Návrat Modernismu

This 4,500 word essay explores the 'late' take-up of postmodernist theory in design in Czechoslovakia / Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. Setting the scene by tracing the samizdat publication of the writings of Charles Jencks and others in Eastern Europe under communist rule, it argues that the enthusiastic but short-lived adoption of postmodern theory was closely connected to the political discourses of the immediate post-communist years. Focusing on the work of the design group Olgoj Chorchoj, it considers how designers and design theorists drew on legacy of the interwar period to provide images of modernity and pluralism after 1989. Crowley was commissioned to write this essay by Lada Hubatová-Vacková and Rostislav Koryčánek, the curators of a major Olgoj Chorchoj retrospective at the Moravian Gallery in 2016-17. The exhibition and the research involved was part funded by CEZ grant. The essays forms part of Crowley's ongoing research interest into parallels between postmodernism and post-communism in Eastern Europe