Początki działalności Wydziału Architektury Wnętrz Państwowej Wyższej Szkoły Sztuk Plastycznych we Wrocławiu / The beginnings of the Faculty of Interior Architecture of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wrocław

Między „ładowską” tradycją a odwilżową nowoczesnością / Between the “Ład” (Harmony) tradition and the Thaw’s modernity

Abstract

TOMASZ MIKOLAJCZAK (The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw) / The beginnings of the Faculty of Interior Architecture of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. Between the “Lad” (Harmony) tradition and the Thaw’s modernity
This article analyses the creative attitudes of artists teaching and studying at the Faculty of Interior Architecture of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wroclaw in the first decade of its existence, i.e. in the 1950s. This period was associated with the domination of the politically imposed doctrine of Socialist Realism, but at the Wroclaw Academy of Fine Arts the Dean of the Faculty tried to promote the patterns developed before World War II by the “Lad” Artists’ Cooperative, of which he himself was a member. The second half of the 1950s brought a sense of breakthrough expressed by the new aesthetics which was a response to the changes taking place in Poland during the political Thaw. They resulted in the emergence of new social needs and expectations, to which artists responded by attempting to create modern living conditions different from the previous ones, whose attributes would be formally redefined objects of everyday use. The aspiration for change was particularly shared by the generation of Polish designers born in the 1920s who were admitted to art schools just after the end of World War II, and an important place for the presentation of their achievements were regional exhibitions organised by the Association of Polish Artists and Designers and the Central Office of Art Exhibitions in Wroclaw.