All that useful beauty
An exhibition at the National Museum in Warsaw is evoking some profound emotions among the museum's visitors. For the first time in its history, the museum is presenting objects created by Polish designers and producers over the last century.
"All the stuff in here brings back memories," said Bohdan Czejkowski, a senior citizen who visited the exhibition last Friday. He seemed particularly taken by the different bicycle models. "This bicycle had to be wonderful," he said, referring to a deluxe model of a pre-World War II bike. "Such a bicycle was a big deal," Czejkowski said. "Before the war, there weren't such great technical innovations like today, but the (bike's) wooden wheels were strong and made from good wood," he said.
The exhibition is the brainchild of Anna Maga from the museum's Contemporary Design Center and Czeslawa Frejlich from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. They chose goods that were used every day and whose designs were also appreciated in their own time. "The idea was to show the common wealth that surrounds us," said Anna Dembska from the Contemporary Design Center.
While a lot of the items are artifacts, others are still circulating, such as a red coffeepot dating back to 1907. "The designer is unknown but it was so positively received that it is still being produced in Olkusz," Dembska said.
Objects that no longer haunt modern cupboards or garages still linger in people's minds, though. "Let's take Frania (a washing machine designed in 1958)," Czejkowski said. "My aunts, my mother, and I used that machine."
Agnieszka Wielkopolan and Jolanta Bursztynska also have happy memories connected with Frania. "I used it so many years," Bursztynska said. "It is incredible but I know that country people used this washing machine in butter production." Bursztynska's friend looks back fondly at a Pioner (Pioneer) radio. "I guess there was no family, which didn't have that radio machine," Wielkopolan said. "They were very well made and substantial, unlike others."
"Look at these skis," said Czejkowski. The 1923 Zubki skis he was referring to were made in a "Zakopane style" by Stanislaw Zubek. In Czejkowski's opinion, they had been a pleasure to ski with.
Czejkowski also said he and his friends drove the Junak motorcycle (1957) shown, "for instance the Osa (Wasp) M50 motor scooter from 1969." He said the scooter "was bigger than the Italian one in the same style, but it was specially constructed for our roads," and big enough to accommodate a girl and a picnic basket when you went on an excursion outside the capital.
The organizers have also put more conventionally design-oriented items on display, including glass, ceramics, jewelry, furniture and toys.
"I remember the wooden building blocks very well," Czejkowski said. Looking at the Gnome Construction blocks from 1922, he said: "I can't even imagine Christmas without a box of the blocks in that style as a present for children."
These were designed by well-known designers Stanislaw Noakowski and Bronislaw Mankowski, Dembska said, who came up with the blocks in reaction to the then popular, German-style toys. The blocks were a success, both as exportable commodities and as design items, and were featured in a variety of international exhibitions. After World War II, toy designers put out many knock-offs of the blocks.
"The Common Wealth, Polish Products 18991999" is being held at the National Museum from May to August.
