System Design: the Ulm School, Construction Department

After the end of World War II, Europe rebuilt its industry through the value added of design. The Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm (1953–1968) made a decisive contribution to the creation of the designer profession, going beyond the theories of the old applied and decorative arts schools, and creating a way to project and design accessible to large segments of Western society. It was a reference for both industrialised architecture and the reconstruction of the German industry and economy.

Together with the visual communication, product design and information departments, exhibited at the San Telmo Museoa, the Ulm School set up the Architecture Department, starting on the 1955–1956 academic year. In an attempt to remove any temptation for form, it was referred to as the Construction Department. They studied industrialised construction, where aggregation and connection systems became key elements in the definition of this way of understanding architecture and design.

(photograph: Bernd Meurer & Herbert Ohl, ‹Prefabricated modular system prefabricado in urban settlement› 1961 © Ulmer Museum Hfg-Archiv)