An Apartment as a National Issue: On the Exhibitions of the Polish Applied Art Society at the Zachęta Gallery in 1902 and 1908

Abstract

Towarzystwo Polska Sztuka Stosowana (TPSS) organised two exhibitions at the Zachęta Gallery. Their aim was to shape the national culture of living and to propagate ornamental design inspired by indigenous motifs. The 1902 exposition was arranged in accordance with the traditional perception of arts and crafts, which disregarded their function and construction in favour of the external form. New critical categories, borrowed from the language of functionalism and from ideas regarding living space as developed by the German Kunstgewerbe circles, induced the members of the TPSS to arrange their 1908 exhibition differently – as fully designed interiors rather than groups of independent items. Similar changes were then observed in the of shop-window design and in commercial expositions. The fact that they were explicated in terms of ethics reveals a combination of consumerism, aesthetics and morality characteristic of the early 20th century.