Modern Interior

The late 1950s saw a significant shift in the creative attitudes of Polish artists involved in interior and furniture design. This period was associated with the changes taking place in Poland during the political thaw, and with them the emergence of new social needs and expectations. An important phenomenon among them was the shaping of different conditions of private life from those previously existing, as well as the creation of newly defined urban public spaces.

The desire for change was particularly shared by the generation of Polish designers born in the 1920s, admitted to art schools just after the end of World War II. The diverse life and artistic experiences of the teachers and the gradually maturing artistic concepts of their students met at that time, among others, within the walls of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wrocław, initiating an invigorating dialogue between the two generations. In the case of interior design, the tone for creative attitudes on the local level was set by Władysław Wincze – interior and furniture designer, member of the Artists' Cooperative "Ład", promoter of craft forms of production, dean of the Faculty of Interior Design at the Wrocław State Higher School of Fine Arts (in the years 1956-1964 head of the Interior Design School). An interesting counterpoint to Wincze's creative ideas were the concepts of new design solutions formulated by a group of his students, which had been germinating since the mid-1950s and were inspired by the artistic atmosphere of the thaw fascination with modernity.

The new approach to designed equipment was manifested, among other things, in the use of new materials, including synthetic raw materials instead of the then scarce wood – leatherette and nylon, as well as iron, glass and fabric. The furniture was distinguished by inventive shapes, compact proportions and lightness of forms. In most cases, they were intended for industrial production, although only the 366 armchair, designed by Józef Chierowski, was put into commercial circulation, and over time became an icon of Polish design in the PRL era.

The exhibition is an opportunity to present photographic documentation of mostly non-existent Wrocław interiors from the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, regional exhibitions, preserved furniture, as well as examples of painting, ceramics and glass. The latter were to complement the furnishings in accordance with the modernist postulate of the synthesis of arts, creating, as Apolinary Czepelewski wrote: "a spatial image - unifying [...] the issues of shape, colour and material, as well as light and movement - which is subordinated to a specific function of human life".

Opening: 21.11.2024, 6 pm