Design and Politics in CR

Title: Design and Politics in Czech Summary: Design and Politics in the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia) The first official organization for design was established by the Czechoslovakian government in 1964. Since it was prohibited to use a word "design" in the name of the newly established organization, because it promoted the "forbidden style" of Western Europe, the organization was called The Council for Creative Culture of the Production. The Council was composed of ministries' representatives and the secretariat, which focused on design exhibitions and their evaluation. The Council also began to cooperate on the international level. In 1967, the Czechoslovakian Council was accepted into the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, the Council for Creative Culture of the Production was renamed according to soviet standard to the Institute of Technological Aesthetics. The Institute continued in its work, focusing mainly on exhibitions and project exchanges solely with other socialist countries. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Czechoslovakia was in 1993 divided into two separate states - the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. And so was the Institute, which was replaced by two new distinct design organizations. The..