This vintage grinder is as old as me. It’s a Soviet design and was produced in 1986 in the Straume factory in Riga, Latvia. Like many mass-produced items back in the day, almost every household had one like that. After the Berlin wall came down in 1989, items like that became unwanted heritage.
This Christmas my favorite read was a book from my gift wishlist: “Start to love design. How to collect Polish industrial art”. The book turned out to be so gripping that I even skipped an annual gathering at one of my uncles. Learning about designers behind the iron curtain developing brilliant yet little known projects in the West felt like reading a crime story. Inspired by the book, I started to scrutinize mid-century modern and vintage design in my Oslo house.