Rajmund Teofil Hałas

Lifetime

1925–2008

Country

Poland

Manufacturers

Jarocińskie Fabryki Mebli

Rajmund Teofil Hałas was born in 1925 in Krobia, into a family of cabinetmakers: the family workshop exported furniture to Vienna and Berlin, among other places. From 1951 to 1957, he studied at the Faculty of Interior Architecture of the State Higher School of Fine Arts (PWSSP) in Poznań under Professor Jerzy Staniszkis.

From 1956 to 1969, he headed the Furniture Design Studio at Zjednoczenie Przemysłu Meblarskiego in Poznań (Furniture Industry Union), and from 1957 to 1967 he was also artistic director of the Poznań cooperative “Rzeźba i Stolarstwo Artystyczne”. Design historian Czesława Frejlich describes him as the designer with probably the largest number of implementations in the Polish furniture industry. He designed solid and bentwood furniture, furniture suites and children’s furniture, a bookcase with variable heights (1959), and H-1330 armchairs (1967–1968). The occasional table “Kawa i papierosy” dates from the late 1950s. His best-known design is the type 200-190 chair from the early 1960s, now known as the Hałas chair – one of the most popular Polish chairs of that decade, produced, among others, by Bydgoskie Fabryki Mebli.

In 1960, together with Czesław Kowalski, Leonard Kuczma and Janusz Różański, he founded the “Koło” group, which campaigned for the organisation of a furniture biennale in Poznań. He held a United Nations scholarship at the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki. On his initiative, the Department of Industrial Design at PWSSP in Poznań was established in 1971; he served as dean and vice-rector of the institution. He also designed ecclesiastical interiors, including for the cathedral in Koszalin, as well as a diesel locomotive for the H. Cegielski works. He died in 2008 in Poznań. His work is commemorated by the Muzeum Stolarstwa i Biskupizny in Krobia.

More Polish designs from this period can be found in the PRL Furniture and Vintage Polish Designer Armchairs collections.