The Mugak/ Biennial hosts a unique exhibition about the Ulm School and its legacy in the world of design

2019 October 24

• “Diseño de Sistemas: la Escuela de Ulm y la Compañía Braun” [System Design: the Ulm School and the Braun Company] brings together the three archives that preserve its works for the first time in a joint exhibition. It shows around 150 pieces in two locations: the San Telmo Museum and the Basque Country Architecture Institute (next to the Santa Teresa convent)

 

• Every household today has objects based on Ulm research works. In its 15 years of life, it built the basis of contemporary design and inspired enterprises such as Braun. In his turn, its Art Director Dieter Rams, influenced the design of companies such as Apple.

 

• Conferences and family workshops will complete the activities around the main exhibition of the Basque Country International Architecture Biennial.

 

Today, the Basque Country International Architecture Biennial Mugak/ has presented the main exhibition of its 2019 edition.“Diseño de Sistemas: la Escuela de Ulm y la Compañía Braun” [System Design: the Ulm School and the Braun Company] is a unique show with around 150 works courtesy of the three German archives that preserve the legacy of the Ulm Higher School of Design and the Braun company.

This educational establishment, active only for 15 years (1953-1968), laid the foundations for the design world as we know it today.The exhibition, addressed to the general public, will open its doors on Saturday the 26th of October 2019 until the 12th of January 2020 in two locations: the Basque Country Architecture Institute – Mugak/’s main seat – and the San Telmo Museum, both in the Old Town of San Sebastián.

According to its curators Gillermo Zuaznabar and Neus Moyano, this is one of the “most complex and extensive” exhibitions about the Ulm School and its relationship with Braun design and its Art Director Dieter Rams. It shows objects, photographs of the period, screenings, drawings and exercises by Ulm School students - courtesy of the archives Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm and Renè Spitz Sammlung -, as well as designs and prototypes of the Braun Sammlung collection. It is the first time that this legacy is exhibited together in our country.

The show brings the public closer to the relationship that the Ulm School forged between architecture, design, science and technology by creating more scientific systems than the ones proposed by the Bauhaus, its predecessor.Over time, this new way of thinking and defining the profession of industrial designers became an unavoidable reference in the teachings of design schools.It has even inspired the designs of influential businesses, such as the airline Lufthansa, the Bilbao underground or Braun, whose Art Director Dieter Rams influenced companies such as Apple.

 

The Ulm School was founded in the framework of the Marshall Plan by the family of two brothers who were executed by Hitler’s regime.It was originally aimed at re-educating the German youth by teaching them literacy and democratic values. It first evolved into a school of political education, which finally became the school of architecture and design founded by Max Bill, Otl Aicher and Inge Scholl, who was the sister of the men executed.

“Ulm Is Present in Our Daily Life”

The School contributed its designs and radical aesthetics to the industrial, political and social refoundation of Germany after the Second World War.Sixty years later, some of Ulm inventions are part of our daily life at home such as, for example, the idea of stackable objects to save space.Most of the existing cups, plates and glasses are based on Hans Roericht’s research work. His system is also used in electronic devices, etc. “Ulm is present in our homes today; every one has objects that were developed using its systems or methodologies”, the curators affirmed.

The Ulm School escaped from the concept of disposable consumerism and obsolescence; it promoted the idea of creating versatile objects for several rooms; an example is the piece of furniture Bofinger M125, which will be exhibited at the San Telmo Museum.Many consider this piece of furniture the predecessor of those from Ikea, because it could be purchased in modules. Its creator Hans Gugelot measured the standard of every object in a home and created a basic measurement - 125 millimetres - which was used for creating modules that fitted the rest of objects.

The Minister for the Environment, Land Planning and Housing of the Basque Government, Iñaki Arriola, whose Department organises Mugak/, emphasised that the Ulm School objects “were practical, versatile and durable. These features are very useful today, since we are now questioning the sustainability of our model of disposable consumption. They explain as well why the creations and influence of the Ulm School have prevailed”.

Many elements of everyday basic iconography are also based on Ulm.Even the basic computer symbols derive from designs by Tomás Maldonado, a professor at the School. He generated a system to connect people and machines at the Olivetti company. Those symbols where used in the first computers and mobile phones.“It is said that they created computers without computers, because they had an IT way of thinking”, the curator summarises. She also ensures that “today, we could not live without Ulm graphic signage and pictograms”.

We find another example in the pictograms designed by Otl Aicher for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, the first ones celebrated in Germany after the Second World War.

Under the premise that objects had to be first and foremost useful to the user, the School established the principle that “a good design is not the flashiest one, but the one that causes no trouble”, Zuaznabar stresses.Objects had to be versatile, neutral, useful and necessary.“They did not set about designing, but about solving problems; not about  drawing a poster, but about solving a communication problem”, Moyano adds.

Objects Rarely Shown to the Public

The two locations of the exhibition - the Basque Country Architecture Institute (IAE) and the San Telmo Museum -  will be divided into the same departments as the Ulm School: Visual Communication, Product Design, Information (journalism) and Construction (architecture). They will add a part specially devoted to Braun design.The Departments of Visual Communication, Product Design and Information, as well as the Braun Design will be shown at the San Telmo Museum; the Construction Department, which underlines the Ulm contribution to building design and industrial construction, will be located at the IAE.

The exhibition includes objects that have rarely been shown to the general public.The San Telmo Museum will show a full-scale part of the Braun pavilion, a space conceived by the School designers for the German company. The business collaborated closely with the School and became a leading enterprise in this area.It also includes examples of disruptive objects, such as the first high-fidelity equipment they built with Braun that only a few people could afford.

 

The IAE hosts the exercises of the School’s preliminary course. This legacy of the Bauhaus was very important for students to understand material, colour and form according to the laws of design as well as to educate their way of looking at things.The School only had one Spanish student: Mónica Buch, from Valencia. Her preliminary course exercises are also shown in the exhibition.

A Reflection on Design

Mugak/ curator Pedro Astigarraga explains that “in the present situation after the economic crisis, there are more and more architects and more and more difficulties to construct a building”.This exhibition shows how architects can think and design buildings as well as many other things.It is important to create new opportunities and make citizens and businesses understand and appreciate the added value of an idea. It is what generates a good product, be it a house or an object”.

The exhibition will also offer activities for a diversity of publics, such as the conference “Aprendiendo de la Hfg Ulm” [Learning from the Hfg Ulm], which will take place from the 11th to the 13th of November and analyse the impact of the Ulm School on design.Lectures will be given by experts such as Klaus Klemp - Director of the Angewandte Kumst Museum in Frankfurt; René Spitz - a professor at the Technical University of Cologne and a renowned expert on the Ulm School; and MartinMäntele - Director of the Archives of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm.

The show will also include several family workshops at the San Telmo Museum on the 9th and 16th of November at 17:00h, and at the IAE on the 7th of December (registration required). Several children workshops will be held at the San Telmo Museum during the Christmas holidays (on the 26th of December for 4-6 year-old children and on the 2nd of January for 6-10 year-old children). For registrations, please write to stm_erreserbak@donostia.eus.Moreover, school students and the general public will be able to participate in guided visits.