THE DESIGNER IN SYNERGY WITH EVERYDAY. REVIEW OF THE EXHIBITION “BRUNO PLANINŠEK: PORTRAIT OF A DESIGNER” IN THE TECHNICAL MUSEUM IN ZAGREB, FROM DECEMBER 15, 2014 TO MARCH 15, 2015.

Istraživanje povijesti hrvatskog i jugoslavenskog poslijeratnog dizajna misija je u koju se posljednjih godina upušta sve više kustosa, kritičara, povjesničara umjetnosti (i dizajna), ali i samih dizajnera i dizajnerica. Pretpostavka je da je razdoblje od 1945. do 1991. godine istraživačima naročito zanimljivo stoga što kronološki najpreciznije obuhvaća period socijalističke modernizacije, omeđen s dva rata koji su proces modernizacije neposredno potaknuli, odnosno definitivno prekinuli. Dok se u međuratnom razdoblju rastuće područje dizajna percipiralo u sklopu primijenjenih umjetnosti, u kontekstu političkog i ekonomskog ustrojstva druge Jugoslavije, te ubrzane industrijalizacije regije, uloga i značenje dizajna približili su se shvaćanju struke u Zapadnim zemljama, gdje je dizajn podrazumijevao – u progresivnim sredinama tako je i danas – kompleksnu humanističku, inženjersko-projektantsku i kreativnu disciplinu, koja svoj puni smisao može ostvariti jedino dosljedno integrirana u sve aspekte gospodarske i industrijske proizvodnje.Research into the history of Croatian and Yugoslav post-war design is a mission on which in the recent years ever more curators, critics, art and design historians as well as actual designers have ventured. The assumption is that the period from 1945 to 1991 is particularly interesting to researchers because it chronologically precisely covers the period of socialist modernisation, bounded by two wars, one that immediately set off the modernisation process and on that just as definitely brought it to an end. The exhibition was created by Dr Jasna Galjer, full professor in the art history department of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Zagreb University, one of the most important Croatian experts in the history of design, As with other archaeological projects of the type, it dealt with a very important industrial designer whose name is today forgotten, save among experts and a few fellow workers. The exhibition is divided into chronologically successive segments that are however not sharply divided from each other, and the audience can see the most important examples from all phases of Planinšek’s career in their totality and note all the links and parallels. Also found here are student pieces from the short-lived Academy of Applied Arts in Zagreb (1950-1955) where Planinšek acquired the degree of architect specialised in interior design, including three-dimensional exercises with different materials, confirming the striking essential similarities between current educational models and those of more than half a century ago, both of them being founded on the modernist assumptions of two German institutions: Gropius’ Bauhaus (1919- 1933) and the Ulm Design School / Hochschule für Gestaltung (1953-1968). A further part of the exhibition is organised in terms of the clients and firms with whom Planinšek mostly worked and achieved excellent results in the region as well as on the international scene, from the Saponia factory in Osijek and the many smaller firms for which he designed exhibition pavilions and shop interiors to electronic equipment factories that employed him from the mid-sixties onwards – Elektron of Samobor and RIZ and TRS of Zagreb. In this period Planinšek created the designs for a whole series of devices from gramophones to pocket calculators, and even aids for the diabetic, pioneering products on the Yugoslav market. His industrial design was featured in advertising campaigns in the media contributing to the creation of corporate brands, by outstanding creative people in all areas, and many examples of such adverts can be seen at the exhibition, above all the broad and very systematic advertising for the BIS detergent of Saponija, the packaging of which was designed by Planinšek. Still, his major international success must be the design of the electric coffee grinder, MIKI, for Elektron, which was presented at the St Louis exhibition in 1965, shoulder to shoulder with works of designers such as Max Bill, Tapio Wirkkala and Ettore Sottsass, leading figures of post modernism