Abstract

After reappearance of Poland on the map of Europe in 1918, the first major manifestation of the new country’s creative potential was at the 1925 International Exhibition of Applied Arts and Modern Industry in Paris. The Polish Pavilion, which had divided the opinion of critics at home, won the Grand Prix. The award of over 170 prizes to the Polish section in different areas and categories – from posters to art schools – gave ample reason to consider the exhibition an unquestionable success. The forms used in the architecture and interior design of the Polish Pavilion inspired various solutions applied in Polish public architecture of the 1920s. On the wave of the “Paris success” designers tried to translate the Polish variety of art deco into a type of national style which some scholars even came to refer to as the “style of regained independence” which manifested itself in architecture, particularly in interior design, bas reliefs, painted decorations textiles and furniture. Its emergence coincided with the introduction of new education methods in art and craft schools. The text discuss the Polish art deco style in context of two basic currents of interwar years: modernity and tradition. The problem of “Polishness” in art relates also to the concepts of interwar culture and visons of its progress or decadence.