Workbench · Welcome to the Nobel Prize Laureate Collection

ID-nummer

2010.007.001

Titel

Workbench

Objektkategori

Möbler & servis

Publik beskrivning

This workbench is from the workshop at the former Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, where Lech Wałęsa worked as an electrician. The independent trade union Solidarity was established after a major strike in Poland in 1980. Wałęsa was one of its founders and became its leader and spokesperson.

Solidarity was crucial in developments that eventually led to the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Wałęsa was elected president of Poland in 1990. The massive weight of the workbench is a reminder of Wałęsa’s background as a worker but also symbolises the force of the upheavals that he helped instigate.

The bench was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2010 by the shipyard in Gdansk in connection with an art installation by Grzegorz Klaman at the museum.

Pristagare

Lech Walesa