Jindrich Halabala (1903-1978)
Jindrich Halabala was born within the Czech city of Koryčany in 1903. He grew to become one of the crucial vital Czech furnishings designers of the twentieth century, having vital affect over the design developments of the interwar and postwar intervals.
Schooling
Halabala started his training as a furnishings maker in his father’s joinery workshop. Later, he accomplished his sensible research within the United Woodcrafts Producers firm (UP) in Brno. Shortly earlier than turning twenty, Halabala enrolled within the Academy of Utilized Arts in Prague. There, he discovered below Professor Pavel Janák, who was a pacesetter of the Czech Cubist motion. After graduating in 1926, he labored briefly within the architect Bohumil Hübschmann’s studio. Quickly after, the UP employed him as their chief designer, which allowed him to have vital affect over the furnishings design developments of Czechoslovakia.
Design
Halabala was agency in his perception that furnishings might and needs to be well-finished, totally practical, modular, cellular and broadly reasonably priced. Utilizing his affect because the chief designer of the UP, Halabala helped create a brand new mass-market method to furnishings design. He developed two fundamental collection of modular furnishings: strains H and E. He additionally designed new and modern tubular metal furnishings which was produced within the UP’s Hodonín department. The UP industrially mass produced numerous easy elements in its woodworking, metallurgy, and textile factories. The UP made a lot of its furnishings by combining these numerous easy elements. This made the furnishings reasonably priced and pretty easy in its designs.
The truth that the UP produced its personal elements additionally allowed it to pursue excessive requirements of high quality, and to function with out using contractors. This in flip allowed the UP to just accept not solely commissions for particular person furnishings items, but additionally for the design of complete interiors, all the way down to their architectural particulars. Past his function because the developer of the UP’s merchandise, Halabala was additionally accountable for their advertising and marketing. Whereas Halabala labored on the UP, it grew to become the largest furnishings maker in Czechoslovakia.
Legacy
The furnishings that the UP manufactured below Halabala’s administration is taken into account to be a few of the highest high quality European furnishings that was produced throughout the interwar and postwar intervals. Their easy, trendy designs have allowed lots of the furnishings items to stay common and wanted to at the present time. Everlasting collections within the Moravská gallery in Brno and the Olomouc Museum of Artwork have Halabala furnishings items on show. They’re additionally good for giving any house a contemporary aptitude.