The college’s intentions changed after Max Bill, Swiss sculpture artist, painter, architect and publisher took part in the planning process on request of Inge Scholl. Bill retracted the current program and created a new concept in April 1950 together with Inge Scholl: “We observe art as the highest expression of life and we intend to establish life as a piece of art. We want to fight ugliness with the help of beauty, goodness and practicality.

”The college started up in 1953 with Bauhaus disciples in the lecturing pool such as Josef Albers, Helene Nonné-Schmidt and Walter Peterhans. They saw themselves absolutely within the Bauhaus tradition, whose founding director Walter Gropius held the opening speech two years later.

Bill, a Bauhaus disciple himself, had the vision to update the ideas of this institution, which still offered free painting classes and was closed by the Nazi Regime in 1933. He wanted to increase the focus on object design. Political professions disappeared from the curriculum, however, a strong socio-political orientation remained, adding to the unique character of the college.

HfG had four departments. Visual communication and the largest, product design, had the most effect. The former primarily developed information systems and their theoretical bases, f. i. graphical corporate identities for companies and administrations or advertising equipment with machines.
The latter department saw the creation of objects for daily and production use such as concepts or studies for furniture, an electric razor, a gas pump and even a car. Stacking dishes for hotels, a diploma subject by Hans Roericht in 1958/59 are a perfect example for the creative application of mathematic and systematic thought. The author used only two shapes: the vertical double cylinder and a floor to wall angle of app. 120 degrees, which is repeated on handles or spouts.
Much attention was paid already in the mid fifties to the phono devices by lecturer Hans Gugelot for the Braun company. They stood in strict contrast to the usual furniture look-alikes of the times and were the origin of HFG’s early glory.

However, individual designs were not the main focus. Central interest was placed on complex solutions as for example the traffic phenomenon. Interdisciplinary studies – a specific HfG feature – carried out encompassing analyses: starting with the carriages all the way to schedules, from bus stop design to ticket machines. “ulm” includes the system principle as much as an attitude of permanent rethinking.
The second largest department – construction – was mainly concerned with industrially prefabricated construction elements. The information department, the smallest – integrated in 1965 into the institute for film design – analyzed the language methods of mass information, mass media and the journalistic profession. The intended study course for city planning was not realized.

In a large part, HfG owes the wide spreading of the Ulm ideas to the careers of it’s members. An amazing number, estimated at 160, gained professorships within Germany and internationally, many opened their own businesses. Quite a few products developed at HfG have influenced international design. Long after the closing of the college former “ulm” disciples were considered authorities on good design in Germany. The striving for sustainable goods, in itself already containing the ecological train of thought, was an expression of the will to take social responsibility. Even though part of the program explicitly renounced design as an aspect of style, HfG actually did create style. Products were liberated from all “unnecessary” ballast.

Bill’s college building with regular façade elements is a symbol of these principles: “raw and smooth cement, gray, heavy, brutal; then you enter: inside the cement structure remains visible as well, the brick walls in brilliant whitewash, the lighting in neon with no shadows. The rooms also show white brick walls, gray cement columns, raw wooden structures. Temporary, connected to barbaric nudity and might, ascetic but liberating. Radio commentator Bernhard Rübenach articulated his impression towards the end of the 50ies: “Barbarically materialized ratio”. If even an enlightened contemporary like him experienced his judgment oscillating between estrangement and fascination we may imagine the displeasure and impact upon the traditionalist majority. In the beginning, the aesthetics of ascetics cultivated at HfG were only understood by a small minority as well as a few future and design oriented companies. At the college itself these principles took hold in the work attitude as well as life styles, causing observers to recognize religious analogies.