Search

The enormous popularity of decorated industrial wall and floor tiles in Europe in the years 1840–1940 is strongly linked to the standardization, technical quality, and aesthetic variety of the products that were well marketed through often lavishly colored trade catalogues. More than the study of existing tile schemes in interiors, a systematic study of these trade catalogues leads to a better understanding of the general use of tile in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century interior. They inform us about factories and offer invaluable information on the technical and aesthetic evolution of tiles. They help us to date the designs and acquire a better knowledge of changes in taste in applying them. They are also a valuable source for documenting differences and similarities between factories and countries in matters of tile design and reveal opportunities to better understand the global export success or stylistic influence of many European factories in other countries on the continent as well as overseas. In this paper a general and theoretical approach is elucidated by referring to concrete cases based on a research collection of more than 600 tile catalogues from all over the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the functioning of the Vilnius branch of VNIITE, the All-Union Scientific Research Institute for Technical Aesthetics. This large Soviet establishment was founded in 1962 and was active in product design, design research, dissemination of information and other related fields. The Vilnius office was one of the most privileged amongst the ten regional institutes, as suggested by the number of renowned international design journals the local staff was able to access. The practices of the VNIITE branch in Vilnius were diverse. The products designed by local designers included technical machinery, consumer products and public interiors. The branch was active in research, which included different scientific fields. The staff of VNIITE gave lectures and translated foreign articles to disseminate design knowledge and to inform local audiences of the "Western world". Therefore, the Vilnius VNIITE office played an important role in modernising local design culture. This explains why a study of the practices of this institute is vital for broadening the knowledge of Lithuanian design during the Soviet occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]