Research On The Historical Value Of Ulm School Of Design

After World War II until the late1960s, the focal point of the industrial design waschanged from theory-advocated to business and industry praxis. During the process, Ulmschool of Design played an important role. The purpose of this research is to systematicallyexplore the historical value of Ulm from following three aspects in the industrial designhistory in the twentieth century: cultural conception of design, design method andprofessionalization of design.It summarized the pre-World War II history of Modern Design, and specifies theproblems Ulm faced in above three aspects. It elaborated the forming and connotation of thecultural conception of design connected to daily life by Ulm, which took "intermediator" and"everyday objects" as the core; based on the description of theoretical origin, it elaborated theforming of systematic design method research such as Basic Course, Product InformationComplexity, Semantic Research, Design Methods Research and System Design as well as itspositive results; based on the understanding of the trend of industry and commercedevelopment after World War II by Ulm, it elaborated the forming and specific content ofprofessionalism-faced design education model by Ulm, as well as its influence on thedevelopment of the definition of Industrial Design (Designer). Based on the worldwidedevelopment of industrial design from1960s until now, it criticized the weak point of Ulm,surveyed the subsequent influence of Ulmer after1968, and analyzed the historical value ofUlm on the level of cultural conception of design, design method and professionalization ofdesign.It reveals: from the aspects of culture conception of design, the cultural conception ofdesign connected to daily life by Ulm is the indispensable medium of theory between thepre-World War II elite cultural conception of modernism and the current popular culturalconception of professionalized industrial design; from the aspect of design method, thesystematic design method research by Ulm has a decisive influence on the development ofindustrial design method research; from the aspect of professionalization of design, theprofessionalism-faced design education model by Ulm has important impact on thesubsequent development of industrial design education, and plays a great role to promoteindustrial design to an independent profession after World War II.