Wrocław interiors after 1945

As part of the seriesBlock #3 | Craft we invite you to the last lecture in the series of events ac­com­pa­ny­ing the exhibitionWładysław Wincze. Interiors. The lecture will be con­ducted by Iwona Kałuża.

To quote Władysław Wincze, “the years 1954-1956 are a period of sig­nif­i­cant con­struc­tion in­vest­ments in Wrocław. At that time, work began on the re­con­struc­tion of the de­stroyed Old Town dis­trict, and above all the Old Market Square. It was also at that time that large con­struc­tion pro­jects were being built in the city centre, mainly along Świd­nicka Street and Tadeusza Kościuszki Square. In a large down­town housing estate (in the Kościuszko Housing Quarter) a number of new service and retail outlets have found their place”. (1) The spaces, which were largely de­signed by a new gen­er­a­tion of artists, have become post-war visual el­e­ments of the city.

Jerzy Tar­nawski’s project, RTV store at Młodzieżowy Square, 1959, wall paint­ing: Arka­diusz Włodar­czyk, from Jerzy Tar­nawski’s private archive

They were happy to go to Stylowa cafe or Monopol Hotel. They read news­pa­pers in the In­ter­na­tional Press and Books Club, met in the Bachus Winery or dis­cussed in the Jour­nal­ist Club. In many pro­jects you can see forms taken from nature - asym­met­ri­cal shapes and vivid colours, which as a result of bi­o­log­i­cal in­spi­ra­tions became a source of new forms of fur­ni­ture, ce­ram­ics, as well as nu­mer­ous fabric pat­terns. In ad­di­tion, Wrocław was still looking for in­spi­ra­tions from art of the in­ter­war period. These ten­den­cies were in­ten­si­fied by the arrival of Władysław Wincze - an ed­u­ca­tor who owes much of his skills to the Warsaw school - the cradle of the “Ład” Artists Co­op­er­a­tive. The two trends col­lided, com­bin­ing moder­nity with tra­di­tion, as can be ob­served in the Wrocław public in­te­ri­ors pro­jects. The lecture will present se­lected re­al­i­sa­tions of restau­rants, cafés and shops, which, de­signed by the teacher himself and his first grad­u­ates, have become per­ma­nently in­scribed in the land­scape of post-war Wrocław.

1. W. Wincze, Wrocławskie wnętrza, [in:] Ar­chitek­tura, no. 9, pub­lished by Arkady, Warsaw 1959.

Iwona Kałuża - art his­to­rian, post-war design re­searcher, curator. She grad­u­ated in art history from the Sile­sian Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Wrocław. She com­pleted post­grad­u­ate post­grad­u­ate studies at the Her­itage Academy in Cracow. The author of nu­mer­ous texts on in­dus­trial design, with par­tic­u­lar em­pha­sis on the role of the visual artist in in­dus­try. She works at BWA Wrocław Con­tem­po­rary Art Galleries.