One of these catalogs is connected to an interesting story that happened to me not long ago. The situation took place in Poland. I recently visited a friend’s house, and there my attention was caught by an old chest of drawers that must have been made during the communist era (the PRL period). I asked my friend if he knew what model it was, since there weren’t many such pieces made in those days — there are catalogs and auctions, so these things must be documented somewhere. He told me that he had already searched for it online but couldn’t find anything.
Out of curiosity, we moved the chest of drawers and looked behind it. There we found a small label with a production date (probably 1963) and the name of one of the Polish state-owned furniture factories. There was also the model name – quite enigmatic – and when I searched for it online, nothing came up.
The mystery intrigued me so much that I spent several hours going through old PRL-era catalogs and online auctions. After quite some time, I finally came across a photo on an auction site where someone was selling a similar piece – another item from the same furniture set. The description was very detailed; the seller even claimed it was a unique piece and included an extensive history of these furniture items.
It turned out that they were designed by Marian Grabiński, and the set was originally a wedding gift for Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA. Kamprad liked the gift so much that the furniture went into mass production – but only in Sweden. They were never available in Poland!
The auction also included scans from one of the old IKEA catalogs from 1964 (pages 111–114, see thread link). But how did these pieces end up in Poland? I don’t know if the Polish company actually produced them for IKEA, but according to the description, at least prototype series was made in Poland and distributed among some communist party officials in limited number. This was never available to buy in Poland.
As I later found out from my friend – his aunt actually was a communist party member and even held a fairly high position there so it made perfect sense.
Parts of theoretical cartography are model example how Information Theory Bandwagon [1] works:
'By the mid-1970s any historical account of the development of models of cartographic communication becomes unmanageable very largely because of their increasing popularity and the way in which authors making use of them learn and borrow ideas from one another. One commentator faced with the proliferation of these models is distressed by being 'awash in a sea of scientific-sounding terminology mostly pirated from other fields such as electrical engineering.' [2]
Because no one rewards long-term efforts. You are rewarded for short-term goals and, at best, mid-term ones. In an abstract sense, customers reward you for long-term efforts, but this is something no one will put in an Excel spreadsheet with financial voodoo calculations, except when you are the sole owner of the business.
When Poland was in the Soviet bloc (post-WWII until 1989), there was the "Main Office for the Control of Press, Publications, and Performances." Every censor working there was known by their full name, and you could even negotiate with them on certain issues when publishing a book, movie, etc. This was classic censorship but based on some old-fashioned rules.
Now, Big Tech can censor your work while providing only a vague explanation, with no clear feedback channel to protest or request more information. How would you call that?