József Zalavári (b. 1955, Pécs) is a Hungarian sculptor, industrial designer, and university professor. He graduated in Industrial Design from the Hungarian College of Applied Arts (now Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design) in 1985, after which he established his own design practice, Zalavári Design, in Budapest. He began his academic career at his alma mater before teaching at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and later at the University of Sopron. His research focuses on design ecology, a subject he has explored extensively through publications and academic work. In 2008, he was awarded the Ferenczy Noémi Prize, one of Hungary's highest distinctions in applied arts. He is a member of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts, the Association of Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists, and the Hungarian Sculptors' Society.
Zalavári's artistic practice is shaped by a mode of thinking that lies at the intersection of industrial design and sculpture. His works employ the language of geometric abstraction while evoking organic processes of growth, structural tension, and the formative logic of nature. Within his refined sculptural compositions, the relationships between mass and void, balance and dynamism, and openness and enclosure become central concerns.
Drawing upon his background in industrial design, Zalavári's sculptures combine engineering precision with a highly sensitive sculptural vocabulary. Working primarily in steel, wood, and stone, he treats the structural properties of each material not merely as technical constraints but as active agents in the process of form-making. His sculptures often unfold from a single gesture into complex organic systems, in which geometry functions not as a rigid formal framework but as an abstract expression of nature's intrinsic order.
Throughout his career, Zalavári has maintained a parallel practice in design and fine art. He has realised numerous industrial design projects, public commissions, and exhibitions, while his best-known public work is the Gömböc Sculpture (2017) in Budapest. A prominent figure in Hungarian design culture, he also played a significant role in the professional programmes of the International Design Workshop Zsennye and the Szerencs School and Artists' Colony.