That’s a tricky one, I guess art movements are a little different to design movements? In the 50’s karl Gerstner began to contribute to both art and design in Basel. He still lives there as an artist and from then to the present day has been a prolific creator of ’Concrete’ art. This is like constrcuctive art but leaning a little more towards suprematism; the work refers to itself only, does not represent anything in the way abstract work does.

With research I’m sure you would be able to uncover other artist based in Basel mid-late century who’s practice was based around this principal. Interestingly Basel lies at the point where Switzerland, France and Germany meet. This made it a very active area, drawing influence from germany and it’s early pioners who were at the front of constructive art.

With little factual knoledge I guess that during and after the second world war Basel was a slightly more attractive place for those artists and designers not wanting to flee as far away as America. It is more than likely that I’m way off the scent but my reflex reaction is to propose the Basel movement in art did revolve around mathematical, systematic, process based work and took place in the 50’s and 60’s. I believe Switzerland to be a large inspiration to the Minimalist movement that took place in America in the 60’s.

For me this is quite interesting so people with real knoledge would not only be helping Brice.

www.karl-gerstner.de/kg/background.html#

I only know about the typography and graphic design classes
at the Allgemeine Kunstgewerbeschule Basel.

Some important teachers were Emil Ruder, Armin Hofmann,
Andre Guertler and Wolfgang Weingart.

Amongst the students were April Greiman, Ken Hiebert,
Helmut Schmid and Hamish Muir (8vo).

The school is/was famous for its strong methodological approach.

Armin Hofmann:
http://www.posterpage.ch/exhib/ex03_hof/hofintro.htm
http://thegalleriesatmoore.org/publications/basel.shtml
books:
Poster Collection 07: Armin Hofmann
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3037780045/103-1109972-2555023?v=glance...
Armin Hofmann : Graphic Design Manual
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3721200063/qid=1145809282/sr=1-2/ref=sr...
Armin Hofmann: His Work, Quest and Philosophy

Emil Ruder:
http://www.myfonts.com/person/ruder/emil/
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Ruder
Book:
Emil Ruder: Typography
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3721200438/qid=1145812750/sr=2-1/ref=pd...

Andre Guertler:
Book:
Andre Guertler: Experiments with letterform and calligraphy
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3721203208/sr=8-1/qid=1145812616/ref=sr...

Wolfgang Weingart:
http://journal.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentAlias=_getfullarticle&aid=963...
http://keithtam.net/writings/ww/ww.html
http://www.complink.net/greg/designsite/weingart.htm
Book:
Wolfgang Weingart: My way to Typography
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookSearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&isbn=390...

April Greiman:
http://aprilgreiman.com/MadeInSpace.html
book:
April Greiman: Hybrid Imagery

Ken Hiebert:
http://www.washburn.edu/cas/art/hiebert.html
http://www.goshen.edu/art/hiebert.htm
Book:
Kenneth J. Hiebert: Graphic Design Processes

Willi Kunz:
http://www.lawrence.com/events/2006/apr/10/12531/
Books:
Willi Kunz: Typography. Macro- and Microaesthetics
Willi Kunz: Typography. Formation and Transformation

8vo:
http://www.hamishmuir.com/
http://www.partypeoplemovie.com/legend_sub.php?section=2&subsection=6&ar...
Book:
8vo: On the outside
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/3037780193/103-1109972-2555023

Helmut Schmid:
http://www4.famille.ne.jp/~hsdesign/
book:
Helmut Schmid: (ed.): The road to Basel
http://www.posterpage.ch/reviews/re13base/base.htm

I have no idea how this might help you to design a chair…

i dont know if this helps you at all, but here you can find the contact details for the design program at “Fachhochschule beider Basel” which is the university (of applied sciences) and the successor (i think it was named) of the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel.

Wolfgang, make some wiki entries. :^)

I studied with Ken Hiebert while he was teaching at Carnegie Mellon University in the 60s. A classmate of mine then, Dan Friedman, was later a Basel Graduate. He met April Greiman in Basel and they ended up getting married.

If you look through Ken Hiebert’s book, you will find some of my work done in a workshop he and Weingart ran in Pittsburgh in about 1984.

ChrisL

Again some links about Basel:

http://www.itcfonts.com/Ulc/2542/BookRevRoadTaken.htm

More former students:

Fritz Gottschalk
http://www.gottashzrh.com/work_07.html
http://www.gottashzrh.com
http://www.gplusa.com/index.cfm

Hans-Juerg Hunziker
http://www.designpreis.ch/archiv/dp2003/en/html/nominationen/np/hunziker...

Hans-Rudolf Lutz
http://www.lutz.to/
Books:
Hans-Rudolf Lutz: Ausbildung in typografischer Gestaltung
http://www.lutz.to/ausbildung1.html
Hans-Rudolf Lutz:Typoundso
http://www.lutz.to/typoundso1.html

Jean-Benot Levy
http://www.myfonts.com/person/levy/jean-benoit/
http://www.and.ch/
http://www.dnp.co.jp/gallery/ddd/dki/d67/d67ki_e.html
http://www.dnp.co.jp/gallery/ddd/dki/d67/d67sa_e.html

What is/was Basel school? It is a visual, tactile, intellectual and strategic way of developing an understanding and knowhow about creating powerful visual messages. Yes there is/was a Basel style, but people who emphasize that miss the point. The school teaches a complex and unique way of approaching—in my case, graphic design—that will propel students forward into communicators who look at the design business as a way to solve problems in new and different ways. Even more impt than that, solutions that are relevant and appropriate, first, to the organizations for whom they are designing. The words to describe this unusually advanced school are: innovation, change, growth. Personally, my three year experience at the Basel school was intense—both emotionally, intellectually, and visually. Hoffman, Hauert, Weingart, and VonArx opened up an enttirely new world for me.. and propelled me into a deeper, more satisfying visual life that I might not otherwise have had. I don’t do much designing any more. I paint full time. But I will tell you, in my painting, I am pulling together all the principles I learned in Basel. My approach is complex—but of course it would be. I learned from some of the most remarkable teachers in the design world at that time. I am grateful beyond words. I would not be where I am today without the intensity and diversity of thsiis forward-pushing, intellectually challenging school with its teachers. I also have my classmates to thank as well. They were and still are awesome in their own right. Bill Schorner, April Greiman, Ken Komai, and Dan Friedman coem immediately to mind. I hope this helps. It is not about the Swiss style. That is not the Basel school. It is much deeper. thanks Jack D.

Jack,

Are you still in touch with Bill Shorner? Dan Friedman, Bill and I all studied design at Carnegie Mellon with Ken Hiebert at the same time. The last I heard about Shorner was that he was working as a gardner in Basel but that was years ago. Also, was Frank Vigliotti there then as well?

ChrisL

One of Hofmann’s legendary teaching methods included the following trick:

The students were given a few simple three-dimensional objects - cubes, cuboids - which they had to put together to form a three-dimensional composition. When the students presented their three-dimensional composition, Hofmann would swipe it away and tell the students to rebuild it exactly the way it was before. In most cases the students were not able to rebuild it, but Hofmann of course could.

In his own work it was always a process which led him to a specific result.

For what it’s worth, there’s a large contingency of Basel graduates currently teaching in the US. In Philadelphia, at the University of the Arts; Hans Alleman, Chris Zelinsky, Inge Druckrey, Larry Bach, Ken Hiebert, and others. There are other Basel people teaching in the US, but these are the ones I personally know.