Hugo Kükelhaus

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Hugo Kükelhaus (born March 24, 1900 in Essen , † October 5, 1984 in Herrischried ) was a German carpenter , artist and educator . Hugo Kükelhaus was best known for the experience he developed to develop the senses . Throughout his life he disseminated his idea of ​​a “humane” living environment in publications and lectures. He is also considered a pioneer for toys for young children.

Life

Childhood, youth and education

Hugo Kükelhaus, the oldest of five children , grew up with his brother Heinz , the sisters Freya and Hilde and the latecomer Hermann in a family home that was closely related to the craft. His father was chairman of the Essen carpenter's association and was involved in the reorganization of the professional self-governing bodies of the German trade. In 1919 Hugo Kükelhaus passed the humanistic Abitur in Essen, trained as a carpenter in Bielefeld and traveled as a journeyman through Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic States. In 1925 he received the master craftsman's certificate from the Arnsberg Chamber of Crafts. In the following years he studied sociology, philosophy, mathematics / logic and physiology at the universities of Heidelberg , Münster and Königsberg .

Author activity

The close connection between practice and theory runs through the entire life of Kükelhaus. In 1932 his first book The Law of Symmetry was published , in which he explains how furniture can be built according to human beings with the help of the golden ratio and the "canon figures" developed from it. In 1934 he published his main work Urzahl und Gestärde , a study of numbers as the psychological and physiological basis of existence.

Numerous other publications followed. Kükelhaus remained connected to the craft in many ways: In 1931, after the death of his father, he took over the editing of the trade journal Das Tischlergewerk and looked after it with interruptions until 1956. From 1934 on, Kükelhaus worked as an employee of the Alfred Metzner Verlag in Berlin, editor of the series of publications zur Deutschen Handwerkskunst (1935 ff) and Deutsche Warenkunde (1939 ff), an information service about exemplary crafted and industrial consumer goods. He organized exhibitions, gave lectures and conducted training courses. At the same time he worked as a freelance author and designer.

During the National Socialism

Kükelhaus had an ambivalent, at times positive attitude towards National Socialism ; in most biographies, however, this phase of his life is tacitly ignored.

On behalf of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, he directed the exhibition “Travel and Hiking”. From around 1934 he worked on a fee basis for the art service in Berlin and in this context published a regime-compliant work called Deutsche Warenkunde . At the same time he made it through "his (...) art ideological contributions" for the "community of readers of the ' blood and soil ' sheet ' Art and People'" to become a "guide to the (by ...) Rosenberg- led NS cultural community " and headed the Commissioned by their administration in 1936 the exhibition “Law and Shape”. In 1937 he headed - also on behalf of the NS cultural community Berlin - the exhibition "German arts and crafts" initiated by the NSDAP - Ribbentrop Office in the Foreign Office and the Franco-German Society during the spring fair in Lyon. In 1943 he represented German handicrafts at a specialist congress in Vienna as a guest of Reichsleiter von Schirach .

Was it his criticism of the production of kitsch and industrially manufactured mass furniture that brought Kükelhaus close to the popular Nazi ideology and prompted him to cooperate with the Nazi regime, he later (according to a résumé from 1970) changed his attitude towards National Socialism and stood out as an active member of resistance groups “in close association with Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg ”.

Designer

Grabbing toys

From the examination of the Fröbel gifts and in dialogue with the Fröbel researcher Erika Hoffmann , the "Allbedeut" toys, grasping toys for toddlers, emerged from 1939, the importance of which was only later substantiated by the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget .

In 1950 Kükelhaus began teaching at the Werkschule in Münster (today the University of Applied Sciences for Design ). From 1954 he worked exclusively as a freelance: as a furniture designer , as an illustrator , glass artist and sculptor , as an employee in the design and interior design of sacred and secular buildings. He settled in the medieval town of Soest .

Critic of misanthropic architecture

From around 1960 Kükelhaus intensified his studies and experimental investigations into the sensory processes. As a result, he came to the conviction that man of modern technical civilization increasingly deprives himself of his basic sensory development and experience possibilities. He criticized the tendencies in modern architecture of the 1970s, which in his opinion were increasingly hostile to life, and developed the basic lines of an “organ-logical” building. He worked on planning and developing the environment for all areas of life in such a way that it corresponds to the “functional conditions of the human organism”. This discussion culminated in the publication Inhuman Architecture (1973) and in advice and artistic cooperation in the sense of an “organic architecture” in the construction of schools, kindergartens and industrial companies.

Field of experience for developing the senses

Balancing disc in the "Park of the Senses" created in 1991 in Bremervörde

Kükelhaus became internationally known for his experimental field for organ experience, whose first play and experience device, the natural history game , he first showed in 1967 at the world exhibition in Montreal in the German pavilion. In 1975 the first presentation of the experimental field, which had been developed into a field of experience for the development of the senses, took place at the international craft exhibition EXEMPLA in Munich. The field of experience , which in the meantime had grown to around 40 experiment and play stations, then migrated to numerous locations in Germany and abroad. The stations presented are intended to offer visitors the opportunity to vegetatively perceive the universal laws of their physical existence directly by experiencing the laws of "external nature" (vibration, gravity, polarity, reflection, etc.) on their own body. When dealing with the devices, the supposedly often stunted human abilities of sensory perception should be revived.

Hugo Kükelhaus died on October 5, 1984 in Herrischried (southern Black Forest); his grave is in Mustin (near Ratzeburg) .

estate

The holistic concept of Hugo Kükelhaus for a large open-air exhibition in 1984 in Zurich was not implemented. Instead, a large exhibition Phenomena was realized, which was more dedicated to scientific knowledge. This exhibition was shown in 1985 in Rotterdam , in South Africa and in 1989 in Bietigheim . Since the mid-1990s, more and more permanently installed fields of experience have emerged.

In 1988 the estate was handed over to the Soest City Archives. From 1988 to 1992 the estate was made available there as part of its own "Kükelhaus job", since 1993 by Hugo Kükelhaus Gesellschaft Soest e. V. and supported by the Kükelhaus Soest Foundation. Another part of the estate is kept as the "Hugo Kükelhaus Foundation" in Switzerland in the " Lützelflüh culture mill ".

Quote

“Human development is optimally promoted by the environment that guarantees a variety of well-dosed stimuli. Regardless of the question of whether this stimulus world is built up by physical or social conditions and factors - the diversity of the environment is a condition of life. "

Works

Selected writings by Hugo Kükelhaus
  • The law of proportion . Self-published, Essen 1932
  • Original number and gesture. Basics of a coming sense of measure . Metzner, Berlin 1934
  • Become a carpenter (with G. Balkenhol). Berlin 1936
  • The real story of bright minds . Key note, Potsdam 1948
  • Picture stories from the dreaming . Twelve notebooks. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1951/52
  • Generation as a service . Krefeld 1952
  • The word of John . Metzner, Frankfurt am Main 1953
  • Sign - game - deed . Heidenheimer Verlagsanstalt, Heidenheim 1954
  • Still today . Heidenheimer Verlagsanstalt, Heidenheim 1956
  • The imagination of the body . Hanover 1966
  • About dealing with power . Gaia, Cologne 1970
  • Organism and technology . Walter, Olten 1971
    • New edition (with an additional foreword by Frederic Vester ): S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1979
  • Inhuman architecture. From the animal factory to the learning institution . Gaia, Cologne 1973
  • Six journeymen and one ogre . Gaia, Cologne 1974
  • Grasp - feel - educate. Organ experience in dealing with phenomena . Gaia, Cologne 1975
  • Hearing and seeing in action . Klett and Balmer, Zug 1978, ISBN 3-264-90150-1
  • Development of the senses (with Rudolf zur Lippe ). S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982
  • Live life. Quotes from texts by Hugo Kükelhaus , ed. v. Annemarie Weber. Ott, Thun 2004, ISBN 3-7225-0038-9
  • Organ and consciousness. From seeing and looking. The last lecture 9/30/1984 . Isele, Eggingen 2005, ISBN 3-86142-353-7
  • Collected radio lectures . Isele, Eggingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-86142-392-8

Awards

literature

  • Anne Barth (Ed.): Hugo Kükelhaus. Life testimonies . Organism and Technology Working Group, Essen 1997
  • Wilhelm Becker: Hugo Kükelhaus in the Third Reich. A life between adjustment and resistance . Westfälische Verlagsbuchhandlung Mocker & Jahn, Soest 2006, ISBN 3-87902-048-5
  • Markus Dederich : Experience - Experience - Understand. Hugo Kükelhaus as a pioneer of modern experiential education . Institute for Adventure Education, Lüneburg 1994, ISBN 3-929058-97-9
  • Markus Dederich: In the order of the body. On the anthropology and pedagogy of Hugo Kükelhaus . Waxmann, Münster 1996
  • Katrin Heinzmann: From the educational crisis to a culture of the senses. Current discussion and empirical didactic approaches using the example of Hugo Kükelhaus and Goethe Mobil . Udeis, Dortmund 2003
  • Walter Jäger: "That's us out there ..." - building blocks of a pedagogy of perception . Modern learning, Dortmund 1997
  • Uta Joeressen et al .: Hugo Kükelhaus. Bibliography . Hugo Kükelhaus Gesellschaft, Soest 1990 (supplemented in 1996), ISBN 3-9805003-1-4
  • Jürgen Münch: Hugo Kükelhaus and the toy Allbedeut . Hugo Kükelhaus Gesellschaft, Soest 1995, ISBN 3-9805003-0-6
  • Jürgen Münch (Ed.): Hugo Kükelhaus in Architecture: Building for the Senses. Search for traces and perspective . Hugo Kükelhaus Gesellschaft, Soest 1998, ISBN 3-9805003-2-2
  • Otto Schärli: Encounters with Hugo Kükelhaus . Johannes Mayer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-932386-51-5
  • Elmar Schenkel: Sense and Senses. Three attempts at Hugo Kükelhaus . Isele, Eggingen 2005, ISBN 3-86142-343-X
  • Elisabeth Stelkens: On the trail of the field of experience for the development of the senses by Hugo Kükelhaus . Organism and technology e. V. Hugo Kükelhaus working group, Essen 2007

Web links

Commons : Hugo Kükelhaus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Prolingheuer: Hitler's pious iconoclasts . Dittrich Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-920862-33-3 , p. 160.
  2. ^ Hans Prolingheuer: Hitler's pious iconoclasts . Dittrich Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-920862-33-3 , p. 121.
  3. ^ A b Hans Prolingheuer: Hitler's pious iconoclasts . Dittrich Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-920862-33-3 , p. 346.
  4. ↑ See the short biography ( memento of the original from March 11, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Society Nature & Art e. V. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.schloss-freudenberg.de
personal data
SURNAME Kükelhaus, Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German carpenter, artist and educator
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH 5th October 1984
Place of death Herrischried