Biography of Davor Grünwald

After hecompleted his High school education 1962., he studied electronics at Universityof Zagreb.  Got his diploma in Vienna1968, from the Academy of Applied Arts, Department for Industrial Design.  Stayed nine months longer at the Institutefor Industrial Design and earned his Master degree on the theme:  Ergonomics of Machines tools. With this hebecame the first formally educated Industrial designer in Croatia, Yugoslavia.
In 1969 returned to Zagreb and helped establish the Industrial DesignDepartment at ULUPUH (Croatian Association of Applied Art). Got his freelancestatus and worked from his studio named PRODESIGN. During that time, hedesigned electronic calculators, tubular chairs, machine tools for which hereceived the 1973 Town of Zagreb Award. Was the youngest recipient at 30 years of age! 1972. He initiatedYU-DIZAJN award at Zagreb fair. Unfortunately, in 1974 the communists preventedhim to work for State factories (private enterprise was not permitted incommunist Yugoslavia) so he immigrated to Canada 1975.

During the first four years in Canada, he lived inMontreal and Winnipeg and finally sank roots in Toronto in 1979. While he wasworking in freelance capacity or short engagements, he designed a variety ofproducts, such as: tractor, computer console, geophysical “bird”, geophysicalradar system, collapsible wine barrel (BiB), trunk rack for Porsche Boxster andminimalistic chair Elips etc.
While he was employed with fast computer printers company Delphax (IonDeposition Technology) 1980.  till 1985.his aesthetic/ergonomic solutions have been noticed.  1983. received prestigious Canada DesignAward for one geophysical instrument, Genie, designed for Scintrex. 
From 1985. - 2012. he was employed with geophysical company Geonics for whichhe designed instruments and equipment, giving additional value to the products,by applying functional, aestheticl and ergonomic elements. With this he raisedthe products quality by the industry, which did not know anything aboutindustrial design.
In 1995. he published article under the name: “Design of Products of LimitedProduction and Distribution”,  in ICSIDNEWS 4/95. Then, the ICSID Industrial Design Definition was stating thatIndustrial Design is applied on "Mass produced products" only. Heproposed that the ID definition should be extended to "Limited producedproducts" as well. Most of his designs belong to this category. 70% ofworld production are of this kind!  WorldDesign Organisation (WDO), former ICSID, accepted this proposal 2015.From 1990.– 2000.  he was vice-president of AMCA,Association of ex students of Croatian Universities and was creator of visualaspects of Gaudeamus magazine. 
Since his arrival in Canada 1975 was one of Directors of Canadian IndustrialDesign Association.
He has been invited 2015. to archive his professional opus in Museum of Art andCraft in Zagreb (Muzej za umjetnost i obrt, MUO), on Boris Ljubicicrecommendation. 
Retrospective exhibit was organized in autumn 2017. in Zagreb in HDD Galleryunder the name: Davor Grünwald Retrorama of IndustrialDesign, 1964 - 2008. and they  publishedhis small Monograph.
In December 2017 he received a Life Achievements Award from ULUPUH. It wassponsored by the City of Zagreb Assembly.
In May 2018. the exhibit from Zagreb has been installed in Split together withBoris Ljubicicgraphic design exhibit.
His digital version of professional opus has been presented and archived inCanada Design Museum, Design Exchange in Toronto.
In November 2019.  he had exhibit underthe title: Davor Grünwald, Industrial Design in theContext of Technology, in Technical Museum Nikola Tesla (TMNT) in Zagreb.
He is a member of ULUPUH, Association of Croatian Applied Artists,   HDD, Association of Croatian Designers andACIDO, Canadian industrial design Association
He has been included in Croatian Bibliographic and Art encyclopedia’s.

 Davor Grunwald’s opus is a part of theCroatian and Canadian design tradition and heritage.