Artistic Research Workshop [ZAB], Warsaw

The Artistic Research Workshop (Zakłady Artystyczno-Badawcze, or ZAB) was established in 1954 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw as a response to the needs of Polish industry. Drawing on various disciplines, it brought together artists whose projects often consciously departed from traditional conventions. In 1959, ZAB launched the Industrial Design Studio, which took up various commissions from the industry, resulting in product prototypes such as the Alfa camera, several models of motorcycles and scooters, and cars like the Beskid 106. ZAB also did work for scientific and research institutions. In 1959, a team from ZAB created the case for the AKAT-1, the world’s first transistor-based differential equation analyzer, conceived at the Polish Academy of Sciences.