Mini-Stories: Volume 20

Neon Signs with Kelly Prime

 

In the 1950s, a new and unique style of neon signage popped up across the Eastern Bloc. At the time, Eastern European countries were right in the middle of the cold war and people were starting to rebel. Soviet leadership needed a way to quell political unrest. What they landed on was a state-sponsored plan called neonization. The idea was to transform cities with neon lights, pushing the concept of (ahem) a brighter future and distracting people from the harsh realities of communism.

To achieve this, the government enlisted top artists, some unfamiliar with neon, to create large, imaginative designs. Examples included giant neon flowers decorating a flower shop and a pink mermaid symbolizing Warsaw’s public libraries. By the late 1960s, Warsaw was covered in neon, with signs designed to complement each other, creating a cohesive citywide aesthetic.

However, despite the beauty of the signs, Neonization did not fool the public into believing life under communism was sustainable. People continued to rebel. And after the fall of communism, the new democratic government actually paid people to remove the signs. Most of Warsaw’s cold war neons were lost during this period and the few remaining signs were turned off or broken. But in the past twenty years or so, Warsaw has experienced a neon renaissance, with new signs inspired by the original Cold War designs, revitalizing the city’s iconic neon aesthetic.