical context of cultural, artistic, scientific, and technical developments.

The objective of the Ulm School of Design was to influence the development of the modern world. This is a far more ambitious and lofty goal than merely creating good design. The path that was taken and the means that were used to transform modern society into a more humane world had a number of diabolical aspects that have only emerged with the passing of time. There is no doubt that today\'s civilisation needs to rethink its cultural values and its approach to technology. Nonetheless, there will surely be disagreement over the correct means and methods. The Ulm School of Design is more than just an historical precedent from which we can all learn. It provides us with criteria for discussions and debates, for experiments and results – criteria that are decisive to meeting the challenges that we face today.

Jörg Petruschat