A universal thinker

“What does exhaust us is the disuse of our organs and our senses, the disconnection, repression… what does motivate us is development. Development that takes place because we are challenged by the outer world.”
(Hugo Kükelhaus)

Hugo Kükelhaus was a universal thinker who called attention to central problems of our times and also made suggestions to how these problems might be overcome. He observed our technical civilization weakens humans physically and emotionally and thus throws them out of balance. The reason behind this is a system of values which separates the intellect from the whole range of human capabilities, as well as technology and environmental design directed to providing comfort to the body and the senses instead of challenging them.

Over the course of many years, Hugo Kükelhaus spread his cultural critique and human ecological perceptions and concerns through an intensive lecturing and teaching as well as a great number of publications. In 1934, Kükelhaus published his first great work Urzahl und Gebärde, which was followed by many other writings, including Werde Tischler (1936), Das Wort des Johannes (1953), Organismus und Technik (1971), Unmenschliche Architektur (1973) and Entfaltung der Sinne (co-authored Rudolph zur Lippe, 1982).

For a long time Kükelhaus was like a voice in the wilderness when he delivered a lecture or wrote a text – it came down to the vision before one's nose, the minimal effort of the human organs of perception, the practice of it through utilization and challenge:
“We have to do it. Experience is an activity, that’s where the obstacle is. For hundreds of years, we have been trained to replace practical experience by simply knowing – with the result that we are now living in a substitute world!”

Kükelhaus did not succeed in making his concern accessible to a broad public until he developed the ‘Field of Sensory Experience [Erfahrungsfeldes zur Entfaltung der Sinne].  The Field of Sensory Experience’ was presented as a touring exhibition in numerous places in Germany and abroad since the mid-70s. At some forty stations, people have the possibility to gain actively experiences: With their autonomous nervous system, they are able to experience laws of nature ( e.g. oscillation, gravity, polarity, colour) in their relationship with the laws of their own physiological make-up, i.e. their sensory perception and their bodily movements.

Sensory experience, which is often already much reduced, will be stimulated and extended in the Field of Sensory Experience, so that we can become aware of “how the eye sees – the ear hears – the nose smells – the skin feels – the fingers grope – the foot (under)stands – the hand grasps – the brain thinks – the lungs breathe – the blood pulses – the body swings - …”

However, for Kükelhaus the Field of Sensory Experience was only a means to sensitize and make aware, and balance out the deficits he had determined. And as long as it doesn't come to a fundamental re-orientation of our relationship with external and internal nature, this field of sensory experience – and similar ventures in many places –will not lose its currency and necessity.

The thoughts of Hugo Kükelhaus have been taken up reluctantly by research and only recently has their topicality been realized.  This is certainly in part due to the fact that his integral approach is located between natural sciences and humanities. Since  negative  consequences –  especially with regard to perceptual disorders, movement disorders and learning disorders – of a decade-long contempt concerning perception and the body have become increasingly clear, recently various academic disciplines have drawn attention to Hugo Kükelhaus. He is discovered as the pioneer of a holistic approach that takes the sensory and bodily experiences in the educational process seriously.

“In recent years it has become more and more apparent that Kükelhaus’ thoughts concerning education were far ahead of the times, and that he became prominent very early in fields whose importance has been recognized and schematized increasingly by the science of education […]. I am thinking in particular of the rediscovery of body and the senses in their importance for (curative) education [...]
Kükelhaus campaigned for the rehabilitation of the senses in teaching, the holistic education of the human [...], for study based on perception, activity, experience, fun and delight, which includes also the situational and architectural context”

(Walter Dreher, Curative Education, University of Cologne).

Kükelhaus was acutely concerned with questions of construction and living facilities. Since the early 1970s he has substantially criticized the tendencies of the architecture of those days, which was in great parts hostile to life, and developed the baselines of an organological construction, i.e. construction orientated towards the human senses and the human organism. For Kükelhaus building and designing that centered on human needs and measures was a concern throughout his life.

Beyond the fields previously addressed, Hugo Kükelhaus worked creatively and artistically in diverse patterns: as a designer of furniture  and graphic designer, as sculptor, illustrator (of craft productions), painter and author of illustrated parables.

Kükelhaus has sometimes been called an “undiscovered guru” because of his elementary teaching of life which assimilates mystical and Eastern teachings with modern scientific knowledge in an entirely unique way. During the course of his life, however, he kept his distance to his followers and admirers. It was never his aim to preach a worldview with unchangeable truths, as his fundamental thoughts implied an openness much too comprehensive for such close-mindedness.

Kükelhaus wanted to enable people to make immediate experiences in order to inspire and to encourage them to create their life in a way which enables them to unfold with all their possibilities and abilities instead of depriving themselves more and more of their own livelihood.

What did Kükelhaus leave behind? The invitation to do something, methods instead of mere opinions, instructions for self-experience by means of independent activity – all with the purpose to enable a life lived with all senses. No more, no less.