Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb [Muzej za umjetnost i obrt, MUO]

The TRS 537 calculator was designed by Davor Grünwald (b. 1943) in 1974 for the Croatian calculator manufacturer TRS. Grünwald graduated in 1968 from the Department of Industrial Design at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna, making him the first formally educated industrial designer in Croatia. Collaborating with TRS from 1969 to 1974, he designed several series of electronic calculators. With the design of the TRS 537, Grünwald integrated several innovative ideas that simplified production and improved the user experience.

This object is one of almost twenty thousand artefacts held in the design collections (est. 1962) of Zagreb’s Museum of Arts and Crafts, which has long been one of the main promoters of Croatian design and has managed in recent years to spark public interest in the history of local product design. Our collections have become increasingly important as design finally receives its due as a crucial part of our cultural development, intricately connected to significant social, industrial, and ideological developments.