Prostoria — Innovation as Social Responsibility
We tend to perceive furniture as something abstract, created on designers’ desks and then produced, branded, and placed on the market by companies with different statuses and reputations. Prostoria, as a young company whose catalog already comprises some new icons such as the Polygon armchair and the Revolve transformable sofa, stands as an example of a different and more traditional approach based on the evolution from the local factuality and logical clustering of all actors involved in the production process.
The rapid development of Prostoria, from “starting from zero” to positioning itself as the leader and promoter of new ideas in only a few years’ time, is a story about the reintroduction of continuity both in Croatia and Central Europe, a region with vital but insufficiently recognized design scene and remarkable tradition and knowledge of the furniture industry. Those elements served as latent potentials that provided grounds for continuation and had to be activated.
Since the beginning, Prostoria has been developing an integrative approach, functioning as a collaboration platform that nourishes and stimulates a continuous exchange of knowledge and experience between all the actors participating in the production of furniture. A dynamic workshop ambiance has been created offering opportunities for designers to explore their ideas in excellent conditions and bring them to the highest level of design, functionality, and technological artisanship. Many products have been developed over long periods of time surpassing a number of iterations until reaching their final form, which would be impossible without adequate support combining contemporary technology and meticulous craftsmanship and handwork of the highest quality. Predominantly local materials are used, especially solid wood, and most of the production takes place within the company itself or in collaboration with local cooperatives.
While the company’s catalog also offers furniture based on tested models, Prostoria shows strategic and even passionate dedication to research-based design, convinced that authenticity has its place on the market but presents a special challenge in times when it seems almost impossible to create truly innovative and fresh concepts. For that reason, Prostoria’s social responsibility and specific position have to be observed as a contribution to the evolution of design and readiness to take risks in order to reach new values for the benefit of users and the culture. Thus, Prostoria stands as a project inside which designers grow together with the company on the grounds of mutual trust and shared goals.
