What’s become of Otl Aicher’s former abode? A visit to the Allgäu.

What’s become of Otl Aicher’s former abode? A visit to the Allgäu.
Interviewed: Erik Spiekermann, type designer, author and Aicher critic.
Technology: a central notion and fixed point of perspective in the work of Otl Aicher.
The British architect Norman Foster on his friendship with Otl Aicher: He had absolute integrity.
Thoughts on the colour palettes of Otl Aicher.
Absolute sharpness, reduction and strict rules determine the character of his pictures: Otl Aicher as photographer.
Under Otl Aicher’s direction, designers, architects and landscape planners shaped the face of the Olympic Games 1972.
Inge Aicher-Scholl preserved the legacy of the White Rose.
An interview with design icon Stefan Sagmeister about typefaces, beauty and the legacy of Otl Aicher.
The International Design Center Berlin (IDZ) invites you to a slide show and panel talk at Architektur Galerie Berlin on 20 October. Karsten de Riese and Prof. Michael Klar will report on a photo reportage commissioned by BMW that took them to Tunisia in 1975 together...
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Olympic Games, the IDZ invites you to a discussion on the vision of the Munich Games and the status quo as well as the future of the Olympic movement on 26 August. The event at Berlin’s Akademie der Künste on Pariser...
Isny im Allgäu owes Otl Aicher a corporate design that is concise, bold and singular.
With a retrospective of Otl Aicher’s book “kritik am auto – schwierige verteidigung des autos gegen seine anbeter” (Criticism of the Car – Difficult Defence of the Car against its Worshippers) published in 1984, the IDZ continues its series of events on the “otl...
Eine Stadt leuchtet: Mit seinem farbenfrohen Erscheinungsbild der XX. Olympischen Sommerspiele 1972 setzte Otl Aicher ein Signal. Die junge Bundesrepublik war in der Moderne angekommen.
Today marks the centenary of Otl Aicher’s birth. The International Design Center Berlin (IDZ) is taking this date as an opportunity to pay tribute to this great designer. With otlaicher100.de, a new online platform is being launched – a curated space that provides...
Reflections on Inge Aicher-Scholl and Otl Aicher.
The International Design Center Berlin (IDZ) is taking Otl Aicher’s centenary as an opportunity to pay tribute to this great designer and to make his work visible. An online platform and a series of events will address Otl Aicher’s multifaceted cosmos of topics and...
Otl Aicher’s Dept. XI team: the visual identity of the Munich ’72 Olympics was the work of graphic designers, illustrators and technical staff from all over the world.
Otl Aicher’s Poster displays for the Ulmer Volkshochschule (Ulm Adult Education Centre).
From O to R: Let’s talk about a hedgehog, standardisation and neurotis for a change (please click on the letters).
Aicher’s childhood and youth: the years 1922 to 1945.
Otl Aicher’s signage systems for airports, metro stations and hospitals are considered exemplary to this day.
Der einstige Braun-Chef-Designer im Gespräch über den Co-Gründer der HfG.
A Broadcast: What is his place in today’s world?
The Aichers: a brief family history.
Drawing in Rotis: former Aicher co-worker Reinfriede Bettrich talks about hand sketches, the first computers and everyday life at the office.
How Otl Aicher’s papers and materials came to the HfG-Archiv/Museum Ulm.
Die Küche zum Kochen (The Kitchen for Cooking) – the genesis of a book that has lost none of its relevance.
How a dachshund conquered the world: former Aicher staff member Elena Schwaiger on plush animals, fakes and the authentic mascot of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
Le Violon d’Ingres or An Attempt to Defend the Writings of Otl Aicher.
Otl Aicher as the architect of Rotis.
Otl Aicher and his critique of the automobile.
First broadcast: 15.02.1971 on Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich (Only available in German).
Interviewed: Jürgen Werner Braun on his collaboration with Otl Aicher.
They created the signature of an epoch: designers Otl Aicher, Willy Fleckhaus, Anton Stankowski and Kurt Weidemann.
The papers and materials documenting the work of Otl Aicher were presented to the HfG-Archiv/Museum Ulm by the Aicher-Scholl family in the summer of 1996. Many of the documents on this website originate from the extensive collection.
When Otl Aicher died in summer 1991, he left behind an extensive archive at his estate in the Allgäu region of southern Germany, the legacy of a committed and fulfilled life. It included, among other things, documents relating to the resistance against National Socialism, such as his first texts, published together with friends under the title Das Windlicht (The Storm Lantern); deliberations on the shaping of life and society in the immediate postwar period; documents regarding the School of Design; drafts of Aicher’s posters for Ulm Adult Education Centre, a testimony to the sensuous delight he derived from designing; early drawings; materials connected with his consideration of philosopher William of Ockham (including in the form of an exhibition); and evidence of his deliberations on how to furnish a modern kitchen, which he defined as the workshop of a new lifestyle, as a “kitchen for cooking”. There was also an extensive collection of papers on Inge Aicher-Scholl’s and Otl Aicher’s involvement with the peace movement, as well as project boxes and presentation folders documenting Aicher’s work with numerous firms and cultural institutions in the postwar era.
Preventing deterioration
In the summer of 1996, the Aicher-Scholl family presented this legacy to the HfG-Archiv, a department of Museum Ulm. It includes correspondence on approx. 350 projects, 4,000 posters, 27,000 design sheets and 30,000 slides, as well as numerous exhibition panels, photos, negatives and papers. In the following years the materials were preventively conserved and scientifically processed under the direction of art historian Andrea Scholtz, with the goal of organising them in a database together with the relevant details. In the 1990s, when many archives were still using a system based on index boxes and cards, that was totally new territory.
The restoration work was no less challenging for the team at the HfG-Archiv: the presentation folders Aicher typically used, for instance, of which there were 627 containing a total of 27,000 sheets, were in danger of disintegrating. The designs, paste-ups and texts the folders contained had been inserted into plastic sleeves, and the plasticisers in them had already affected the documents; in some cases, the sheets had fused with the plastic. In order to stop the deterioration, the HfG-Archiv collaborated with students of the book and paper conservation programme at the State Academy of Art and Design (ABK) in Stuttgart. Under the supervision of chemist Gerhard Banik, a professor at the Institute for the Technology of Painting and chair of the programme for the restoration and conservation of graphic, archival and library materials at the ABK in Stuttgart, restorer Yvonne Gaborini developed a concept for the materials’ restoration as part of her finals project, which was subsequently implemented.
The boxes on the left contain the graphics that were removed from the presentation folders; Otl Aicher’s graphics are kept in the drawers on the right. Photo: Oleg Kuchar. © HfG-Archiv / Museum Ulm
The boxes on the left contain the graphics that were removed from the presentation folders; Otl Aicher’s graphics are kept in the drawers on the right. Photo: Oleg Kuchar. © HfG-Archiv / Museum Ulm
The boxes on the right contain the graphics that were removed from the presentation folders. The project boxes on the left were compiled at Büro Aicher in order to store materials relating to the individual projects. Photo: Oleg Kuchar. © HfG-Archiv / Museum Ulm
Experiencing history
In addition, research interviews were conducted with former staff, clients and contemporaries to ensure that the materials could be classified appropriately. In the early 2000s additional material was added; it was processed and integrated with the existing holdings in the Otl Aicher archive with generous funding from the Stiftung Kulturgut Baden-Württemberg, a foundation dedicated to the preservation of cultural assets.
The Aicher archive is integrated into the HfG-Archiv and housed in the former School of Design’s building on Kuhberg Hill in Ulm. All the materials can be viewed for research and academic purposes, and Otl Aicher’s publications can be accessed in a reference library. On the HfG-Archiv’s website, a digital finding aid provides information (in German) about the contents of the Aicher archive:
https://hfg-archiv.museumulm.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/09_aicher-neu.pdf
Accessible treasures
In addition, the HfG-Archiv offers researchers, academics, students and anybody with an amateur interest the opportunity to explore the history of Ulm School of Design, whose founding and activities Otl Aicher was instrumental to. Besides being able to view the diverse archive materials, visitors can also use the former school’s historical library and a collection of contemporary books and magazines on the history of design as a reference library. The papers and materials of former HfG lecturers like Walter Zeischegg and Tomás Gonda are now also housed in the HfG-Archiv, as are numerous smaller collections of papers and permanent loans from former HfG associates.
Further information, including details on current exhibitions and events at the HfG-Archiv, is available (in English) on the website: https://hfg-archiv.museumulm.de/en/startseite/.
Christiane Wachsmann is curator and deputy director of the HfG-Archiv in Ulm. After an apprenticeship as a carpenter, she studied architecture and design at the State Academy of Art and Design in Stuttgart. From 1989 to 1997 she established and managed the HfG-Archiv, and was also responsible for its cataloguing and digitalisation. In 2018, Wachsmann published the book Vom Bauhaus beflügelt. Menschen und Ideen an der Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm.
Translation: Alison Du Bovis
From O to R: Let’s talk about a hedgehog, standardisation and neurotis for a change (please click on the letters).
Eine Stadt leuchtet: Mit seinem farbenfrohen Erscheinungsbild der XX. Olympischen Sommerspiele 1972 setzte Otl Aicher ein Signal. Die junge Bundesrepublik war in der Moderne angekommen.