BORN IN ULM

In 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were executed in Munich. Their sister, Inge, survived and asked a question that guided her throughout her life: How can one prevent society from collectively failing again? Her answer was education. And so, she laid the foundation for it on the Kuhberg, a hill on the southwestern edge of Ulm.

In 1953, the Ulm School of Design (HfG) opened its doors. Max Bill, its first rector, had studied at the Bauhaus Dessau under Klee and Kandinsky. He designed the building himself: exposed concrete, precise angles, stone floors. From 1954, Tomás Maldonado taught at the HfG and fundamentally shifted its coordinates: design was not an art discipline, but a scientific practice with social responsibility. Whoever designed an object decided on the lives of others.

Ulm had previously been a place that produced visionary thinkers. Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, at Bahnhofstrasse 20 in Ulm. In 1929, he wrote to the Ulmer Abendpost: "The city of birth clings to life as something as unique as one's origin from one's biological mother." The HfG was renewed proof that this place produces people who see the world with different eyes.

Hans Gugelot taught at the HfG Ulm and simultaneously collaborated with Braun in Frankfurt. Erwin and Artur Braun, who had taken over the company from their father in 1951, were looking for a new design language. Gugelot became the bridge between Ulm's Kuhberg and the factory floor in Frankfurt: He transferred the systemic thinking of the university directly into industrial production.

In 1955, Dieter Rams, then only 23 years old – a trained interior architect from Wiesbaden – joined Braun as an employee. His initial tasks included designs for exhibition stands and showrooms. However, he found a mentor in Gugelot, who spoke the same design language. Just one year later, in 1956, the SK 4 emerged from this synergy.

This radio-turntable combination device featured a plexiglass lid: transparent, industrial, uncompromising. The engineers at the factory had doubts – the precision fit of the material was considered tricky, the form too unusual. But Gugelot and Rams insisted on their design. When the device was presented at the trade fair, the public promptly christened it "Snow White's Coffin." It was a glass coffin that hid nothing. The object openly displayed what was working inside it. Anyone looking at the lid could see the mechanics.

In 1961, Rams took over as head of Braun's design department. What followed was a singular project: every product conveyed the same conviction. The T 3 (1958) – a white pocket radio with a round tuning dial on the side and proportions that would reappear 43 years later in Cupertino. The T 1000 (1963) – a professional world receiver radio, black, with precise scales for journalists. A device that signaled through its form: this is for work.

The ET 66 (1987) – a calculator, designed together with Dietrich Lubs. Grey number keys, black function keys, and a single orange key for the result. A color system that communicates hierarchy without a word. Apple adopted this exact color and key grid 14 years later for the calculator app of the first iPhone – and kept it for years.

Gugelot died in 1965 at only 45 years old – far too soon, his work remained unfinished. Rams continued what they had both started together. During these years, he formulated his "Ten Principles for Good Design" – as a counterweight to an increasingly loud design industry. The tenth principle became his most famous guiding principle: "Good design is as little design as possible."

In Ulm, Gugelot taught that system design means consistently thinking through function and form to create an object that explains itself. Rams translated this approach into a principle that is now considered a global standard. The Magno shoulder strap of the Magvely 50 is exactly that: a solution that seems so obvious that one wonders why it hasn't always existed.

Jonathan Ive was born in London in 1967. As head of design at Apple, he placed Braun products on his desk – as a reference, as a benchmark. In Gary Hustwit’s documentary Rams (2018), he publicly confirmed the connection: Rams’ work showed that an object can dispense with anything that distracts from itself; that restraint is a form of respect for the user.

The iPod was released in 2001. Anyone who places it next to the Braun T 3 from 1958 – the same white casing, the same round control element, the same perforated grille texture, the same proportions – understands why this connection is no longer questioned in any design course. The distance between the two objects: 43 years and an ocean. The design language: identical.

The ET 66 provided the color system for the iOS calculator app: gray number keys, black function keys, and the one distinctive orange result key. This layout remained in every iPhone from 2007 to 2023. Sixteen years, two billion devices – a conviction cast in exposed concrete on a hill in Ulm in 1953.