The architects’ department of The Co-operative Wholesale Society Limited commissioned Gyula Bajó, a Hungarian artist working in its offices, to produce a piece of public art for its new building on the corner of the Town Square in 1958-9.
A ceramic mural, 27’ by 20’, it depicts symbolic figures of the four cornerstones of a balanced economy; industry, commerce, transport and agriculture. The spinning wheel and its products represent textiles and consumer goods, the steelworker represents heavy industry, a teaching figure represents science and technology, and agriculture forms the background to the family.
www.waymarking.com says on its website that the slightly idealised old-fashioned imagery of the mural was intended to depict “the spirit and activities of the Co-operative movement as a whole and in relation to Stevenage”.
The building, 6-8, Town Square, is now Grade II listed by English Heritage.
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When I was a child just about everything in our house came from the co-op, so I saw quite lot of this wonderful mural. It always fascinated me, as did Soviet-Bloc postage stamps of the fifties and sixties, of which it is very reminiscent.
It is still a fascinating thing and needs to be conserved and preserved.
This mural represents, to me, the hopes and promises of the early 1950s and the development of New Towns and New Hopes. I love it and really hope that no-one will decide to update the area and obliterate it.
I always liked this mural, it was a little bit rural with cows on , and that, but I felt it symbolized that pseudo communist~socialist atmosphere that was lurking, especially amongst the youth at the time. It is a part of the town’s heritage. I was in Dresden the other day and was pleased to see a similar mural there! And dont forget that had been Deutsche Demokratische republik !