The exhibition in Olomouc will commemorate the famous era of the Holešov Woodworking Company

Olomouc - The famous era of the Holešov Woodworks, once the largest producer of wood-laminate furniture in Central Europe, will be commemorated in the Olomouc Museum of Art with the exhibition Small Architecture. The exhibition chronicles the rise of the company in the 1960s, its collaboration with Czechoslovak architects and the Swedish company IKEA, and highlights the differences between the production of Woodworks and the more famous national company TON from nearby Bystřice pod Hostýnem. The Small Architecture exhibition will open today at 18:30 in the Museum of Art and will run until October 12. The exhibition's author, Klára Jeništová, told journalists.

The Woodworks was established in Holešov in the Kroměříž region in 1958 and, under the leadership of architect Ludvík Volák, built on the local furniture-making tradition. Volák emphasized functionality and aesthetics. In the 1960s, the Woodworks furnished the interiors of embassies, hotels, EXPO pavilions, and other representative spaces. The furniture was often produced on a custom basis, directly for specific locations, many of which no longer exist today. The production had a small-scale character and involved leading designers.

In 1964, the Holešov Woodworks also began producing furniture for the Swedish company IKEA, whose 1967 catalog included three models from Holešov. IKEA featured the TURKU and VILÖ chairs and the VENA table set. "Due to the increasing demand for products and collaboration on the interior furnishing of prestigious state contracts, the company from Holešov ultimately had to terminate its cooperation with IKEA for capacity reasons," said Jeništová. Furniture production in Holešov ceased after 2000.

The exhibition is based on the collection funds of architecture and applied arts from the Olomouc Museum of Art and, according to Jeništová, thematically expands the phenomenon of bent furniture from the second half of the 20th century. It also significantly strives to differentiate the work of the Holešov Woodworks, focused on wood-laminate, from the production of the TON company, which worked with bent solid wood.