Paged is a company
with a rich history
that dates back to 1881,
when Josef Hofmann,
an Austrian merchant
from the Bielsko area,
transformed a sawmill
and a match factory
into a manufacturer
of bentwood furniture.
In 1923, the history of the Jasienica factory
intersected with that of the Thonet company.
The shares of the Thonet family business
were acquired by Mundus, its long-time
competitor. As a result, the newly formed
organization, Thonet-Mundus, incorporated
the Jasienica factory into its structure.
The year 1931 marked the beginning
of the Paged brand, derived from Polska
Agencja Eksportu Drewna – Polish Agency
for Wood Export. Afer World War II, in 1951,
the Paged Foreign Trade Center was
established, tasked with the production
and export of not only wood materials
but also furniture.
In 1957, Paged began its collaboration
with Marian Sigmund, allowing him
to realize his designs using bentwood
technology and to experiment with
bent plywood.
Over the next few years, he created more
than 40 designs, primarily intended
for export mass production. Furniture
of his design furnished houses across
Europe, UK and Scandiavia. This is one
of the main reasons why many of his works
remained unknown and unavailable
in Poland for decades. His chair designs
remained in Paged’s archives for many
years, waiting to be rediscovered.
Marian
Sigmund
Born in 1902, he began designing furniture
and interiors already in the 1920s.
He was one of the founders and the head
of the legendary Ład Artists' Cooperative,
which had been active since 1926.
A decade later, he had already completed
notable public interior projects, including
the University of Warsaw Library
and the LOT airline ofices at Warsaw’s
Okęcie airport. Afer the war, he was
responsible for comprehensive interior
designs for Wawel Royal Castle
and Nowa Huta, a new, concept city –
an icon of post-war Polish architecture.
"Exploring Paged’s archives is an exciting
experience. The documentation itself
is beautiful — carefully bound, with
handwriten drawings and detailed
technological descriptions. Unfortunately,
not all projects have a full documentation.
Our new product is somewhat like an
aferimage — we know the author,
but we are working from a ghostly trace.
Yet we have these images. And numbers,
typed on a typewriter, imprinted
on a paper copy, glued onto the black
pages of an old album. This work is truly
a design archaeology."
Maja
Ganszyniec
Paged Meble sp. z o. o.
Cieszyńska 99
43-385 Jasienica, Poland
+48 33 497 24 00
jasienica@paged.pl
