Theory and Practice of the Object:
Niko Kralj Retrospective at
the Museum of Architecture
and Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Fedja Vuki´c

Several years ago, Newsweek magazine published an editorial on
“cool” chairs from around the world in the editorial Design Watch
by Richard Clayton which included in the list the Rex chair by
Slovenian designer Niko Kralj, describing it as “the Iron Curtain
classic.” That the design project, created only in the nineteen-fifties
has been designated a “classic” raises two issues: first, the impor-
tance of the ideological and cultural changes since the fall of the
Berlin Wall, and second, the deeper mechanisms of cultural
models in contemporary consumer civilization. Everything—any
object—has a potential “iconic” value and could, as such, be com-
mercialized, including projects or objects created in the political
and economic environment that, until recently, has been com-
pletely contrary to the liberal economy. Even if Kralj had not
designed anything else but the proverbial Rex chair, he would
have been included in any encyclopedia of contemporary design.
However, he has designed a great deal more besides, and the exhi-
bition in the Ljubljana Museum of Architecture and Design is ded-
icated precisely to that fact.

The curators of the exhibition, Barbara Predan and Spela
Subic, rightly named it “The Known Unknown Designer” because
Niko Kralj (now this point is clear, as the exhibition and its com-
prehensive catalogue document so wel ) is the seminal author who
played a crucial role in the development of furniture design in
Slovenia, both as a designer and a thinker.

The exhibition presents the designer’s work through indi-
vidual projects—mainly chairs and system furniture—thus,
clearly positioning Kralj’s projects through the timeline. The
object-time continuum is important because it helps visitors to
understand Kralj’s position in the broader context of the culture of
socialism and public promotion of industrial design of the time.
Continuous efforts were made to implement a systematic strategy
for the design of industrial products in the planned economy
during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in Slovenia and Croatia;
Kralj, with his projects and ideas, was an indispensable part of this
trend. Because Slovenia and Croatia, at that time, were part of the
© 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Figure 1
same political and economic context, evaluating Kralj’s influence
Exhibition set-up showing some of the most
and the meaning of his individual projects has been possible—
known produced pieces by Niko Kralj.
first, from the perspective of their effect within that context, and
then, from the perspective of social values of a now nonexistent
context and its culture.

The Rex chair is not just an accidental emblem of Kralj’s
work: It was massively present in everyday life as an important
contribution to the lifestyle and the culture of work in the 1950s
and 1960s (see Figure 1). During the era of self-management social-
ism during these two decades, plenty of efforts were undertaken to
improve the quality of life, and Niko Kralj was a participant in
major public events of that type in Yugoslavia, starting from the
activist exhibition, “Housing for Our Conditions,” in Ljubljana in
1956. These public initiatives fostered the philosophy and social
sense of industrial design as it was then practiced in Slovenia and
Croatia in the South Slav federation: the need to respond simulta-
neously to tasks of industrial modernization, but also to humanize
public and private space. Such were the fundamental strategic
development ideas on industrial design at that time.
The exhibition begins in a witty manner: Three of best
known and most popular of the designer’s chairs are set up so that
every visitor can sit and have the “experience” of design, displayed
in a broader context within two exhibition hal s. This move pro-
vides an effective expansion of the museum experience because
Kralj himself was opposed to an academic design approach
and understood design activity more as a sort of humanistic
activism. The exhibition then fol ows up with a detailed timeline
of the author’s work, and presents projects with all the available
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materials: drawings, models, prototypes, realized serial products,
and where possible, the promotional photos. The exhibits are
divided into two groups: Kralj’s industrial objects with related
documentation, and his experiments within the Institute for
Design from the mid-1960s on (see Figure 2). A large number of
projects for mass production, beginning in the 1950s and con-
tinuing onward, clearly have added a significant cultural value to
the identity and experience of everyday life in Slovenia, and then
to the entire socialist federation. Flats, schools, offices, public
buildings—most of them were equipped with Kralj’s furniture.
The part of the exhibition that includes the exhibits demonstrat-
ing the author’s experimental studies then complements the first
part because it refers to the creative methods that combine engi-
neering and technical skil s with the general humanistic attitude
of the author.

A great number of trade and theoretical texts, col ected and
Figure 2
published in the exhibition catalogue, further develop the author’s
Furniture system Futura, Niko Kralj, 1973.
profile. This picture presents a less known, or rather, an almost
forgotten, Kralj: the thinking designer and activist, at times almost
a philosopher, who always displayed a clearly concentrated focus
on the user and the user’s relation to the designed object. The
author’s theory and practice of object here becomes quite clear:
Good design generates a functional unit that should always be
thought of as a part of a larger system, both material and symbolic.
This way of thinking applies both to objects and to social relations
and values.

In the introductory essays of the richly il ustrated catalogue,
the curators of the Ljubljana exhibition rightly point to the mod-
ernist worldview of the author: Kralj was educated in this spirit of
human/object interaction and had the opportunity to study and
live in different countries, including in the United States (1963–
1964 as a scholar of the Ford Foundation) and in Israel (1968–1969
as an expert advisor to the United Nations for the development of
industrial products). Wel -informed and cosmopolitan in perspec-
tive, Kralj had dedicated most of his life and career to the local
community at a time when the wave of industrial modernization
had developed a new type of social relation. The designs of Niko
Kralj cannot be ful y understood outside the context of socialist
modernization, and the authors of the exhibition rightly claim that
only now, after having col ected the basic facts on his work, can the
in-depth research begin.
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