The VH Ulm: A Piece of Ulm`s Cultural History
The VH Ulm: A Piece of Ulm`s Cultural History |
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The Ulm Volkshochschule (People`s High School) is the biggest Further Education Institute in the region. The present building, called Einstein House, was built in 1968, in the architectural style known as Functionalism. The building, directly in Ulm`s city centre, was enlarged in 1997, by the addition of some 10 rooms, connected to the original building by a glass bridge. Thus we have a total of 22 rooms available, for seminars, lectures, conferences, meetings in fields as varied as health, culture, mass media, politics, society, women`s affairs, senior citizens`s matters, youth work, and work-connected further education. Besides the meeting and lecture rooms, there are spacious foyers for working groups, or just for chatting during the breaks. The new rooms are equipped to function with the most modern multi-media facilities.
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“No Fear of Education” – ran the first call-cry of the VH in the year 1946. The founder, Inge Aicher-Scholl, with her husband Otl Aicher, and the supporting-group of trustees, immediately set actively to work. The idea then, was, to build a new society, to impart a humanistic education, to establish a democratic base, to give the people of Ulm hope, and to open new prospects for them, despite the bombed-out city, the human losses, and the material hardship. In a very short time the VH became the intellectual and spiritual focal-point of Ulm. In 1948 there were 3,000 signed-up members. In the 1940s and the 1950s the VH was a successful example of an intellectual “New Start”, watered from the sources of German democratic and humanistic traditions, not just the then re-education, directed from outside. The founding-members saw themselves not only as the inheritors of German culture but as children of the region. Inge Aicher-Scholl made clear that it was not about the Volkshochschule “in” Ulm but rather the Ulm Volkshochschule. Ulm was not just a place, but rather a positive attribute. The VH was something special. Here alone would the moral and political heritage of the “White Rose” be continued.
Here alone, under the emblem of the “Owl of Wisdom”, would the “New Start” be generated, not just through educational lectures, but by encouraging people to participate actively. Before any other Volkshochschule in the German Federal Republic, the Ulm VH emphasised and encouraged the active participation of its members in the social life of the city.
In the following decades the VH reacted positively to societal challenges. Those of the “68” generation met in Einstein House, in the “70s” it was with its “Open Saturdays” the scene of Youth Meetings, in the ‘80s it was the centre of the Latin-American Movement in Ulm, and also the centre of citizen`s debates concerning city and traffic-planning.
Simultaneously, the decades of the 70s and the 80s were periods when the spectrum of what the Ulm VH has on offer, were widened, especially in the fields of languages and work-related further education. Furthermore, the Landkreis (region around Ulm) was set up, with its own independent concept.
1986 saw the setting up of the Frauenakademie (Women`s Academy) at the Ulm
VH as a special project. In 1987 “Kontiki” was set up as a cultural workshop
for children and young people.
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Today some 20,000 people sign-up for courses and seminars, in an amazingly broad spectrum of subjects and topics. Some 30,000 people attend the public events organized by the Ulm VH. This means altogether some 250,000 individual visits annually. Today, just as in the past, important impulses for Ulm`s cultural life originate at the VH, most recently in the frame-work of the newest telematical developments in the region.
One of our dearest wishes is to support European integration and to appeal to disadvantaged sectors of the population through group-aimed programmes. To this end the Ulm Volkshochschule is presently involved in 3 EU-financed projects:
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