With a student body numbering over 1,000, BURG is one of the largest universities of art and design in Germany.

BURG is located on the lower fortress of Giebichenstein Castle above the right bank of Saale River on the city's northern border.

Today's university of art and design counts the hour of its birth as 1 July 1915, when the architect, Paul Thiersch, began his term as director.

[3] The school was a conglomeration of training and producing workshops and art-related classes who taught students without a fixed curriculum.

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Marguerite Friedlaender, Gerhard Marcks, Charles Crodel, and Erwin Hahs were forced to leave the school.

The Nazi regime changed the school's remit and allowed it to continue as a centre for education in the crafts.

In the post-second world war period, Burg Giebichenstein was revived as a university of art and design.

BURG did not recover the structure it had in the 1920s until 1975, when several new disciplines were added (glass, media arts, communication design).

In 1976, President Paul Jung set up the Theory and Methodology department (under Horst Oehlke and Rolf Frick).

The university has met the challenges of social change, internationalisation, and the increasing complexity of art and design.

BURG celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2015 with an extensive programme featuring numerous exhibitions, events, and publications.

[7] Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle has 20 Diplom, bachelor's, and master's courses in two faculties and 15 specialist degree programmes.

A special focus of the degree programmes at BURG is education in the artistic-academic fundamentals of theory and practice, which are uniformly taught to all students in their first two years at the university.