The avant-garde roots of Polish design in the Socialist Realism period. A case study

Abstract

_{Due to the pragmatic orientation and continuation of modernist artistic solutions, it is difficult to find explicit Socialist Realist traits in the Polish design of that time, especially as the term “Socialist Realist design” remains undefined. Design that is neutral in form can be linked to the doctrine on the level of the socialist concept, aiming at consequent changes in the socialist forms of life. However, the idea of socially oriented design combined with modernization unquestionably had its roots in the broadly understood avant-garde movements. We should not treat this phenomenon as an ideological contradiction. In spite of their avant- -garde pre-war provenance, many ideas were (successfully) put into practice at that time as the design of life for a better tomorrow of the egalitarian (socialist) society.}