about
This website is part of Retrotopia: Design for Socialist Spaces, a collaborative research and exhibition project that considers the role and influence of design in the countries of the former Eastern bloc and ex-Yugoslavia during the period stretching from the 1950s through the 1980s. It has already resulted in an exhibition and an archive, both of which were shown from 24 March to 16 July 2023 at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin, along with an exhibition catalogue. With this website, the research that was gathered for the archive will now be made available to a wider audience of interested individuals.
This exhibition was the first to bring together a broad spectrum of design approaches from post-socialist countries like Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. Retrotopia presented a kaleidoscope of design ideas—both the envisioned and the fully realized—for public and private spaces. The project was initiated and led by Claudia Banz, former curator of design at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin.
Retrotopia established a new network of curators and institutions that has been working together on a co-curatorial basis since January 2022. The co-curators include Polina Baitsym, Alex Bykov, Melinda Farkasdy, Judith Horváth, Helena Huber-Doudová, Silke Ihden-Rothkirch, Karolina Jakaitė, Viera Kleinová, Rostislav Koryčánek, Mari Laanemets, Kai Lobjakas, Florentine Nadolni, Anna Maga, Kaja Muszyńska, Cvetka Požar, Klára Prešnajderová, Alyona Sokolnikova, and Koraljka Vlajo.
The institutional partners of the Retrotopia project include the Museum of Utopia and Everyday Life, Beeskow/Eisenhüttenstadt (DE), Slovak Design Centre, Bratislava (SK), Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava (SK), National Gallery Prague (CZ), Moravian Gallery in Brno (CZ), Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest (HU), M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, Kaunas (LT), Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Vilnius (LT), Museum of Architecture and Design, Ljubljana (SI), Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tallinn (EE), Museum of Contemporary Art NGO, Kyiv (UA), Stedley Art Foundation, Kyiv (UA), NGO Imago of Culture, Uzhhorod (UA), Chernihiv Monumentalism Community (UA), ARWM Cultural Heritage Conservation Fund (UA), Warsaw National Museum (PL), and Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb (HR).
biographies
Polina Baitsym
is an art historian and curator specializing in the history of Ukrainian Soviet visual arts. Currently, she is a PhD Candidate in Comparative Histor y at the Central European University (Budapest/Vienna) and curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art NGO (MOCA) Library, Kyiv (Ukraine). In 2018, Baitsym launched a research initiative dedicated to Ukrainian children’s illustration of the 1960–90s, within which she curated two exhibitions in 2019. In 2020, she co-issued the book Art for Architecture. Ukraine. Soviet Modernist Mosaics from 1960 to 1990.
Claudia Banz (Dr.)
is an art and design historian. Since 2017 she has been curator for design at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (Germany). Previously, she headed the Art and Design Department at Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg from 2011 to 2017. Banz has realized many international exhibitions, outreach formats, and fairs at the intersection of design, fashion, craft, and art, including Fast Fashion. The Dark Side of Fashion (2014-1018), Food Revolution 5.0. Design for Tomorrow’s Society (2017-2019), Connecting Afro Futures. Fashion x Hair x Design (2019) or the Design Lab series (2019-2023). Banz is a member of numerous juries and publishes on social design, material culture, and decolonial collections.
Alex Bykov
is an architect, architectural researcher, author and publisher exploring the legacy of Ukrainian architecture in the second half of the 20th century. Based in Kyiv (Ukraine), he worked during recent years as an architectural photographer and journalist, had his own radio show Supervision about urban planning and product design and became co-founder of the activists group #Savekyivmodernism. He curates diverse art, research and exhibition projects, among them a series on Soviet modernism in Ukraine, which began in 2015 with the exhibition Superstructure. He publishes many books and has been co-author of Soviet Modernism, Brutalism, Postmodernism. Buildings and Structures in Ukraine 1955–1991 (2019).
Melinda Farkasdy
was working as an art historian at the Contemporary Design Department of the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest (Hungary) until 2023. She completed the Curating Contemporary Art and Design: Theory and Practice course at the Royal College of Art (London). Farkasdy received her MA in design theory from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and her BA in art history and aesthetics from Eötvös Loránd University (both Budapest). She co-curated the In Circulation exhibition series (Budapest 2018) and gave a lecture at an ICOM ICEE virtual annual conference.
Judit Horváth (PhD)
is a curator and head of the Contemporary Design Department, which she established in 2015 at the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest (Hungary). She is also a lecturer at the Doctoral School of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, and a member of the Professional Advisory Board of the Hungarian Fashion and Design Agency. She specializes in contemporary collecting and earned her doctorate on that subject at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Since 1999, over 150 contemporary art and design exhibitions have been associated with her name.
Helena Huber-Doudová (PhD)
is curator of the architecture collection at the National Gallery Prague (Czech Republic). She completed her PhD studies at the University of Zurich. Currently, she is co-director of the research project Women in Architecture after 1945 in Czech Republic. Huber-Doudová has been awarded a number of international grants. She curated the exhibitions No Demolitions! Forms of Brutalism in Prague (Prague 2020) and 1956-1989: Architecture for All. Lifestyle–Everyday–Media (Prague 2022) and published Shared Cities Atlas. Post-Socialist Cities and Active Citizenship in Central Europe (Rotterdam 2019) and Modern Woman-Architect (Prague 2022).
Silke Ihden-Rothkirch
is a Berlin (Germany) based freelancer working for social organisations in the fields of communication, editing and accessible language. As an author and lecturer, Ihden-Rothkirch focuses on design history, aesthetic education and design aspects of participation and accessibility. After studying product design and aesthetics, she was an editorial member at form+zweck and co-author of Designlehren — Wege deutscher Gestaltungsausbildung (2008). She co-edited and co-curated the book and exhibition Schönheit der Form. Die Designerin Christa Petroff-Bohne (Dresden 2020, Hamburg 2021).
Karolina Jakaitė (Dr.)
is a design historian, researcher at the Vilnius Academy of Arts Institute of Art Research (Lithuania), curator and co-founder of Design Foundation. She is interested in design history studies, design and identity, national pavilions, Lithuanian design in the 1960s–1980s. Jakaitė authored The Cold War Capsule: Lithuanian design in London in 1968 (2019), curated and co-curated design exhibitions in the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius such as Stories of Things. Lithuanian Design 1918–2018 (Vilnius 2018), Lithuania. London. 1968. The Odyssey of Lithuanian Design (Vilnius 2018) and Antanas Kazakauskas: All is Programmed (Vilnius 2021).
Viera Kleinová
is a design historian and curator of the Applied Art and Design Collection at the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava. She graduated from the Department of Art History in the Faculty of Philosophy at Comenius University Bratislava. Kleinová is mainly concerned with author jewellery, ceramics, glass, wood and fashion. Among the exhibitions she curated are Anton Cepka: Kinetic Jewellery (Bratislava 2016), Sew Long! Fashion in Slovakia 1945 – 1989 (Bratislava 2017), Out of the Circle: Modern and Contemporary Slovak Ceramics (Bratislava 2018). She is the co-author of Tibor Uhrín, Form Mellows Function (2019-2020), School of Arts and Crafts Bratislava 1928 – 1939 (2022).
Rita Komporday
worked until 2022 as a museologist in the Contemporary Design Department at the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest (Hungary). She is studying MA in Museum Studies by distance learning at the University of Leicester. Previously, she graduated with a BA in Arts Management with First Class Honours in Budapest and with a MA in Luxury Goods Management at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan. Komporday co-curated the In Circulation exhibition series (Budapest) and contributed to the Homo Faber Guide.
Rostislav Koryčánek
is an art historian and curator of design and architecture in the Moravian Gallery in Brno (Czech Republic). He graduated in art history from the faculty of arts and in sociology from Masaryk University, Brno. He co-founded the Era21 architectural magazine for which he worked as editor-in-chief until 2005. Between 2007 and 2015 he was director of the Brno House of Arts where he co-initiated the Brno Art Open sculptural show (2008). Koryčánek is the author of the Brno Architectural Manual (2011), was one of the organisers of the exhibition Paneland – The Greatest Czechoslovak Experiment (Brno 2017) and of the new permanent exhibition of design (Brno 2021) in the Moravian Gallery in Brno.
Mari Laanemets (Dr.)
is senior researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn (Estland). Her research focuses on 1960s and 1970s alternative art in Eastern Europe and its intersections with architecture and design practices, on post-war abstractionism and modernisation in the region. In 2019 she edited the book Abstraction as Open Experiment. Sirje Runge, Dóra Maurer, Zofia Kulik, Falke Pisano. She has co-curated amongst others the exhibitions Our Metamorphic Futures: Design, Technical Aesthetics and Experimental Architecture in the Soviet Union (Vilnius, Tallinn, 2011–12) and Forecast and Fantasy: Architecture Without Borders, 1960s–1980s (Tallinn, 2023).
Kai Lobjakas
is an art historian and curator and since 2014 head of the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tallinn (Estonia). Her focus of interest lay both in the Soviet period and contemporary applied art and design practices, especially the intersections of these fields. She has initiated and curated numerous exhibitions both in Estonia and internationally, compiled and edited catalogues, lectured and written on related phenomenons. Recently she curated the permanent exhibiton of Estonian design (Tallinn 2021). From 2019 to 2022 she was the chair of ICOM ICDAD, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Decorative Arts and Design.
Anna Maga
is curator of the design collection at the National Museum in Warsaw (Poland), where she works since 1981. She is an art and design historian with a degree in art history from the University of Warsaw. Maga co-organized numerous exhibitions, such as We Want to Be Modern. Polish Design 1955–68 from the Collection of the National Museum in Warsaw (2011/12). She is author of many publications, among others she co-authored a publication by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute to promote Polish design abroad: Out of the Ordinary. Polish Designers of the 20th Century (2011).
Kaja Muszyńska
is a curator, researcher and author on design topics. She currently works as co-curator in the gallery of Polish Design at the National Museum in Warsaw (Poland). She holds an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, collaborated with the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and various museums and auction houses in Warsaw. Her research focuses on the relationships between people and design, drawing on methods of anthropology and sociology. Her current curatorial project is a new permanent presentation of the design collection.
Florentine Nadolni
is a cultural scientist and sociologist and head of the Werkbundarchiv — Museum der Dinge, Berlin (Germany), since 2023. From 2017 until 2022 she was the director of the Museum Utopie und Alltag (formerly Dokumentationszentrum Alltagskultur der DDR, Eisenhüttenstadt, and Kunstarchiv Beeskow). Nadolni curated and co-curated exhibitions in Eisenhüttenstadt und Berlin, among them Masse und Klasse. Gebrauchsgrafik in der DDR (2016/17), Ohne Ende Anfang. Zur Transformation der sozialistischen Stadt (2022) and Alltag formen! Bauhaus-Moderne in der DDR (2019, 2021) and edited the catalog of the last mentioned exhibition.
Cvetka Požar (PhD)
is an art historian and curator at the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO), Ljubljana (Slovenia), with a PhD in development and theory of design. She researches design, in particular visual communications. Požar is the author of the exhibition and book The Century of the Poster: Slovenian Poster Design in the 20th Century (2015) and co-curated numerous exhibitions. Among the latest at MAO Ljubljana are Jože Brumen: Modernist Designer and Art Connoisseur (2021), The World Inside: Designing Modern Interiors, 1930–Today (2021), Art for Everyday Life: Modernist Glass Design in Slovenia (2017).
Klára Prešnajderová (PhD)
works as a curator and researcher at the Slovak Design Centre in Bratislava (Slovakia). She studied German culture and language at Comenius University Bratislava, where she received her doctorate in 2019. From 2017–19 she worked as a project assistant at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. Prešnajderová curated the exhibitions Bauhaus auf Slowakisch (Dessau, 2015), The Colourful Grey. Product Design of the 1960s–70s from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the German Democratic Republic (Bratislava, 2016) and Have No Fear of Modernism! (Bratislava, 2018/19). She published an extensive monograph on ŠUR: The School of Arts and Crafts in Bratislava 1928–1939 (2022).
Alyona Sokolnikova (PhD)
is a Germany-based independent researcher, writer, curator and lecturer. She holds a PhD in Design Education and is the founder of the Women Designers.USSR research project. Sokolnikova curated several exhibitions in Moscow and other European cities, including the exhibition Red Wealth: Soviet Design 1950–1980 (Rotterdam 2015/16, Brussels 2018). Amongst others she worked as a curatorial advisor for The Barbican Center (London 2017/18) or the Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rhein 2021/22).
Koraljka Vlajo (Dr. sc. / PhD)
is head of the design collections at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb (Croatia). Her particular interest lies in the history of socialist Croatian design. She has curated many exhibitions on Croatian industrial design (research of Jugokeramika and Rade Koncar factory design departments, retrospective of industrial designer Davor Grünwald) and graphic design (retrospectives of graphic designer Marija Kalentic and Milan Vulpe). She is co-author of the book Design for the New World (2015) and the exhibition of the same name at the Museum of Yugoslav History (Belgrade 2016).
Agata Wozniak
was a project assistant at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (Germany) until 2023. She worked as a freelance designer and communication specialist at the United Nations (UNIS, IAEA) where she also published several articles. As a junior-curator she managed exhibitions such as Peel Park: Heritage Uncovered (Manchester 2016), Beuys zum Hundertsten (Berlin 2021) and introduced the first inclusive exhibition design and Website to the LWL Freilichtmuseum Detmold in the project Erzähl mir was vom Pferd! (2019).
Exhibition Booklet