Faculty of Industrial Design at Kraków’s Academy of Fine Arts

The Faculty of Industrial Design at Kraków’s Academy of Fine Arts was founded in 1964. Its co-founder and first dean (1964–70) was the artist Andrzej Pawłowski (1925–86), who had already started working in the industry in the late 1950s. He experimented with ‘naturally shaped forms’, looking to nature for ways to perfect an object’s form and optimize its functionality. According to his method, the optimal shape of a designed object results from stretching an elastic surface over an internal skeletal structure. His experimental approach is well illustrated by his telephone design from 1959, which was never realized in mass production. Pawłowski worked with his students on car seats for the FSM automobile factory in Bielsko-Biała. This assignment inspired them to begin their research into seating ergonomics.