„Czy łuk jest ładny?” O antymodernistycznym nurcie w aranżacji polskich wnętrz mieszkalnych ostatnich dekad PRL
“Is an Arch Pretty?” On the anti-Modernist Current in the Arrangement of Resi- dential Interiors during the Last Years of the People’s Republic of Poland

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this essay is to trace the discourse concerning the arrangement and furnishing of residential interiors in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s and the period of systemic transformation, which arose from the disillusionment with Modernist residential architecture and the earlier aesthetics of those interiors. The social need for changes in the arrangement and furnishing of interi- ors was to serve their individualisation; it questioned the universal values of official advice relating primarily to the rational and functional use of domestic space. The subject of the study is the analysis of practices related to interior decoration (the introduction of arches or wainscoting) and the use of old, antique and retro furniture. These practices are reflected and historically documented in the specialist press on interior design (including “Mój Dom” and “Dom” – a supplement to “Architektura”), as well as in published handbooks and the iconography contained therein. What emerges from their analysis is a picture of dwellings undergoing a re-composition in the spirit of attitudes defined as anti-Modernist and of a retro aesthetic based on the culture of memory.

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