Complexity, Universities and the Arts

At a time when UK universities yield increasingly to top-down management systems, this article revisits Alexander von Humboldt's famous memorandum of 1810, which called for licensed seclusion and a spirit of open collaboration in the new University of Berlin. To today's administrators, this would probably sound impossibly chaotic because, when learning communities become complex and independent, their flexibility is gained at the expense of managerial certainty. However, the article suggests that cybernetics, complexity theory and design might provide a theory for Humboldt's practice. By emphasizing the more tacit aspects of knowledge sharing, emergent values can be sustained without the need for hierarchical control. This is exemplified in the co-design methods of artist, turned architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, whose residential buildings still sustain thriving communities.