The Union 7 radio receiver was manufactured by Fabryka Odbiorników Radiowych Radio-Union, located at 87a Krochmalna street. The enterprise assembled radios under licence from the Hungarian group Tungsram-Orion, headquartered in Budapest. Radio-Union was established in 1935, and its operation was discontinued at the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, when the factory’s buildings were destroyed. The enterprise was established by Benedykt Rawicki and Benedykt Birsztein. During the four years of its operation Radio-Union launched around 15 models of high-class radio receivers. They were appreciated for – as the press of the time reported – “exceptionally reliable fabrication and great technical advantages”.
The Union 7 is a mains-powered, seven-circuit receiver using seven vacuum tubes. It allows reception of three radio wave bands, marked on the scale in different colours: green for short waves (from 19 to 50 m), white for medium waves (in the range between 200 and 600 m), yellow for long waves (between 1 and 2 km). The specific band and radio station could be identified thanks to the unique, zigzagging, “broken” scale needle. The degree of tuning was shown by the electron ray tube tuning indicator, i.e., a “magic eye”, which shone green. The design of the radio used several complimentary technical solutions that improved the quality of radio reception. These include the noiseless switch, which was patented in the United States. Reception quality was also enhanced by the anti-microphonic capacitor that prevented microphoning, i.e., transmission of vacuum tube vibrations to other structural components of the chassis. The vibrations induced voltages in the device under the influence of sound waves during short wave reception. The receiver also had the ability to automatically compensate signal fading.
The designer responsible for the appearance of the Radio Union radios sold in 1937-1938 was Jerzy Karolak. The top achievement in this series is the Union-Lux receiver which has a futuristic design that he designed. Karolak was a member of the “Ład” Polish Artists’ Cooperative established in 1926, the members of which created designs for the purposes of industry. He became famous for preparing the graphics for one of the editions of Marian Falski’s Elementarz (ABC book), and also designed pages of the Polish Folk Garments Atlas.

Author: Filip Wróblewski

In the first years after World War II, efforts began to launch the production of passenger cars in Poland. As it was impossible to produce a native design at the time, discussions began with Fiat to purchase a license for the production of the Fiat 1100. The license was based on the production of 10000 cars in the newly built factory in Warsaw-Zeran. Due to political pressure from the USSR, the talks with Fiat failed. Instead of the Italian design, the Soviets offered Poland a free-of-charge licence to manufacture the GAZ M-20 Pobieda car, which was known in Poland as the Warszawa M-20.
The Warszawa M-20 model 200 passenger car, manufactured between 1957-60, is a version of the Warszawa M20, which itself was manufactured from 1951 on a licence from the Soviet Union but modernised by Polish designers. It has a design typical of the 1940s, with a classical drivetrain arrangement. An inline, four-cylinder flathead petrol engine is placed at the front and is connected to a three-speed transmission that propels the rear axle via a propeller shaft. The front suspension is independent. It has a multilink design with a stabiliser bar. At the rear, a rigid axle was suspended on leaf springs. Vibrations were damped with arm shock absorbers. The front part of the monocoque body has a subframe at the front to which the suspension and driveline components are mounted. The dual-circuit, hydraulic brake system uses brake drums and operates on all four wheels of the vehicle.
The design for the modernisation of the Warszawa to model 200 aimed to rejuvenate a vehicle that was becoming out of date by introducing changes in its appearance and slightly increasing its engine power. It was the work of Polish engineers from the Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych and arose without the involvement of USSR delegates. The Warszawa 200 was the first Polish car after WWII to be sold on a retail basis, including financing by instalments. The price of the vehicle, which was the equivalent of more than 120 average salaries, narrowed down the group of potential clients to the richest sectors of society. The poet Jan Brzechwa was one of the first buyers.

A television set is a device for receiving television programmes transmitted by a broadcaster over radio waves, in which the images and sound transmitted over large distances are encoded. The Tosca-Lux television receiver presented here is an example of a unified receiver. This means that the internal design is based on the same components as those used in receivers manufactured in a similar period by three Polish production facilities representing the television industry, belonging to the Unitra Union of Electronic and Teletechnical Industry: Zakłady Diora w Dzierżoniowie (the manufacturer of this model), Warszawskie Zakłady Telewizyjne (WZT), and Gdańskie Zakłady Radiowe (Gezar, renamed in 1972 to Gdańskie Zakłady Elektroniczne Unimor). As a result, all television receivers in this family of devices differed mostly in terms of their external appearance only. The Tosca-Lux was manufactured between 1968 and around 1971. The receiver had a 19-inch screen, and its distinguishing feature was a rotary base allowing the device to be turned to the best angle for viewing. The most important innovations in its design included the introduction of non-implosive CRTs and the use of transistors in the audio path. Other representatives of this line of Polish television sets, apart from the Tosca-Lux, were the Tosca (made by Diora), Ametyst and Opal (made by WZT), and the Atol (Gezar).
Interesting fact: the division into different television broadcasting technical standards that existed in Europe from the 1940s until the 1990s, with different standards for the Comecon and the Western countries, required the use of a specific type of television receiver for a given region. The political and economic transformation ensuing from the dismantling of the USSR resulted in unification of television signal broadcasting in most of the region’s countries.

Authors: Piotr Turowski, Piotr Żabicki

The Torpedo 6 is a mechanical, type-bar typewriter with a 62cm platen. It is one of the models in a gradually developed and improved series of devices manufactured by the Torpedo-Werke AG company of Germany. The enterprise was established in 1896 by brothers Peter and Heinrich Weil as Peter Weil & Co., and initially only produced bicycles. After ten years of operations, the company acquired the rights to the design of the Hassia typewriter, developed by Hermann Wasem, from the company of Johann Völker and began manufacturing devices of this kind. In 1931, as a result of the Great Depression of the 1920s, the Weils’ company was acquired by the Remington corporation, which was in the business of producing pistols and typewriters. The “Torpedo” name, however, was retained, and continued to be used on products until 1967.
The Torpedo 6 model was manufactured from 1927 until January 29, 1944, when the typewriter factory in the Rödelheim district of Frankfurt am Main was destroyed by bombing. The year 1927 proved to be particularly significant for the production of typewriters, as it was the year that the Torpedo Standard model was launched, standing out with its relatively simple, modular design. It allowed several different device versions to be assembled depending on the purpose and the buyer’s needs. Interchangeable carriages of different lengths, or additional components and enhancements, were installed on a unified machine body of a standardised size, enclosed in an enamelled sheet metal casing, and equipped with a keyboard and the typebar mechanism. This meant that the Torpedo 6 model was sold in as many as eight variants. Four of them differed by carriage length, which measured 24cm (the so-called correspondence typewriter), 32cm, 45cm, or 62cm. The next four variants used not only different carriage lengths but also additional trays, rollers, or transmissions. Typewriters equipped with a wide carriage or decimal point tabulators were intended for bookkeeping and accounting as they allowed large journals and wide accounting sheets to be used (such documents usually have large or non-standard sizes, requiring solutions that allow them to be held in the typewriter mechanism), thus enabling the effective typing of columns of numbers. Customers buying the Torpedo 6 could use a combined shorthand typewriter – a split-platen typewriter allowing the typing of two sheets inserted in parallel – as a postal address machine and a bookkeeping typewriter. Having bought one of the variants, a customer could always purchase additional components from another. To change the typewriter’s application, the only thing that needed to be done was to remove the carriage and replace it with a new one.

Author: Filip Wróblewski

The teleprinter is a device for long-distance text communication. Unlike the Morse telegraph, it does not require the operator to know a special code – characters entered on the transmitter keyboard are printed on paper by the receiving device. Thanks to this, operation of teleprinters did not require employing qualified staff.
Teleprinters send text in a binary form, much like modern computers. Information is carried by electrical current of specific intensity. The transmission line may be in one of two states at any given moment, determined by the flow or absence of current. The default state is when current is flowing through the line. Pressing a key begins the character transmission sequence, which is signalled by a momentary interruption in the flow of electricity. Next, five pulses are transmitted at regular intervals, the combination determining the character being transmitted. As only 32 combinations can be encoded using five pulses, two are intended for switching registers between one containing letters and one for digits and punctuation marks. This technique was also adopted for communication with early computers, in which teleprinters were used as terminals.
The basic assumptions behind this technique for text transmission were developed in 1874 by the French engineer Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot. In the original version the device did not yet have a full keyboard and the operator had to manually enter pulse combinations using a set of five patterns. The process was automated in 1901 by Donald Murray.
The RFT 51a – PL 2 teleprinter was manufactured in the GDR by the former branch of the Siemens & Halske factories in Chemnitz. After World War II the establishment was nationalised, and the name of the city was changed to Karl-Marx-Stadt. Despite the expiry of Siemens’ licence, the design of this teleprinter is almost identical to that of the Siemens & Halske products of the 1930s and 1940s. The model presented here was manufactured for a special order from Communist Poland, mostly for the Polish Post. It was equipped with the ability to print the Polish characters “Ł” and “Ż”.

The EFKA model C 28 office typewriter of the type-bar type was designed to automate the writing process and make office work more efficient. The device was manufactured by Fabryka Karabinów w Warszawie (FK), which was part of Państwowe Wytwórnie Uzbrojenia (PWU).
Model C 28 is an example of a manual, dual-register typewriter with a short platen, slightly extending beyond the body outline and installed on a moving carriage. The different models made by FK got their names from the platen length in centimetres. The device body was painted black. The machine stood on four short, cuboid rubber feet. The side and rear walls were full, while the side walls were fitted with rectangular glass windows in metal frames, which make it possible to see the type bar mechanism. Above the keyboard on the left is a switch for changing the two-colour tape. The keyboard has a standard central European QWERTZ layout with Polish characters. The keyboard has four rows with 46 round keys with characters on a white background and eight function keys, some of which are described in Polish. In the right-hand side corner of the front wall is a PWU logo, which presents a standing highwayman in a red coat and a tall hat, holding a drawn bow in his hand. The logo was placed on different products of the PWU group, such as bicycles, carbines, and measurement instruments. It was accompanied by acronyms of the different factories in the PWU group. The logo was designed by Władysław Skoczylas, a painter and woodcut artist from Wieliczka. The image of the highwayman came from a series of watercolours. The series was awarded the bronze medal at the Olympic Contest of Art and Literature, which accompanied the summer Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928. With his works devoted to the Highlanders and highlander culture, Skoczylas contributed to building a convention for how the group was perceived and presented in Polish culture. The painter’s work was strongly influenced by the interest in the Podhale culture of the Young Poland art movement of the turn of 19th and 20th centuries, which sought the origins of the national culture in the region. Not only did the artist make numerous illustrations for the books on the Highlander culture by Stefan Żeromski, Jan Kasprowicz, and Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, but he also created a series of woodcuts titled Teka góralska (The Highlander Portfolio). His work coincided with the art deco period, during which attempts were made to create a national style in design using highlander themes, among others. The image designed by Skoczylas for the PWU after World War II contributed to setting apart the Łucznik (Eng. “archer”) brand.

Author: Filip Wróblewski

The Echo 231-Z radio is a luxury, four-valve reaction receiver, allowing reception of radio signals in the short, medium, and long wave bands. It has two circuits and a built-in electrodynamic speaker. It was equipped with tone controls and reception strength adjustment, and it also has a scale, a built-in antenna and sockets for connecting an additional speaker and adapter. The radio’s electrical system is placed in an elongated, painted walnut box in the shape of a cabinet with two-leaf doors.
The Echo 231-Z was produced from 1936 and cost 297 zlotys. Państwowe Zakłady Tele- i Radiotechniczne (PZT) also manufactured similar designs named Echo 232 and Echo 241 (both with roller doors). There were also other radio models sold under the common name Echo that were assembled from Polish components. Some of the models were made for the purposes of the postal service and on a commission from the Minister of the Interior (these were the so-called “municipal radios”).
The PZT was established in 1932 as a result of the merger of the Państwowa Wytwórnia Łączności and Państwowa Wytwórnia Aparatów Telegraficznych i Telefonicznych. The factory was located in Grochowska Street in Warsaw. Originally the establishment repaired telegraphic and telephone equipment, and production of the telegraph, telephone devices, and telephone switchboards was launched later. In 1939, the PZT was Poland’s largest and most modern radio technology production plant. In particular, it specialised in the production of specialist broadcasting and radio technology equipment. The factory produced aviation and naval radio communication equipment for the domestic and export markets. Contrary to large companies such as Elektrit and Philips, the PZT did not work on a seasonal basis. Models were manufactured for years, most of them under the common name of Echo. The name was followed by a group of two or three digits and a letter: the first digit meant the number of tuned circuits, the second – the number of tubes, the third – the symbol of the consecutive type in the group. The letter signified the type of power supply: Z – AC, S – DC, B – battery power.
The PZT owed its development to designs developed at the Studies Bureau, in which inż. Wilhelm Rotkiewicz, the creator of the famous Detefon, worked. The plant supported the Polish industry, not only by using Polish components for the assembly of its devices, but also by using appropriate advertising slogans for its products. One example is the poster for the 231 model of the Echo series, with the slogan: “Money paid for the Echo – STAYS IN POLAND”.

Authors: Piotr Turowski, Filip Wróblewski

The drafting toolbox including a set of compasses with accessories, placed in a box formed to hold them, is one of the basic tools of a draftsman, i.e. a person making maps, sketches, diagrams and blueprints by hand. Using items in the toolbox, a draftsman prepared survey drawings, engineering or architectural designs. Nowadays, such work can be done digitally, using design software. The drafting kit presented here consists of a ruling pen, extension beam, small and medium ruling pen inserts, small circles compass, a container with leads, a divider, a centring socket, a replaceable ending with a needle, a universal pair of compasses, a ruling pen with a Bakelite handle and a numerical dial and a handle for replaceable endings. The manufacturer of the kit, E.O. Richter & Co., was established in Chemnitz, Germany, in 1875 by Emil Oscar Richter and Hugo Lucas Müller. E.O. Richter ran a watchmaking workshop from 1868. The precision mechanics experience gathered enabled him to establish a company specialising in production of high quality drafting tools.

References:
E.O. Richter & Co., „The Planimetrica Collection” website, https://planimetrica.jimdofree.com/mathematical-instruments/germany-lz/richter, access 2.06.2021.

The drainage grate is the only component of the storm drainage system visible at the street level. Its purpose is to receive rain and melt water from pavements and streets. In Kraków, drainage grates have only been used since early 20th century, when a modern water supply network with a sewerage system was opened in the city, in a form which has been developed and modernised to this day. Before that, inhabitants did not have free access to water or a convenient way to remove waste, which had a major impact not only on the comfort of Kraków’s dwellers’ daily lives, but also on their health and life expectancy. This was because before the sewerage networks were built they used gutters – uncovered troughs between the street and the pavement – for manually disposing of household waste and rain and melt water. Gutters were a source of bad odours and a habitat for dangerous pathogens.
The drainage grate was made in a cast iron foundry located in Kraków and established in 1918 by Władysław Klimek. Before opening his own enterprise, Klimek gained the necessary professional experience as a master moulder at the Kraków factory owned by Ludwik Zieleniewski, a major player in the machine building sector. Klimek’s company produced all kinds of cast iron and steel castings, including farming and industrial machine components. In 1949, the company was nationalised, as were many other private businesses operating at the time.
Interesting fact: Władysław Klimek’s factory had a wide production range, so much so that it cast metal shells for wz.33 defensive grenades for the Polish army, among other things.

References:
R. Wierzbicki, Wodociągi Krakowa, Kraków 2011, book available in the Repository of the Kraków Technical University at: https://suw.biblos.pk.edu.pl/viewResource&mId=444027 (Accessed: 9.05.2021).