biographical sketch – Creative Combinatorics

Horst Rittel

thapke — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:40:11 +0000

Horst W. J. Rittel (1930 – 1990) was a German-born design theorist and university professor, educated as a theroretical physicist. He is best-known (along with M. Webber) for coining the term ‘wicked problem’, but his influence on design theory and practice was also much wider. In 1963 Rittel went to Berkeley. In 1973 he also joined the University of Stuttgart in Germany.

In his work he also thought about information systems and developed a planning/design method known as IBIS (Issue-Based Information System) for handling wicked problems. With his German colleague Werner Kunz Rittel also wrote a book on the foundation of information science in Germany (Werner Kunz and Horst Rittel, Die Informationswissenschaften: ihre AnsÃ¤tze, Probleme, Methoden und ihr Ausbau in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, MÃ¼nchen 1972).

A short biography about Horst Rittel in the publication “University of California: In Memoriam, 1992 : A publication of the Academic Senate, University of California, Information on this publication may be obtained by contacting the Academic Senate Office on any of the University of California campuses / David Krogh, Editor”

Werner Kunz and Horst W. J. Rittel, Issues as elements fo information systems. Working Paper No. 131
July 1970, reprinted May 1979, University of California, Berkeley

Chanpory Rith and Hugh Dubberly, ‘Why Horst W. J. Rittel Matters’, Design Issues 23 (2007)1, 72-91.

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Max Bill

thapke — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:51:36 +0000

The Swiss artist and designer Max Bill founded in Germany the Ulm School for Design in the Fifties after getting his education also at the Bauhaus in the end of the Twenties. He was a theorizer about “the form” and was a proponent of a connection between mathematics as well as the physical sciences and art. Ostwald was mentioned by Bill in the afterword of the German edition of Kandinskyâ€˜s â€œPoint and line to planeâ€.

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Max Bense

thapke — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:43:53 +0000

Max Bense (1910 – 1990) was a German philosopher and writer, in the fields of philosophy of science, logic, aesthetics, and semiotics. He published books about the philosophy of nature as well as “aesthetical information” and information-theory-based aesthetics. Bense worked at the University of Stuttgart since 1949 becoming full professor in 1963. In addition, he worked at the adult education centre and at the College of Design in Ulm from 1953 to 1958.

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Wilhelm Ostwald

thapke — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:00:27 +0000

Wilhelm Ostwald, 1853 (Riga, Latvia) – 1932 (Leipzig, Germany) was one of the founders and the organizer of the discipline ‘physical chemistry’ at the end of the 19th century. He worked from 1887 until 1906 as professor in Leipzig, received the 1909 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on catalysis, equilibria and rates of chemical reactions.

Especially after his retirement he developed broad and multifaceted interests as well as wrote numerous publications in philosophy (of nature), history (of science) as well as color theory and the international organization of scholarly work e.g. through promoting an artificial language.

An actual biography: Kim, Mi Gyung (2006). Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932). in: HYLE â€“ International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry 12 (2006) 1, S. 141-148.

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