{"id":43290,"date":"2024-04-20T12:09:14","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T10:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/academy\/history-of-the-academy\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:16:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:16:05","slug":"history-of-the-academy","status":"publish","type":"academy","link":"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/en\/academy\/history-of-the-academy\/","title":{"rendered":"History of ABK Stuttgart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"block block-gallery size--big\" data-count=\"1\">\n\n    <div class=\"slider\">\n        \n            \n            \n                \n                <div class=\"slider__slide width--full fit--cover type--image\"  style=\"background-color:#ffffff\" >\n                    \n\n    \n<figure class=\"ratio--landscape\" style=\"--ratio:1.2523752969121\">\n\n    <img decoding=\"async\"\n        class=\"lozad\"\n        src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\"\n        data-src=\"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931-320x256.jpg\"\n        data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931-2048x1635.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931-1600x1278.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931-1440x1150.jpg 1440w, https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931-1024x818.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931-320x256.jpg 320w\"\n        data-sizes=\"100vw\"\n        data-iesrc=\"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/W_Pankok_Bernhard_Die-Strassenbahnschleife-am-Weissenhof_1931.jpg\"\n        alt=\"\"\n        data-ratio=\"1.2523752969121\"\n        style=\"display:block;min-height:1rem;opacity:1;\"\n    \/>\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n    \n\n<div class=\"mediainfo\" data-id=\"image-3340\">\n    <button class=\"btn btn--circle btn-mediainfoclose\" aria-label=\"Close media info\"><span>&times;<\/span><\/button>\n    <div class=\"mediainfo--innerwrapper\">\n        <div class=\"mediainfo--inner\">\n            <div class=\"mediainfo--content\">\n\n                <div class=\"preview\">No Preview<\/div>\n\n                \n                                                            \n                            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n    \n\n    <div class=\"media-interface\">\n\n        <button class=\"btn btn--circle btn-mediainfo\" data-id=\"image-3340\" aria-label=\"Open media info\"><span>i<\/span><\/button>\n\n        \n    <\/div>\n\n                <\/div>\n            \n            <\/div>\n    <button class=\"slider__button slider__button--prev keyboard-navigation-only\" aria-label=\"Previous slide\"><\/button>\n    <button class=\"slider__button slider__button--next keyboard-navigation-only\" aria-label=\"Next slide\"><\/button>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n    <div class=\"block block-text\">\n        <div class=\"fs-text\">\n            \n<p>The Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design (with its 850 students) is the largest fine arts academy in Baden-Wuerttemberg, and with its 250-year history, a fine arts academy with one of the richest traditions in Germany.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"block-bundle collapse-section\">\n    <summary class=\"block block-subsection-title\">\n        <h3>Tradition-rich address with an eventful history<\/h3>    <\/summary>\n    \n\n    <div class=\"block block-text\">\n        <div class=\"fs-text\">\n            \n<p>On June 25, 1761, Duke Carl Eugen of Wuerttemberg founded the Acad&eacute;mie des Arts, &ldquo;where young people can grow like young plants in a nursery&rdquo;. In 1782, this Academia artium Stuttgardensis became part of the Hohe Carlsschule, a strictly regulated elite school oriented according to military discipline, where Carl Eugen had the best and brightest in the land educated for his service. Marked on the one hand by radical modernity, on the other by the absolutist attitudes of the Duke, the Hohe Carlsschule was a great accomplishment, but also very controversial. On the one hand, graduates such as the sculptor Johann Heinrich Dannecker, one of the most significant representatives of German Classicism, served as a professor at the Carlsschule, while others, such as the landscape painter Josef Anton Koch and Friedrich Schiller, escaped the immense pressure and paternalism on the &ldquo;slave plantation&rdquo; (Schubart) by fleeing.<\/p>\n<p>Carl Eugen&rsquo;s high-flying plan for a university of European rank ended with the the Duke&rsquo;s death. The Hohe Carlsschule was closed for cost reasons and Wuerttemberg thus lost its first faculty of the fine arts. Former teachers from the Carlsschule found positions at the successor art academy, but it could not take up the glory days of the Academia artium. The K&ouml;ngliche Kunstschule [Royal Art Academy] moved from the Kunstanstalt Neckarstra&szlig;e, built by Georg Gottlob Barth from 1834 to 1842 for the joint accommodation of the K&ouml;nigliche. Kunstschule and the associated art collections (today the old building of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart), into the new building at Urbanstra&szlig;e 37 in 1890; it remained there until the destruction of the building in the Second World War.<\/p>\n<p>In 1869, the W&uuml;rttembergische staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule zur F&ouml;rderung der deutschen Kunstindustrie [W&uuml;rttemberg State School of Applied Arts for Promotion of the German Art Industry] was established, to which the K&ouml;niglichen Lehr- und Versuchswerkst&auml;tten [Royal Teaching and Experimental Workshops] were added in 1902.<\/p>\n<p>The architect and designer Bernhard Pankok pursued the ambitious project of combining all Stuttgart art schools, which were previously housed in separate locations under a single roof.<\/p>\n<p>What today we call the &ldquo;Altbau der Akademie&rdquo;, which was built in 1913 according to Pankok&rsquo;s designs, was the first building of today&rsquo;s Wei&szlig;enhofsiedlung, the address which was so significant for the Bauhaus and classical modernism. The combination of crafts and art was in the air thanks to the Arts-and-Crafts movement of one William Morris. It was hoped that this would provide inspiration for the economy and artistic as well as economic impulses for handicrafts beyond faceless, industrial mass fabrication. Even before the Bauhaus, Bernhard Pankok advocated the significance of practical activity for artistic training, thus sketching the first state reform school of modernism in Germany. Pankok&rsquo;s ambitious project emphasised the central importance of practical activity for artistic training, promoted intensive workshop training for the students, and tried to erase the sharp boundary between liberal and applied artistic activities in favour of a cooperation of liberal and applied arts. This tendency towards interdisciplinary work still remains a specific characteristic of today&rsquo;s Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design (ABK Stuttgart). Thus in 1925, there were already 21 workshops; since this time, additional workshops have been added. The role which these more than 30 workshops play even today in the Academy&rsquo;s self-image can be traced back to Pankok&rsquo;s impulses. There is hardly any other academy of the arts in Germany which is better equipped with workshops.<\/p>\n<p>After Bernhard Pankok, Adolf Hoelzel is another influential teacher and early central figure at ABK Stuttgart who is worthy of mention. Adolf Hoelzel was appointed in 1905 and taught at the Wei&szlig;enhof until 1919. As an artist, and especially as a teacher, he had a significant influence on the development of modernism in Germany. His teaching of artistic principles decisively shaped the self-image of 20th century artistic training, for his students Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer and others enhanced &nbsp;Hoelzel&rsquo;s methodical concepts to form the basis of the Bauhaus teachings.<\/p>\n<p>During the time of National Socialism, the connection to modernism was cut; here too, artists were forbidden to work, defamed as being &lsquo;degenerate&rsquo;.<\/p>\n<p>The Hoelzel student Willi Baumeister, one of the most important German artists of the post-war period, was affected by these repressive measures like many others; he could only make his art in secret and he had to make a living as an advertising artist. Baumeister&rsquo;s work created during the war, &ldquo;Das Unbekannte in der Kunst&rdquo; [&ldquo;The Unknown in Art&rdquo;], which appeared in 1947, is one of the classic theoretical art texts of modernism. Willi Baumeister &ndash; who was appointed professor at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design in 1946 &ndash; was one of the primary symbolic figures for the new beginning at ABK Stuttgart. He worked on the reorganisation of the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design and, as an influential teacher, restored the severed connection to modernism after the Second World War.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"block-bundle collapse-section\">\n    <summary class=\"block block-subsection-title\">\n        <h3>A pluralism of styles<\/h3>    <\/summary>\n    \n\n    <div class=\"block block-text\">\n        <div class=\"fs-text\">\n            \n<p>Pankok&rsquo;s vision of a combination of the Stuttgart art academies was finally realised in 1946 with the reorganisation and jubilant reopening of the Academy in the buildings of the former school of applied arts in the Wei&szlig;enhof. The then Minister of Education of Wuerttemberg and later Federal President, Prof. Dr. Theodor Heuss, spoke at the opening.<\/p>\n<p>At that time, Heuss formulated a basic concept which is still evident in the broad spectrum of the Academy&rsquo;s artistic positions. He decreed that: &hellip;The Academy should not belong to a direction. With full intention, I have brought polar, objective tensions together here, placed the so-called abstract next to the realistic, the expressive next to the naturalistic, in order to provide each with space to live&ldquo;.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally the Stuttgart Academy keeps reacting to new aesthetic tendencies and technological developments in the liberal and applied arts, and the variety of teaching positions &ndash; this polar, objective tension of which Heuss spoke &ndash; still marks the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design today. There is no strict school formation, there is no binding Academy style; instead, there is a pluralism of styles and schools of thought, which enables the continuation of the proven and appropriate and creative reaction to new challenges and impulses.<\/p>\n<p>The large number of academic teachers, who in the last fifty years have left their traces on the Academy through their artistic activity and pedagogical influence in the liberal and applied areas of instruction and thus also on the cultural history of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, is so large that it cannot be listed in its entirety. However, it includes names such as Gunter B&ouml;hmer, Alfred Hrdlicka, Rudolf Hoflehner, Joseph Kosuth, K.R.H. Sonderborg and Joan Jonas, as well as prominent designers and\/or architects such as David Chipperfield, Robert Haussmann, Erwin Heinle, Herbert Hirche, Herta-Maria Witzemann, Kurt Weidemann and Richard Sapper. Listing all the important professors and graduates of the Academy would exceed the space available here.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"block-bundle collapse-section\">\n    <summary class=\"block block-subsection-title\">\n        <h3>An open university of the arts<\/h3>    <\/summary>\n    \n\n    <div class=\"block block-text\">\n        <div class=\"fs-text\">\n            \n<p>The Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design has opened itself up increasingly in recent years. Contact with foreign institutions now exceeds 50 co-operations within and outside of Europe. The share of foreign students has been approximately 10% for many years. Representatives of 20 nations from all around the world are studying at ABK Stuttgart.<\/p>\n<p>The ideal of transparency and opening within the academy finds its analogue in the maintenance and striven-for expansion of the cooperation with other art academies, universities, and other cultural institutions on a regional, national and international level. ABK Stuttgart participates in the aesthetic discourse of our times in many ways, with exhibitions and theoretical and scientific contributions, in the form of congresses and publications. It is also a special concern of the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design to expose the artistic and scientific potential of research and teaching to the public in order to do justice to the challenges of the times in an innovative manner.<\/p>\n<p>Literature: Cf. Kermer, Wolfgang; Daten und Bilder zur Geschichte der Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden K&uuml;nste Stuttgart &ndash; Eine Selbstdarstellung; Sonderdruck; Stuttgart 1988.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n\n<\/details>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":31338,"parent":0,"menu_order":9,"template":"","class_list":["post-43290","academy","type-academy","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/academy\/43290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/academy"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/academy"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abk-stuttgart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}