HISTORY OF POLISH DESIGN

POLAND (DURING THE PARTITIONS) AT THE TURN OF 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY. IN SEARCH OF THE NATIONAL STYLE
THE FIRST DECADE OF THE 20TH CENTURY. THE CONCEPT OF MAKING VARIOUS FORMS OF ART EQUAL
THE SECOND DECADE OF THE 20TH CENTURY. A BROKEN PATH FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
THE 1920s. DECORATIVE ART AND AVANT-GARDE
THE 1930s. GROWING ROLE OF AVANT-GARDE
THE 1940s. POST-WAR REBUILDING
THE 1950s. THE DECADE OF CONTRASTS
THE 1960s. LITTLE STABILISATION
THE 1970s. LIVING ON CREDIT
THE 1980s. THE LOST DECADE
THE 1990s. PROBLEMS OF TRANSFORMATION
THE YEARS 2000-20010. NEW OPENING

POLAND (DURING THE PARTITIONS) AT THE TURN OF 19^TH AND 20^TH CENTURY. IN SEARCH OF THE NATIONAL STYLE

Poland divided among the three invaders. Its literature and applied arts were a weapon in the fight for maintaining the national identity. The largest liberty of expression existed in Galicia.

The first attempt of creating the national style, involving the applied art in a broad sense, was the Zakopane style. Inspired by folk architecture and rural handicraft of the Podhale region, initiated by Stanisław Witkiewicz.

THE FIRST DECADE OF THE 20^TH CENTURY. THE CONCEPT OF MAKING VARIOUS FORMS OF ART EQUAL

Young Poland. Influences of the West-European art – Arts & Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau, Sezession – met the search for inspirations in the native folk art.

The peak development of applied arts: graphics, interior design, furniture making, weaving, and artistic metalwork.

The particularly active attitude was demonstrated by the Krakow milieu. The most outstanding representative of that intellectual environment was Stanisław Wyspiański. Towarzystwo Polska Sztuka Stosowana (TPSS), the society for Polish applied arts founded in 1901, set its sights on developing the native artistic output based on tradition and folk art. The society organised exhibitions and competitions, as well as published the magazine “Polska Sztuka Stosowana” [Polish Applied Art].

THE SECOND DECADE OF THE 20^TH CENTURY. A BROKEN PATH FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

In 1911, Związek ARMR (Architektura Rzeźba Malarstwo Rzemiosło) [Architecture Sculpture Painting Craft Association], was formed. It promoted the programme and concept of treating various forms of art as equal. The group existed only one year.

Its concepts were continued by Warsztaty Krakowskie (WK) [Krakow Workshops], founded in 1913. Workshops conducted their activities in the fields of design, manufacture and education. They offered workrooms for furniture making, weaving, metalwork, batik and dyeing, embroidery, wall decorating, ceramics, bookbinding, graphics, toy making, leather accessory making, as well as for stone and wood sculpture. Workshops were supervised by excellent artists, such as Karol Homolacs, Wojciech Jastrzębowski, Zofia Stryjeńska.

The exhibition in Krakow, called Wystawa Architektury i Wnętrz w Otoczeniu Ogrodowem [Architecture and Interiors in Gardens] in 1912, presented designs (e.g. houses along with furnishings and equipments), which were supposed to become models for the mass production in the future. However, the outbreak of the First World War destroyed those plans.

After the war and regaining independence by Poland, reborn Krakow Workshops became a bridge between the pre-war and post-war periods. The applied art still looked for inspiration in the folk artistic work and strived for creating the national style.

THE 1920s. DECORATIVE ART AND AVANT-GARDE

Continuation of the pre-war traditions and influences of international avant-garde.

The success of Poland at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925³. Our exhibition reflected the concept of integration of arts. It presented the style, which combined inspirations derived from folk art with a language of geometry – formism, later called “the Polish variation of Art Deco”.

In 1925, the Krakow Workshops ceased their existence. They found their continuator in Spółdzielnia Artystów ŁAD - Cooperative of artists practising applied arts, formed in 1926. Products of the Cooperative were characterized by respect for material and striving after the skilful utilization of its aesthetical qualities, which caused that the group laid itself open to the charge of elitism and traditionalism. Polish avant-garde circles criticized it as well, for the same reason.

Two new avant-garde groupings were formed: BLOK (1924-1926) and PRAESENS (founded in 1926). BLOK promoted abstraction and constructivism, and instilled concepts of modernism in Poland. PRAESENS continued the theoretical views of BLOK, yet at the same time imparting a more practical dimension to them. Artists such as Władysław Strzemiński, Barbara and Stanisław Brukalski, Bogdan Lachert and Józef Szanajca called for introducing modern everyday articles to mass production.

THE 1930s. GROWING ROLE OF AVANT-GARDE

The world-wide economic crisis mounted a new challenge to industrial design. Avant-garde designers fascinated by industry and new technologies moved the centre of gravity from decorative and artistic issues to constructional and functional ones.

In Poland
The first half of the 1930s was dominated by the topic of modern building and furnishing of small interiors. Furniture made of bent steel tubes, lift up beds and other small-scale yet multifunctional solutions gained popularity.

In the second half of that decade, the traditional trend coexisted with the modern one. Artists of ŁAD and PRAESENS jointly designed interiors and equipment for Polish transatlantic liners: M/S PIŁSUDSKI (1934) and M/S BATORY (1936).

The majority of industrial production duplicated foreign designs. The profession of an industrial designer did not even exist. The authors of new designs were on the one hand artists and architects and on the other – engineers, technologists or factory owners. A few examples: VIS pistol, SOKÓŁ motorcycle, PZL P.11 fighter plane or PM 36-1 express steam locomotive.

THE MANOR CASTLE IN WISŁA, built in 1929-1931 for the President Ignacy Mościcki, was an example – the first in Poland and unique in Europe – of modern interiors designed for a head of the state. Its furnishings – furniture of bent steel tubes, lamps, fabrics – were all designs of great esthetical value and of high quality.

In the years 1930-31, Władysław Strzemiński executed his own curriculum based on experiences of both Soviet art schools and Bauhaus, while teaching at Żeńska Szkoła Przemysłowa (industrial school for girls) in Koluszki. He emphasized the achievement of modern form and functionality of the wares. The term utylitaryzm [utilitarianism]⁴ used by Strzemiński, was the closest to what we now understand as “design”.

The influence of modernism became distinctive.

First enterprises started building their image basing on design. These were: Fabryka Porcelany in Ćmielów (porcelain tableware factory), glass-works Niemen and Hortensja, as well as Norblin and Fraget (metal wares).

THE 1940s. POST-WAR REBUILDING

Post-war Poland came within a sphere of influence of the USSR. The centrally planned economy was an obligatory model; large long-term national economical plans were prepared and implemented, industry became nationalised, while individual manufacturing and trade were eliminated gradually. State politics shifted towards a total domination of the new socialist system.

The issue of industrial design was raised by only a few. The most outstanding among them were Wanda Telakowska and Jerzy Sołtan (for more information, please visit: www.słownikprojektantów.pl).

Telakowska was the person who made first attempts to include design in the new system. To begin with, in 1946 at the Wydział Wytwórczości [Manufacturing Department] – dependent on the Ministry of Culture and Art, then in the Biuro Nadzoru Estetyki Produkcji (BNEP) [Office of Production Supervision and Aesthetics] in 1947. Designs prepared there for special orders were based on the tradition of craft goods and had no influence on the mass production of everyday articles. Nevertheless, exactly in that context and in the circles related to Wanda Telakowska’s activities, the term wzornictwo przemysłowe [industrial design]⁵ was created and used for the first time in Poland, in 1947.

The higher art education, re-emerging after the war, still relied on pre-war tradition.

The re-established Spółdzielnia ŁAD made use of the property of its members, including the study/workshop of the artists’ partnership Spółka Autorska Władysław Wincze – Olgierd Szlekys, operating during the WW2. Almost immediately after the end of the war, those designers started work for the furniture industry. In 1950, ŁAD became subordinated to the central company of Polish folk art and handicraft – Centrala Przemysłu Ludowego i Artystycznego (CPLiA).

The year 1949 brought a turnabout in politics, heralding a new approach of the authorities to economics and culture (including art and design), carried out further in the next decade.

THE 1950s. THE DECADE OF CONTRASTS

In the first half of that decade, the doctrine of art realistic in form and socialist in content was strongly in force. Design was only incidental for the authorities’ interest, yet – like all other spheres of life of the Polish people – was subjected to central supervising.

In 1950, BNEP was replaced by the INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, still existing and remaining operative to the present day. Its originator, Wanda Telakowska, later called “domestic Joan of Arc of design”6, reinforced the role of that new discipline by promoting the concept of “beauty for every day and everyone”. The aim of the Institute was to work out a model for cooperation between designers and the nationalized industry, as well as supervising the problems related to design nation-wide, while issues of handicraft manufacturing were turned over to CPLiA. In its workrooms, IWP prepared new designs for industry (unfortunately, implemented only to a small degree) and conducted activities aiming to popularize the works for general public through exhibitions and publications.

In 1952, in the Warsaw gallery Zachęta, there was held the first nation-wide exhibition of interior architecture and decorative art – I Ogólnopolska Wystawa Architektury Wnętrz i Sztuki Dekoracyjnej (I OWAW). It showed the authorities’ support for decorative art and, at the same time, complete lack of prospective reflection about work and position of artists in the industry. The exhibition displayed mostly handicraft articles.

More and more dynamic circles of designers, including artists gathered in IWP, still had rather slim opportunities to have some impact on the condition of the domestic industrial output. First model making cells⁷ in Polish industrial establishments were introduced in 1954.

After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, more information about western lifestyle and design reached Poland. However, visible changes appeared not before 1956. With the taking of leadership over by Władysław Gomułka, there started the several-year-long “thaw” period. The private sector was given access to the market, and part of the heavy industry was reorganized to fulfil the needs of Polish consumers, which had its consequences for design as well. Rejection of the socialist realism doctrine and opening for influences of the West meant changes of stylistic and structural nature, as well as experiments with new materials, despite continuous problems with access to modern raw materials and technologies.

In the second half of 1950s, modernity became a keyword. After long years of isolation, Polish people, especially youth, wanted to be fashionable in their everyday life, in their behaviour and their pastimes. Small gap in the iron curtain triggered an explosion of creative actions invoking abstract art and organic design.

Elements distinctive for stylistics of the 1950s were: language of abstraction, organic forms, asymmetry, diagonal lines, compositions based on letters “A” and “X”, lively colouring.

In textile design, the popular motifs became the so-called “pikasy” (referring to the works of Picasso).
Ceramics, which had its heyday in that time (projects of figurines and applied vessels worked out in IWP) was dominated by organic form.
In furniture making, there were used plywood (among others: Jan Kurzątkowski, Teresa Kruszewska, Maria Chomentowska), then plastics: igelite, Vinidur®, and last but not least – epoxide resins. The organic armchair made of resin by Roman Modzelewski was an example of that trend.

In the creation of devices and appliances, design was still perceived mostly from the angle of aesthetics. The most famous products of that time: the BAJKA slide projector, OSA scooter and SYRENA SPORT car, were all designed by constructions specialists and engineers, not by artists.

In June 1956, the Projekt [Design] magazine started to come out, and problems of modern design were present there constantly.

THE 1960s. LITTLE STABILISATION⁸

In the sphere of economy – still centrally planned as before – the level of investments for production of consumer goods was increased. The role of design soared as well. A special task was set to it – to increase export and obtain western currency. However, problems with quality of work and access to modern materials and technologies were still present.

Numerous new articles appeared on the market, designed by Polish creators of products such as furniture, household goods, appliances, and devices. Modern Polish design of the 1960s is represented, among others, by: RAMONA radio, BAMBINO gramophone, EWA radio set, ceramics and applied glass work designed in IWP. The main icon of that decade became modular furniture, including most renowned SYSTEM MK designed by Bogusława and Czesław Kowalski. The popular name – “the Kowalskis’ furniture” – was regarded not as relating to the surname of the designers couple, but to a statistical Kowalski (the most popular Polish surname, John Smith).

In the field of projects made for industry, design showed more predispositions towards technology than art. The abstract and organic stylistics of the previous decade was joined by formal and structural simplicity, dictated by the requirements of mass production.

Since 1959, there operated Rada Wzornictwa i Estetyki Produkcji Przemysłowej (RWiEPP) [Industrial Designs and Aesthetic Council], a governmental advisory body. In result of its actions, as early as the first years of 1960s, I and II Wystawa-Targi Wzornictwa [Design Exhibition and Fair] took place, as well as other expositions; also, numerous publications were released. Polish design entered the international information flow. Awards for Polish designers for their achievements in the field of industrial design were established; and beside the model-making cells in Polish institutions and enterprises there appeared construction offices and research and development centres, developing new concepts of assortment of goods.

IWP transformed into strictly research unit. Three of its main areas of interest were: dwelling interiors, working clothing, and ergonomics.

In the academic year 1963/64, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, the Wydział Form Przemysłowych [Industrial Design Faculty] was formed – the first in Poland – and at the Academy in Warsaw – Katedra Form Przemysłowych⁹ [Industrial Design Chair]. In the same year, also in Warsaw, Stowarzyszenie Projektantów Form Przemysłowych (SPFP), still existing to the present day, was officially registered. It is an independent organisation uniting designers, theoreticians and promoters of design. The organisation soon became a member of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Designers, the body for industrial designers from all over the world (1964).

In the book “Problemy wzornictwa przemysłowego” [Problems of Industrial design] published in 1966 by Wanda Telakowska and Tadeusz Reindl, design was defined as an “entirety of activities conducted for determining those characteristics of industrial goods which reflect cultural development of the society and conditions of utilisation of those goods, simultaneously taking into account the economic possibilities and technological progress”¹⁰.

THE 1970s. LIVING ON CREDIT

The economic crisis resulted in labour unrest, and that in consequence led to the change of government in December 1970. Edward Gierek became the first secretary of PZPR [Polish United Workers’ Party]. That marked the beginning of a period of growing investments and consumption based on foreign capital. Foreign loans were to animate the Polish economy and made its products competitive on the international market. Investments targeted several branches of industry: electronic, electrical, consumer goods and automotive industry. Licenses for appliances and technologies were bough in the western countries (e.g. for Fiat 126p), aimed at providing production of modern consumer goods. It had a double impact on design: on the one hand, we gained knowledge, yet on the other – there was an impending factor in the form of insufficient expenditure on Polish industrial design.

Centralized industry was managed by industrial enterprises. Their trade centres conducted research and development work in the area of design. Several enterprises were carrying out dynamic activity: OMEL (medical and optical industry), PONAR (machinery and devices for industry), PREDOM (household equipment, as well as sport and tourist goods), UNITRA (electronics), ZREMB (construction equipment). However, many interesting projects never moved past the stage of a draft or a prototype, thus contributing to wasting the designing potential. Polish economy, not supported by normal market mechanisms, was not able to compete in the field of production of high quality and innovative goods. Despite that, the 1970s brought some positive effects for industrial design. Products created in result were comparable to western goods in terms of design – they were mostly machinery and equipment, e.g. the Krokus enlargers or electronic goods from UNITRA. Stylistics of many Polish products matched the world trends, including the “technical” character based on the premises developed in Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm. A hint of the West appeared also in the form of fashion by Barbara Hoff. She created the brand “Hoffland”, which offered mass-produced clothes.

The mid-1970s saw the reactivation of Rada Wzornictwa Przemysłowego. Owing to its actions, and with the support from the ZPAP [Polish Visual Artists’ Association] and SPFP, the Regulation of the Council of Ministers was issued, introducing the rules of remuneration for services in the sphere of plastic arts, including designing¹¹.

In 1977, upon the initiative of Andrzej Jan Wróblewski, the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw opened the Wydział Wzornictwa Przemysłowego [Faculty of Industrial Design]. The next year brought the opening of Wydział Architektury Wnętrz i Wzornictwa Przemysłowego [Faculty of Interior Architecture and Industrial Design, since 1981 known as the Faculty of Architecture and Design] at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Curricula of Polish artistic universities, apart from courses oriented on artistic and craft issues, introduced also “scientific operationalism”, influencing the education and development of the theory of design.

In 1979, at the National Museum in Warsaw, the Ośrodek Wzornictwa Nowoczesnego [Centre of Modern Design] was established. Its collection (still in the process of completing) was started with projects and models from IWP and Spółdzielnia Artystów ŁAD.

Living on credit and the success propaganda could not withstand confrontation with reality. After the mid-1970s, the economic and social crisis was progressing.

THE 1980s. THE LOST DECADE

The period of destruction of the old political system. The social uprising led by “Solidarity” (started in August 1980) ended with martial law announced on 13 December 1981. Civil liberties were restricted, cultural life went underground, economic growth was halted, industrial enterprises and design offices subjected to them collapsed, embargo on raw materials was in force, technological gap was deepening, and shortage of consumer goods on the market reached such a level that an issue of design became an insignificant problem.

Universities offering faculties of design educated designers who had no chance to find a job on the domestic labour market. Graduates of 1970s and 1980s, trying to fill the void left by collapsing state institutions and cooperatives, started designing work on their own, on more than one occasion manufacturing operations as well, establishing private companies, usually small family businesses (e.g. MASS Studio, IDEA, MIMO, FORMA, KARTA, design studio KONCEPT, CREAP). Some of the designers found their place in the sphere of education, and many simply changed profession or emigrated.

IWP continued the execution of its research goals related to ergonomics and rehabilitation, developed colour pattern-books for industry or standards of dwelling equipment, presenting design as a form of public service for the benefit of a society.

Along with the end of PRL [Polish People’s Republic], sealed by the Round Table talks, Rada Wzornictwa Przemysłowego ceased to exist in 1989.

THE 1990s. PROBLEMS OF TRANSFORMATION

In 1989, Poland entered the phase of transformation of the governmental and state system. It meant the beginning of building of a political and legal system based on the parliamentary democracy. In 1997, the new constitution was enacted.

Modernization of the industry turned out to be a slow process. Participating in a model of competitive market economy was a new experience both for the producers and for the designers. The implementation of our own domestic designs was apparently difficult, as foreign products began to fill the market, with their better quality and looks, and often with lower prices as well.

For industrial design, that new situation meant unavoidable confrontation with foreign goods and technological developments, as well as the need of introducing new skills, such as efficient management, competitiveness, flexible readjusting to changes, new model of work (an independent studio) and including computers in the designing process. Those were conditions, which individual designers and newly established small (usually employing no more than a few persons) designing firms (e.g. Ergo Design, NC Art, NPD, Triada Design, Towarzystwo Projektowe) were facing and tried to overcome.

Universities involved in design education implemented changes in their curricula. New design and architecture faculties were opened: Wydział Architektury i Wzornictwa in Poznań and Wydział Architektury Wnętrz and Wzornictwa in Wrocław.

The first initiatives promoting modern industrial design were the events started in 1993: annual competition Dobry Wzór [Good Design] organised by IWP, selecting the best products on the Polish market, and activities of Fundacja Rzecz Piękna [Beautiful Thing Foundation]. Soon, the Foundation started to organise the Biennale Sztuki Projektowania [Art of Designing Biennale] – competitions and exhibitions with the main theme being successively: “Krzesło” [Chair] in 1994, “Lampa” [Lamp] in 1996, “Zegar” [Clock] in 1998.

However, the growing potential of industrial design still did not translate into a number of projects implemented for mass production. The main reason was the lack of state politics in that sphere, despite the fact that according to international experts it had enormous developmental prospects – the best proof can be e.g. the fact of including it into the Fulbright and British Council scholarship curricula.

THE YEARS 2000-20010. NEW OPENING

At the very beginning of the second millennium, in an awareness of the government, society, and media, industrial design was not yet perceived as an element influencing the growth of competitiveness and innovative character of a product. Instead, it was rather associated with art. Yet the intensified activity of designers finally awoke social interest. Both the Polish industry and decision-makers recognised the principle effective around the world for a long time: the fact that design is on the one hand often a medium for traditional values or an element of building the national identity, and on the other – is future-oriented, and from the perspective of state economy it just pays. Poland, since 2004 being a member of the European Union, could not omit that fact.

The Innovative Economy operational programme for years 2007-2013, prepared by the Ministry of Economy, introduced regulations advantageous for the development of industrial design, understanding its important role as a innovation growth factor.

In 2000, the exhibition “Rzeczypospolite – polskie wyroby 1899-1999” [Common wealth – Polish products: 1899-1999] marked the beginning of a series of expositions promoting Polish design abroad.

In 2001, the Fundacja Rzecz Piękna [Beautiful Thing Foundation] of Krakow released the first issue of the quarterly magazine 2+3D, the professional Polish journal on design (still published).

Since 2005, Śląski Zamek Sztuki i Przedsiębiorczości [Silesian Castle of Art and Enterprise] in Cieszyn has been conducting its activity. In 2006, that institution started organising competitions and exhibitions called Śląska Rzecz [Silesian Thing]. It also publishes a bulletin on design, titled “I”.

Since 2006, Instytut Wzornictwa Przemysłowego has undergone significant changes, and in 2009 it finally became a strategic advisory body for enterprises and institutions on issues related to design. Among other things, it conducts the key project “Zaprojektuj Swój Zysk – Poprawa konkurencyjności przedsiębiorstw poprzez wzornictwo” [Design Your Profit – Improvement of the competitiveness of enterprises through the application of design], co-financed from state funds within the framework of the Innovative Economy operational programme; post graduate studies of Design Management; research projects in the field of design and ergonomics; “Słownik Projektantów Polskich” [Lexicon of Polish Designers] online, the first in Poland. It organises design exhibitions and competitions in Poland and abroad and continues projects Dobry Wzór and Young Design (earlier: Design Młodych – Design of the Young).

Since 2008, IWP organises the Gdynia Design Days as well – international days of design for the Baltic States. That event is the second – after Łódź Design Festiwal initiated in 2007 – annual event of a festival nature. In 2009, Arena Design in Poznań also joined that list.

At the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, IWP invited by Polska Agencja Rozwoju Przedsiębiorczości [Polish Agency for Enterprise Development], as part of events promoting the Polish economy, presented its exhibition “Wartość dodana. Wzornictwo z Polski” [Added Value. Design from Poland] and offered a series of seminars on the management of design in Poland.

Currently, industrial design is present in all Polish Academies of Fine Arts, as well as in some technical universities and private schools.

Among the significant names and design businesses we can find, e.g.: Tomasz Augustyniak, Piotr Kuchciński, Tomek Rygalik (furniture), Marek Cecuła and his Modus Design (porcelain), Tomasz Rudkiewicz and Nc.Art, Andrzej Śmiałek and Ergo Design, Marek Adamczewski and Marad Design, Studio projektowe 1:1, Puff-Buff: Anna Siedlecka and Radosław Achramowicz (lamps), Poor Design (Bartosz Mucha), Moho Design (modern carpets-folk cut-outs, awarded with the Red Dot prize in 2008), Aze Design, Studio Bakalie.

 

Footnotes:

1. C.K. Norwid, Promethidion, [in:] C.K. Norwid, Pisma wszystkie. Vol. 3. Poematy, Warszawa 1971, p. 470.
   
2. Muzeum Techniczno-Przemysłowe [Technical and Industry Museum] established upon the initiative of Dr Adrian Baraniecki in Krakow in 1868, since 1913 on its own premises (ul. Smoleńsk 9; since 1963 – which is the very beginning of the faculty’s existence – Wydział Form Przemysłowych [Faculty of Industrial Forms] of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, the first faculty devoted entirely to design in Poland, has been located there). The Museum had collected exhibits and conducted publishing operations.
   
3. The exhibition brought the biggest success of Poland at an international event so far: 35 Grand Prix awards, 31 honorary certificates of distinction, as well as 70 gold, 56 silver, and 13 bronze medals. According to: A. M. Drexlerowa, A. K. Olszewski, Polska i Polacy na powszechnych wystawach światowych 1851-2000, Warszawa 2005. p. 206.
   
4. Władysław Strzemiński introduced the term “utylitaryzm” [utilitarianism] in his article “Przedmiot i przestrzeń” [Object and space]. See: W. Strzemiński, Pisma, Ed. Z. Baranowicz, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków-Gdańsk 1975, pp. 71-72.
   
5. It is difficult to determine the first person who used the term “wzornictwo przemysłowe” [industrial design], nevertheless, most certainly it is connected with Wanda Telakowska. Generally, she is considered the author of that term, although the fact is not documented precisely. Formulation of a new term was probably connected with events which took place in 1947: Wystawa Przemysłu Artystycznego [Artistic Industry Exhibition] at the National Museum in Warsaw, and the establishment of Biuro Nadzoru Estetyki Produkcji.
   
6. Stanisław Ehrlich called Telakowska a “domestic Joan of Arc of design” and “mother of design” in his equally meaningfully titled text Don Kichot w spódnicy [Don Quixote in a skirt] – see: S. Ehrlich, Don Kichot w spódnicy, in: Sztuka dla życia. Wspomnienia o Wandzie Telakowskiej, Ed. K. Czerniawska, T. Reindl, Instytut Wzornictwa Przemysłowego, Warszawa 1988, p. 32.
   
7. They were organised upon the initiative of the Departament Wzornictwa Ministerstwa Przemysłu Lekkiego [Department of Design in the Ministry of Light Industry]. See: A. Wojciechowski, O współpracy plastyków z przemysłem, “Przegląd Artystyczny” 1954, No 1, pp. 18-21, and M. Pluciński, Wpływ fabrycznych zakładów wzorcujących na rozwój wzornictwa meblarskiego, “Przemysł Drzewny” 1955, No 1, p. 13.
   
8. That term has been derived from the poem by Tadeusz Różewicz “Świadkowie albo nasza mała stabilizacja” [Witnesses or Our Little Stabilisation]. Since then, it has drifted into colloquial Polish as a designation of the period of Władysław Gomułka’s rule (1956-1970). In the most common usage, however, that was a term depicting 1960s.
   
9. Usage of the term “formy przemysłowe” [industrial forms[ instead “wzornictwo przemysłowe” [industrial design] is related to the influence of information of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, and the method of scientific operationalism suggested there, on the Krakow and Warsaw intellectual circles. That term is a calque derived from German “industrielle formgestaltung”.
   
10. W. Telakowska, T. Reindl, Problemy wzornictwa przemysłowego, Warszawa 1966, p. 9.
    
11. The Resolution of the Council of Ministers dated 11 November 1977 introduced not only a “price list”, but also regulated the principles and stages of designing process.
    
12. Instytut Form Przemysłowych [Industrial Forms Institute] of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, led by its originator and creator Jerzy Derkowski, has been transformed into the Faculty in 1991.