The mosaic signboard of the Odra Clothing Company has returned to the exhibition at the Old Town Hall after restoration work.
The object can be viewed at the National Museum in Szczecin - the Szczecin History Museum (Księcia Mściwoja II Street) at the permanent exhibition "Hans Stettiner and Jan Szczeciński. Everyday Life in Szczecin in the 20th Century”.
The conservation work was carried out by Julia Soroko and Anna Szczucińska in the Glass, Stone and Ceramics Conservation Studio of the Conservation Department of the National Museum in Szczecin. First, a photographic record of the object's condition was made, then loose dirt and old coatings protecting the surface of the glazed ceramics were removed and the face of the mosaic was cleaned. After the cleaning procedure, crack injections were made and glaze and grout defects were filled. Selected tarnished parts were protected with a thin layer of resin.
Mosaic Signboard of Odra Clothing Factory
In 1912, the Feldberg menswear factory was built in Szczecin at the then Paradeplatz 38 (now 38 Niepodległości Street), whose products were sold in Berlin, among other places. The factory building was bombed during Allied air raids. For twenty years its ruins still stood in the city centre and it was not until the early 1960s that a decision was made to rebuild it. The building, which had been restored in a new architectural form, was to house a clothing factory, as it had before the war.
On 24 July 1964, the Odra factory was launched. The name of the factory was invented by its first director, Józef Kubiszyn, who recalled years later: "The name was short, easy to remember and, most importantly, linked to Szczecin". In front of the entrance to the premises, a mosaic was placed, depicting the outline of a dark blue figure against a golden background, made of cement tiles covered with glazing. It was designed by Jan Zdarewicz (1929-2021), a Szczecin-based visual artist and former employee of the National Museum in Szczecin.
The graphic motif depicted in the mosaic very quickly became the company logo. It was used by the company on buttons and pockets of its products, among which the most popular were trousers and other items made of a Polish fabric called "Texas" or "Arizona", a combination of cotton and artificial fibres. Also very popular were marbled jeans, which were sewn from a bleached fabric. They were one of the factory's most important exports. Odra's collections were unique on the Polish clothing market. Long queues lined up in front of the shops, sometimes even with notebook registrations. The Szczecin factory's products received awards at numerous fashion fairs.
At the beginning of the 1990s the number of orders gradually began to fall. The opening of the market to foreign goods, as well as poor commercial decisions, meant that Odra went into decline and did not return to its former glory. The brand's clothes were displaced by cheaper counterparts from China or Turkey. In 2008, it was decided to demolish the Odra building in order to build the Kaskada shopping centre in its place. The demolition team considered leaving the mosaic in the wall of the building, but due to its poor technical condition decided to cut it out and donate it to the National Museum in Szczecin. After restoration, the mosaic was included in the exhibition "Hans Stettiner and Jan Szczeciński. Everyday Life in Szczecin in the 20th Century".
