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Lecture from the Decades with Art series: “Made in Scandinavia. From Alvar Aalto to Ikea”

How did the Scandinavian design philosophy take the world by storm, and how did simplicity become the new luxury? Join us for a lecture in which we’ll explore how Scandinavian design has evolved. We’ll start with Alvar Aalto’s nature-inspired forms, take a look at some interesting Danish designs from the mid-20th century, and consider why Ikea is so popular around the world.

21 September 2026, 12.00

This lecture, part of the Decades with Art series, will tie in with the exhibition “The Logic of Local: Norwegian and Polish Contemporary Design” (17 December 2016 – 26 March 2017). The exhibition sought to highlight the mutual Polish-Norwegian relations and points of convergence in design over the last 15 years. It showcased around 100 works by several dozen young Polish and Norwegian designers, including both pieces that have already won awards and gained international recognition, as well as their most recent creations. We will return to these works and, during the lecture, examine how local craft traditions, respect for natural materials and the ideas of the welfare state shaped an original approach to functional design in 20th-century Scandinavia.

Lecture from the series “Decades with Art” – practical information:

  • The meeting will be held online via the Zoom platform.
  • Participation in the lecture is free of charge.
  • To receive a link to the meeting, please send your application to: warsztaty@mck.krakow.pl
  • The lecture will be held in Polish.


Host: 

Dr. Małgorzata Jędrzejczyk – art historian, curator. Studied art history at Jagiellonian University, Universität Wien and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Graduate of the interdisciplinary study program Environment-Technology-Society (UJ). Author of scholarly articles on 20th century art and architecture and publications in exhibition catalogs and journals. Co-editor of an anthology of “image/body texts” and publication “Composing Space. Sculptures of the avant-garde”. Co-author and curator of the artistic and scientific program “Exercising Modernity” (Pilecki-Institut Berlin). As part of her doctoral thesis being prepared at the Institute of Art History at the Jagiellonian University, she is conducting research on the concept of space in the work of Katarzyna Kobro.wanej w Instytucie Historii Sztuki UJ prowadzi badania nad koncepcją przestrzeni w twórczości Katarzyny Kobro.

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