Moving walls and folding beds Circumventing spatial limitations with “Kowalski furniture” Elin Monie-Landerö
“Kowalski furniture” or “System MK” as it was originally named, was a wall unit, a “mebloscianka”, created in 1961 by designer couple Boguslawa and Czeslaw Kowalski. It was created as a contribution to a contest initiated by the Furniture Industry Association and the Polish Artists Association called “Furniture for small apartments design competition”. Political thaw After the death of Stalin in 1953 and with Chrusjtjovs takeover in the Soviet union several noticeable political changes occurred within the Soviet-allied states. Censorship was eased, political convicts were released, fokus was directed at peaceful coexistence with other nations and signs of consumption culture appeared. In connection to this the field of design flourished. In the field of furniture design new materials such as plywood and different types of plastic where used. Industrialised housing production By the end of the 1950s polish residential buildings started being built using prefabricated panels. This brought predetermined dimensions of rooms and apartments. The building regulations of 1959 stated that an apartment for 4 people (M4) could be no bigger than 48 square meters. Older big apartments where often divided into several smaller units and inhabited by several families. The amount of living space available was scarce. Each room had to cater several functions and there was often no possibility to separate for example bed room from living room. Architects and designers worked on making small apartments functional even though inhabited by several generations and with family constellations changing over time. The foremost challenge for the furniture industry was to develop practical, multifunktional, light furniture solutions. The developing of wall units was initiated by the polish institute for industrial design and the institut for wood technology in Warsaw and went on during the 1950s. In an article from 1958 in the magazine How to set up your home published by the polish institute for industrial design the author writes:
“The apartment suitable for anyone could be realised on an entirely different principle. In mass construction based on prefabricated elements one could develop apartments with constructional walls and a kitchen and sanitary core. The user would receive an outline of the apartment suited to his or her needs and would finish the interiors, divide them according to his needs and with the use of pre-made elements such as wardrobes, wall fragments and so on.” The breakthrough came with “Kowalski furniture” in 1961. After winning the competition “Kowalski furniture” was mass produced and became a polish design icon. The wall unit The “mebloscianka” served as storage unit for clothes as well as linen, utensils and books. It functioned as a room divider and provided seating, workspace, dining table and beds using folding sections. The “mebloscianka” was designed to touch or almost touch the ceiling to release floorspace. Another important function was to camouflage functions and items when they were not being used. The “mebloscianka” consisted of standardized elements that could be assembled and disassembled. One could, for example, divide the “mebloscianka” in two and furnish two different rooms using only one piece of furniture. The “Kowalski furniture” specifically, had four built in functions. Book shelf, closed cabinet, foldable table and foldable seating/bed.
A big part of the polish design production in the late 1950s and early 1960s was progressive using organic shapes, asymmetry, diagonal lines and vivid colors. “Kowalski furniture” represented a more toned down ideal focusing on simplicity, neutrality, logic and practical solutions. Nonetheless and in accordance with all furniture design at the time, clearly distancing itself from the upper and middle class traditional ways of furnishing. “Kowalski furniture” was marketed as the neutral base in every polish home and was often presented together with suggestions on how one could personalize it using for example colorful posters. The name “Kowalski furniture”, which was not the original name but what the piece came to be known as, refers to the surname of the designers. But “Kowalski” is also a very common polish surname which emphasizes its character of being the standard piece in every polish home. Present in housing construction As an example of how the “mebloscianka” was “built in” to housing being produced in the late 1950s and early 1960s the WUF-60 experimental housing estate in Sluzewiec Warsaw can be mentioned. The area was built in 1960-62 using the WUF-60 system of prefabricated concrete panels. The dimensions in the build were small, a 3 people apartment (M3) was only 34 square meters. The “mebloscianka” is visible in the drawings and was described by the architects in an article in the polish magazine Architectura:
“The apartments in the WUF series have not only common structural but also functional elements. In the residential part there are wall units enabling additional division of rooms. The wall units provide a number of functions on both sides. Depending on the size of the apartment, three or four-segment wall units can be used. The easy assembly and disassembly of the segments allows users to divide the room according to current needs.“ The “mebloscianka” solution also affected the design of the WUF-60 buildings. It motivated a small window placed high up on a wall in the living room:
“The room divided by a wall unit has two windows. [...] Due to the fact that the wall unit is not a full partition, the smaller part of the room is illuminated with a high opening, which allows for greater possibilities for arranging this room.“ Another housing project where the “mebloscianka” was part of the original idea was the Sady Zoliborskie housing estate by architect Halina Skibniewska built in 1960-63 in Warsaw. In her drawings Skibniewska presented several versions of an M5 apartment were she showed how the layout of the apartment could be adjusted to ones taste and as the family structure changed using the “mebloscianka”. After the 1960s During the 1970s when a bigger number of residential buildings were built and polish building norms permitted a slightly bigger number of square meters, people continued to live in crowded conditions and the “mebloscianka” continued to serve its purpose. After the fall of the communist regime in 1989 industrially made furniture started to flow in to Poland from other countries and took over the market. Not least from the Swedish furniture industri with light, inexpensive, modern and practical pieces in flat packs. “Kowalski furniture” was in many cases degraded and used as storage in garages and holiday cottages.
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1,2. Bogusława and Czesław Kowalski in their “System MK”. 3. “System MK”. 4. M3 apartment in the WUF-60 prototype housing estate in Służewiec Warsaw by architects Andrzej Bielobradek, Jan Zespółński, Tadeusz Stefański and Witold Wojezyński. In the drawing you can clearly see the folding table in the “mebloscianka”. 5. Piece from the exhibition “Tango on 16 square meters” at the National Gallery of art in Warsaw in 2018. 6. Different versions of an M5 apartment in the Sady Żoliborskie housing estate by architect Halina Skibniewska built in 1960-63 in Warsaw. The layout of the apartment can be adjusted to ones taste and as the family structure changes using the “mebloscianka”.
Sources https://culture.pl/en/work/wall-unit-boguslawa-czeslaw-kowalski SYSTEM WUF, article by Andrzej Bielobradek and Tadeusz Stefanski published in the polish magazine Architektura some time in the 1960s. Exhibition catalogue from TANGO NA 16 METRACH KWADRATOWYCH, an exhibition at the National gallery of art in Warsaw 180714-181014.