Postmodern Architecture in Socialist Poland: Transformation, Symbolic Form and National Identity (Architext) [1 ed.] 0367860724, 9780367860721

Citation preview

Postmodern Architecture in Socialist Poland

Garish churches, gabled panel blocks, neo-historical tenements—this book is about these and other architectural oddities that emerged in Poland between 1975 and 1989, a period characterised by the decline of the authoritarian socialist regime and waves of political protest. During that period, committed architects defied repressive politics and persistent shortages, and designed houses and churches which adapted eclectic historical forms and geometric volumes, and were based on traditional typologies. These buildings show a very different background of postmodernism, far removed from the debates over Robert Venturi, Philip Johnson, or Prince Charles in Western Europe and North America—a context in which postmodern architecture stood not for world-weary irony in an economically saturated society, but for individualised counter-propositions to a collectivist ideology, for a yearning for truth and spiritual values, and for a discourse on distinctiveness and national identity. Postmodern Architecture in Socialist Poland argues that this new architecture marked the beginning of socio-political transformation and at the same time showed postmodernism's reconciliatory potential. In light of massive historical ruptures and wartime destruction, these buildings successfully responded to the contradictory desires for historical continuity and acknowledgment of rupture and loss. Next to international ideas, the architects took up domestic traditions, such as the ideas of the Polish school of historic conservation and long-standing national-patriotic narratives. They thus contributed to the creation of a built environment and intellectual climate that have been influential to date. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars interested in postmodern architecture and urban design, as well as in the socio-cultural background and transformative potential of architecture under socialism. Florian Urban is a Professor of Architectural History and Head of History of Architectural and Urban Studies at the Glasgow School of Art. He was born and raised in Munich, Germany, and holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts in Berlin, an MA in urban planning from UCLA, and a PhD in history and theory of architecture from MIT. He is the author, among others, of Neohistorical East Berlin: Architecture and Urban Design in the German Democratic Republic 1970–1990 (2009), Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing (Routledge, 2012), and The New Tenement: Architecture in the Inner City since 1970 (Routledge 2018). In 2018–19 he was a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw.

9780367860721_text.indb 1

04/11/20 9:19 PM

“In Postmodern Architecture in Socialist Poland Florian Urban creates a complex view of Polish architecture of the 1980s. The author guides the readers through New Old Towns and prefabricated residential areas, prestigious sacral objects and the rural bottom-up churches. He goes beyond a dry description of listed buildings, establishing them in a wide context of socio-political changes. Urban proves that, although naming it as ‘architecture of resistance’ will be a simplification, postmodern architecture under the declining socialist regime was an agent of transformation.” Dr. Błażej Ciarkowski, Łódź University of Technology “In this compelling new book, Florian Urban casts a completely new light on postmodern architecture, hitherto widely disparaged as a frivolous creation of American and Western European fashion-stylists working in an unholy alliance with neo-capitalist reactionaries. He shows how, semi-detached from Western postmodernism's discourses of playful irony, a postmodernism of a different and altogether more socially embedded kind was able to emerge in a country such as Poland, where it significantly helped in the process of reconciliation following the traumatic ruptures of the 20th century.” Miles Glendinning, The University of Edinburgh “Florian Urban describes the most interesting and important architectural implementations of Polish postmodernism by putting them into the wide context of political and economic changes in Poland in the 1980s and 1990s. It makes this book on architecture not only about buildings but also economic and social phenomena that are crucial for the end of the 20th century.” Anna Cymer, Architecture historian, author of Architecture in Poland 1945–1989

9780367860721_text.indb 2

04/11/20 9:19 PM

THE ARCHITEXT SERIES Edited by Thomas A. Markus and Anthony D. King Architectural discourse has traditionally represented buildings as art objects or technical objects. Yet buildings are also social objects in that they are invested with social meaning and shape social relations. Recognizing these assumptions, the Architext series aims to bring together recent debates in social and cultural theory and the study and practice of architecture and urban design. Critical, comparative and interdisciplinary, the books in the series, by theorizing architecture, bring the space of the built environment centrally into the social sciences and humanities, as well as bringing the theoretical insights of the latter into the discourses of architecture and urban design. Particular attention is paid to issues of gender, race, sexuality and the body, to questions of identity and place, to the cultural politics of representation and language, and to the global and postcolonial contexts in which these are addressed. A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture Colonial Networks, Nature and Technoscience Jiat-Hwee Chang New Islamist Architecture and Urbanism Negotiating Nation and Islam through Built Environment in Turkey Bülent Batuman The Optimum Imperative Czech Architecture for the Socialist Lifestyle, 1938–1968 Ana Miljački Urban Latin America Images, Words, Flows and the Built Environment Edited by Bianca Freire-Medeiros and Julia O'Donnell The Socialist Life of Modern Architecture Boundary Politics and Built Space Juliana Maxim Architecture on the Borderline Bucharest, 1949–1964 Edited by Anoma Pieris Neocolonialism and Built Heritage Echoes of Empire in Africa, Asia, and Europe Edited by Daniel Coslett Postmodern Architecture in Socialist Poland Transformation, Symbolic Form and National Identity Florian Urban For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Architext/book-series/SE0397

9780367860721_text.indb 3

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Florian Urban

Postmodern Architecture in Socialist Poland Transformation, Symbolic Form and National Identity

9780367860721_text.indb 5

04/11/20 9:19 PM

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Florian Urban The right of Florian Urban to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Urban, Florian, author. Title: Postmodern architecture in socialist Poland : transformation, symbolic form and national identity / Florian Urban. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020031137 (print) | LCCN 2020031138 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367860721 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367860738 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003016731 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Architecture and society--Poland--History--20th century. | Architecture, Postmodern--Poland. | Communism and architecture--Poland. Classification: LCC NA2543.S6 U725 2021 (print) | LCC NA2543.S6 (ebook) | DDC 720.1/03--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020031137 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020031138 ISBN: 978-0-367-86072-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-86073-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-01673-1 (ebk) Typeset in Frutiger LT Std by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

9780367860721_text.indb 6

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Contents

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction1 Postmodern architecture across the Iron Curtain  1 Architectural innovation under a weakening authoritarian regime  6 Private houses and small cooperatives  9 Sacred architecture and the influence of the Catholic Church  12 Methodology 18 Literature 19 Chapter structure  21 1 Architectural Debates in Late Socialist Poland

25

Poland around 1980  25 International postmodernism and the Polish discourse  27 The Polish school of historic conservation  36 In search for truth  39 Expressing national identity  41 The post-functionalist city  43 2 Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

47

The Ascension Church in Warsaw-Ursynów  47 A house of prayer in a socialist complex  50 Semiotics and patriotism  55 Resourcing “outside the plan”  60 Łazienkowska Street Church, Warsaw  62 Immaculate Heart of Mary in Śródborów near Warsaw  65 Our Lady Revealing the Miraculous Medal, Zakopane  68

vii

9780367860721_text.indb 7

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Contents

Our Lady Queen of Poland, Głogów  71 St Jadwiga, Kraków  73 Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation, Kraków  76 The postmodern church and the functionalist block  81 3 Bottom-Up Village Churches

83

Neo-historicism in the countryside  83 St Lucia in Rembertów: pastiche deconstructivism  85 St Michael the Archangel in Kamion: neo-historicism as criminal offence  95 St Francis of Assisi in Mierzowice: a neo-medieval “decorated shed”  101 Church building and disobedience  105 Traditional and forward-looking  107 4 Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

109

Humanising the housing complex  109 Łódź-Radogoszcz-East and the spirit of structuralism  112 Łódź-Rojna and the customised panel house  126 Poznań-Różany Potok and the revised modernist city extension  127 Kraków-Na Skarpie and the international context  135 Postmodern mass housing  137 5 Postmodernism from the Spirit of Historic Conservation: The New Old Town of Elbląg139 A postmodern old town  139 Rebuilding through the backdoor  142 The unrealised neo-historical panel plan  145 Elbląg Old Town and the Nikolaiviertel in East Berlin  150 Postmodernism from the spirit of historic conservation  152 Momentum at the national level  158 Fledgling market capitalism  160 The realised house-by-house design  162 Completing the old town of Gdańsk 170 Postmodern reconciliation  173 6 The Urban Context

176

Warsaw infills  177 The Ursynów Arcades in Warsaw  182 Socialist gentrification in Wrocław  188 “Tooth fillings” in Łódź 193 Historical pastiche in Kraków  195 Medieval gables in Upper Silesia  197 New urbanism in Zielone Wzgórza near Poznań 201

viii

9780367860721_text.indb 8

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Contents

Conclusion206 Bridging contradictory desires  206 Beyond compliance and dissidence  207 Increasing individual agency  209 National narratives  209 Symbolic representation of community  210 Urban regeneration  211 Postmodernism across the Eastern Bloc  212 Postmodern architecture, international exchange, and fluid meaning  213 Pronunciation of Polish names Index of Buildings Index of Architects Index of Subjects

214 215 220 223

ix

9780367860721_text.indb 9

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Acknowledgments

First and foremost I would like to thank the architects, clients, and supporters of these fascinating buildings, and in particular those who agreed to share their experiences and reflections with me. My sincere thanks go to Grzegorz Buczek, Marek Budzyński, Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński, Tomasz Lechowski, Tadeusz Szumielewicz, Father Tadeusz Wojdat, and Marek Żarski in Warsaw; Dariusz Kozłowski, Tomasz Kozłowski, and Romuald Loegler in Kraków; Andrzej Owczarek in Łódź; Marian Fikus in Poznań; and Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann and Katarzyna Wiśniewska in Elbląg. This research was generously supported by a research grant from the German Historical Institute in Warsaw and an invitation as a visiting researcher in 2018–19, as well as by a research grant from the Glasgow School of Art. In particular I would like to thank the researchers and staff at the German Historical Institute, including Felix Ackermann, Dariusz Adamczyk, Christhardt Henschel, Sabine Jagodzinski, Monika Karamuz, Artur Koczara, Maciej Kordelasiński, Ruth Leiserowitz, Miloš Řezník, Simone Simpson, Grażyna Ślepowrońska, Sabine Stach, Annika Wienert, and Dorota Zielińska. I would also like to thank the many friends and colleagues who gave me valuable advice: Arnold Bartetzky, Błażej Brzostek, Błażej Ciarkowski, Anna Cymer, Ania England, Piotr Fiuk, Tomasz Fudala, Miles Glendinning, Alicja Gzowska, Olgierd Jagiełło, Emilia Kiecko, Lidia Klein, Magda Olasinska, Jan Olaszek, Kuba Snopek, Maria Soltys, Łukasz Stanek, Bolesław Stelmach, Léa-Catherine Szacka, Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski, Kamila Twardowska, Martin Wälli, Piotr Winskowski, Michał Wiśniewski, Maria Załęcka, Jacek Załęcki, and in particular Dominika Miłobędzka and Maciej Miłobędzki. Many thanks to those who helped me get access archival documents, in particular the staff at the Archiwum Państwowe, the Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, the Archiwum Akt Nowych and the Public Library in Warsaw, Father Sławomir Nowakowski and Karolina Mętrak at the Archiwum Archidiecezjalne in Warsaw, Bożena Drygas at the SARP Archive in Warsaw, Agnieszka Zdunek at the Wydział

xi

9780367860721_text.indb 11

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Acknowledgments

Archiwum of the Biuro Organizacji Urzędu Warszawy, Father Wacław Szcześniak and Sister Agnieszka Chuda in Warsaw, Father Jacek Urban and Delfina Kościółek at the Archiwum Kurii Metropolitalnej Kraków, Bożena Róg and Renata Nastołek at the Archiwum Urzędu Miasta in Kraków, the staff at the Archiwum Narodowe in Kraków, Łukasz Jaworski at the Archiwum Państwowe in Łódź, Paweł Wilkiewicz at the Archiwum Wojewódzkiego Urzędu Ochrony Zabytków in Elbląg, Wiesława Rynkiewicz-Domino at the Muzeum Elbląga; Jerzy Ilkosz and Michał Duda at the Muzeum Architektury in Wrocław; as well as Mieczysław Wiśniewski in Kamion and Daniel Polański in Mierzowice. Portions of this book have been previously published in the context of peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of Architecture (Taylor & Francis), Architectural Histories (European Architectural History Network), Planning Perspectives (Taylor & Francis), and the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (University of California Press). Several friends and colleagues read this manuscript or part of it and helped me with valuable advice and suggestions. Thanks to Arnold Bartetzky, Barnabas Calder, Błażej Ciarkowski, Anna Cymer, Alistair Fair, Miles Glendinning, Philip Hughson, Andrzej Leder, Maciej Miłobędzki, Ewa Porębska, Michael Osman, and Annika Wienert. I cannot thank my partner Alika and my daughter Pola enough for the continuous love, support, and insights into the intricacies of Polish language and culture they have given me.

xii

9780367860721_text.indb 12

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

CHAPTER SUMMARY Laying out the socio-political background in Poland the introduction points to the particular context in 1970s and 1980s Poland, when the country was characterised by economic crisis, political protest and rising religiosity. Postmodern architecture grew from the interplay between growing political freedom, economic liberalisation, available resources and individual creativity. At the same time postmodern architecture stood for alternatives to the fading socialist regime: lavishness in light of continuous scarcity, individual creativity against forced collectivism, as well as nationalist-patriotic ideas and the nostalgic vision of a traditional society centred around the Catholic Church. These ideas were very different from the postmodernism promoted in the US or Western Europe. The introduction also discusses the changing power relations between the Polish communist Party PZPR, the Catholic Church, and the political opposition POSTMODERN ARCHITECTURE ACROSS THE IRON CURTAIN Garish churches, gabled panel blocks, neo-historical tenements—this book is about these and other architectural oddities that one would not expect under an authoritarian socialist regime more often associated with standardised mass housing. It is about the committed individuals that rendered them possible in spite of repressive politics and persistent shortages. And it is about a very different socio-political background, far removed from the debates that surrounded Robert Venturi, Philip Johnson, or Prince Charles. In Poland postmodern architecture stood not for world-weary irony, but for the value of the individual under a collectivist dictatorship, a yearning for truth and spiritual values, and a discourse on distinctiveness and national identity. In this respect, this book is about a form of postmodernism that was in many respects different from that in Western Europe and North America, and in some ways also from postmodern currents in the socialist neighbouring countries.

1

9780367860721_text.indb 1

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction Figure 0.1  Holy Spirit in Wrocław (1973–81, Waldemar Wawrzyniak, Jerzy Wojnarowicz, Tadeusz Zipser) (author).

In late socialist Poland, approximately between 1975 and 1989, the much-criticised panel-built housing complexes of the 1960s were increasingly complemented by buildings that barely corresponded to the textbook image of socialist architecture: individually designed houses and particularly churches, which adapted eclectic historical forms and geometric volumes, were based on traditional typologies and often displayed conspicuous ornamentation. Sometimes even panel-built housing blocks were equipped with gables and pediments, and on occasion buildings in historic city centres were designed as reinterpretations of historical precedents. Urban designers, too, changed their approach: the vast modernist landscapes of the previous decades gave way to an

2

9780367860721_text.indb 2

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction Figure 0.2  Osiedle Przyjaźni (Friendship housing complex) in Wrocław (1976–80, Witold Molicki et al.) (author).

interest in smaller scales and traditional block plans. Huge monocultural housing complexes suddenly seemed outdated and inferior to a richer mix of functions. Behind the Iron Curtain, postmodernism was in full swing.1 1 There has been a large body of literature on this topic, e.g. Thomas A. Markus, Buildings and Power: Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building Types (London: Routledge, 1993) or Michel Foucault, On the Government of the Living—Lectures at the Collège de France 1979–80 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 1–21.

3

9780367860721_text.indb 3

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

This book argues that this new architecture was a factor of change rather than just a symptom of the beginning political and economic transformation. Under socialism, as in any political system, architecture mediated power and structured social life, thus gradually transforming society. In this sense the shifting style and priorities in architecture, the most public and expensive of the visual arts, contributed to incremental change beneath what otherwise appeared to be a rigid authoritarian regime.

Figure 0.3  Our Lady Queen of Peace in Wrocław (1980–95, Wojciech Jarząbek) (author).

4

9780367860721_text.indb 4

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

The book will also stress the significance of individual actors, who took advantage of the cracks in the system. These included architects as well as public servants, private clients, and parish priests. They often acted without the rulers’ support and faced tight economic circumstances. Their work did more than just tweak the appearance of the built environment—it contributed to a lasting change in Polish society. The new forms evinced evolving transformations. They stood for alternatives to the faded socialist visions, individual expression against socialist collectivism, the yearning for lavishness against the experience of chronic scarcity, the desire for meaningful public space and community life, and the longing for visible historicity in light of the incommensurable destructions during the Second World War. Particularly in the context of sacred buildings, it also stood for the influence of the Catholic Church, the national-conservative vision of a homogeneous nation based on religious values, and an idealized view of national history. It thus reflected the full gamut of political tendencies that determine social and political life in Poland to date. The Polish examples thus point to an extended field of postmodernism, which in the context of this book will be understood as comprising the diverse neo-historical, neo-classical, or deconstructivist currents related to the criticism against modern architecture in the late twentieth century. 2 This definition corresponds with recent scholarship, although not necessarily with the architects’ self-understanding (many of them rejected or were unaware of the term), or to the definition of postmodernism in Polish professional journals at the time. The book also lays out the startling contrast with postmodernisms in Western Europe and North America. Poland in the late 1970s saw active debates in professional and academic circles, which at the time were less and less affected by censorship and ideological co-optation. Certain internationally debated themes nonetheless attained a very different significance, including the application of architectural symbolism, the use of historical precedents, and the rejection of functionalism. The examples discussed in this book thus sit uncomfortably against the background of international postmodernism, whose best-known buildings went up in capitalist countries. Accordingly, the historiography of postmodern architecture has all too often centred on the relation to consumerism and an advanced market economy.3 The term postmodernism, in Western Europe and North America, 2 See for example Francis Ching, Mark Jarzombek, and Vikramaditya Prakash, A Global History of Architecture (Hoboken: Wiley, 2007), 746–52; Nan Ellin, Postmodern Urbanism (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 117–13. 3 This applies particularly to the early conceptions of postmodernism during the 1970s and 1980s, which were implicitly aimed at promoting, justifying, or qualifying the new architectural movement. But it can also be found in more recent, purely historical accounts.For the former, see for example Charles Jencks, The Language of Postmodern Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1977) and subsequent editions; Robert Stern, “At the Edge of Postmodernism” [1977] reprinted in Architecture on the Edge of Postmodernism: Collected essays 1964–88 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009); Paolo Portoghesi, Postmodern: l’architettura nella società post-industriale (Milan: Electa, 1982); Heinrich Klotz, Die Revision der Moderne (Munich: Prestel, 1984), English edition The History of Postmodern Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988).For the latter, see for example Nan Ellin, Postmodern Urbanism (New

5

9780367860721_text.indb 5

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

evoked images of candy-coloured façades, fake marble, and the joyfully ironic use of no-longer venerated classical precedents. It seemed to be deeply rooted in an economically saturated society that cherished playfulness and individual expression, as well as a certain superficiality devoid of vision or societal agenda.4 The Polish case paints a strikingly different picture. As such, it shows that key concerns of postmodern architecture, such as architectural meaning and symbolism or the use of historic precedents, were in fact malleable concepts that could be powerfully adapted to local contexts. The interplay between power relations, available resources, and individual creativity in the context of artistic innovation has been the subject of extensive research. Most scholars detect a break in the 1970s, connected to the transformation of the Western bourgeois society in which the historical avant-garde had operated, and the inception of a post-industrial society.5 The cultural forces in the countries of the Eastern bloc are much less researched, and often they focus on the role of dissident artists under totalitarian rule.6 But if, as the cultural theorist Andrzej Leder holds, the four decades of the Polish People’s Republic were characterised by profound social restructuring and the formation of a new middle class, a different mode of analysis has to be applied to understand their cultural operations.7 In this context, the study of architectural innovation provides significant insights. ARCHITECTURAL INNOVATION UNDER A WEAKENING AUTHORITARIAN REGIME Polish postmodern architecture developed under particular circumstances. The People’s Republic of Poland in the 1970s and 1980s was an authoritarian regime in a state of disintegration. The country was beset by economic decline and repeated waves of popular protest against the all-encompassing rule of “the communists”— the socialist/communist Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (PZPR, Polish

4 5

6

7

York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996); Mark Crinson and Claire Zimmerman, eds., Neo-avant-garde and Postmodern. Postwar Architecture in Britain and Beyond (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); Kathleen James-Chakraborty, “From Postmodern to Neomodern: the United States and Europe” in Kathleen JamesChakraborty, Architecture Since 1400 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014); or Reinhold Martin, Utopia’s Ghost: Architecture and Postmodernism, Again (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). Such criticism is, for example, expressed in Terry Eagleton, The Illusions of Postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 134. Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde [1974] (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1984); Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986); David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989) Something close to an analysis of the “postmodern condition” in the Soviet Union can be found in Svetlana Boym, Common Places—Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1995). See also Boris Groys, History Becomes Form – Moscow Conceptualism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010). Andrzej Leder, Prześniona rewolucja. Ćwiczenie z logiki historycznej (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2014).

6

9780367860721_text.indb 6

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

Unified Workers’ Party).8 Postmodern design was carried out under conditions of economic hardship and political upheaval. Under party leader Edward Gierek (in office 1970–80), Poland had first experienced a moderate rise in living standards financed by foreign credits, and subsequently increasing economic difficulties, to the extent that by the early 1980s there were shortages in the most basic products. At the same time, the 1970s was also a period of relative political freedom and growing protest connected with the Workers’ Defence Committee (founded in 1976) and the Solidarity Trade Union (founded in 1980). In the wake of the 1978 election of Kraków archbishop Karol Wojtyła as John Paul II, the first Polish pope in history, visible religious practice and the presence of the Catholic Church in public life increased. The hopes for lasting political reforms were crushed for the time being by the appointment of General Wojciech Jaruzelski as party leader in 1981, and the subsequent declaration of martial law, and the repressive activities of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Security Service), the omnipresent intelligence apparatus. The seed of architectural non-conformism nonetheless continued to grow during the times of repression and well beyond the time of the eventual collapse of the socialist regime in 1989. The extraordinary design of many postmodern buildings resulted from three factors that were not causally related but jointly generated a particular momentum. First, economic reforms that were to end the crisis were introduced in the 1980s and set Poland on a course towards a market economy, which gave increasing leeway for architects and builders to realise individualized design “outside the plan,” that is, independent of the centralised socialist construction industry.9 Second, as will be shown later, restrictions on church construction were eased in the mid-1970s. And third, as will be discussed in Chapter 1, from the late 1970s onwards, postmodern currents, both domestic and international, were increasingly discussed as a means of breaking the monotony of functionalist housing complexes, re-introducing meaning and individual expression in architecture, and reconnecting to a national tradition that had allegedly been lost. Simultaneously, over the course of the 1970s and 1980s the number of independently operating architects was growing. In contrast to some other socialist countries, private practices had always been legal in Poland.10 But for a long time they were an unattractive option. Private architects did not earn more than their municipally employed colleagues, as they were bound to the same fixed prices. They also did not have access to the most attractive commissions; they were

8 See for example the analysis of sociologist Jan Sowa, who claims that the long decline of the regime had begun with de-Stalinization in 1956. Jan Sowa, Inna Rzeczpospolita jest możliwa. Widma przeszłości, wizje przyszłości (Warsaw: Foksal, 2015), 123. 9 The Ministry of Construction was at the top of the centralised hierarchy and also instructed the combines and the project offices, and at all levels was subject to party influence. On the economic crisis of the early 1980s and the rulers’ attempts to “rescue socialism” see Dariusz Grala, Reformy gospodarcze w PRL (1982–1989). Próba uratowania socjalizmu (Warsaw: Trio, 2005), in particular 125-183. 10 Andrzej Basista, Betonowe dziedzictwo – architektura w Polsce czasów komunizmu (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2001), 51.

7

9780367860721_text.indb 7

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

disadvantaged in terms of their social security status; and they had a weaker standing vis-à-vis the authorities who had to approve their design. There were, however, opportunities for full-time employees at municipalities or universities to take on external projects. Along these lines Szczepan Baum and Ryszard Semka developed the master plan for Old Town Elbląg while teaching at Gdańsk Politechnika, and Dariusz Kozłowski and his colleagues developed their Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation while employed at Kraków Politechnika. And even Tadeusz Szumielewicz, party member and chief architect of Warsaw from 1972 to 1982, at the same co-designed the church of Our Lady Mother of the Church in Warsaw. Both such half-private offices and private practices were referred to as pracownie autorskie (literally “author’s studios”), a term suggesting greater creative freedom. Following the economic reforms of the 1980s, the number of privately operating architects increased, while still being a tiny minority compared to those employed with state agencies. Architects who at some point in the 1980s founded their own private practice account for most designs in this book. Among the best known were Romuald Loegler in Kraków; Czesław Bielecki/Jacek Zielonka, Stefan Kuryłowicz and Associates and the office JEMS (Olgierd Jagiełło/Maciej Miłobędzki/Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski) in Warsaw; Marian Fikus/Jerzy Gurawski in Poznań; and Stanisław Niemczyk in Tychy. They were not only the stars among students of architecture in the 1980s but also the protagonists of architectural production after the end of the socialist regime in 1989. While these privately operating architects stood at the forefront of economic transformation and architectural innovation, there is no evidence that the development of postmodern architecture was enhanced by technological advancement. Anecdotal evidence suggests that at least some Polish architects were first introduced to computer-aided design (CAD) while working in Kuwait in the 1980s.11 At a broader scale, however, computer technology was not used in Poland before the end of the socialist regime. At the time, the party rulers remained largely indifferent to architectural matters. They no longer promoted architectural guidelines comparable to their support of Stalinist neo-classicism in the 1950s or of functionalist modernism in the 1960s, and there was little repression against architecture as such, although there were cases such as that of the architect Czesław Bielecki, who in the 1980s was imprisoned for oppositional political activities. The housing shortage was as pressing as ever, and cities were in dire need for public works. But given a slackening economy, measures were patchy, makeshift, and no longer based on a comprehensive vision like that which once generated the socialist housing complexes. Architects had internalised that they had to restrict the use of scarce materials such as steel and that they had to comply with the limitations of prefabrication.12 11 Łukasz Stanek, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2019), 299. 12 Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 17 November 2017.

8

9780367860721_text.indb 8

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

But there was no pressure to carry out a particular design. In light of increasing political protest and deteriorating food supply the party rulers simply had other matters to attend to.13 They half-heartedly continued to support functionalism, and at the same time were not opposed to architectural innovations whenever they promised to improve the housing situation or otherwise calm down public protest. By and large, architectural design disappeared from the discussions in the Politburo and other party committees and gave way to a disillusioned pragmatism. Likewise, the architectural positions of the political opposition were also pragmatic. Criticism of industrialised, functionalist construction was frequent and often merged with that of low-quality materials and insufficient dwellings. At the same time the opposition tended to accept any style or technology that promised to increase the output of flats. Possibly their most momentous move towards architectural innovation was the Solidarity Trade Union’s call to enable the creation of small “municipal, communal and cooperative construction enterprises” written into their famous programme passed in October 1981.14 Despite the proclamation of martial law and the outlawing of Solidarity two months later, the demands for the creation of small cooperatives and for a flexibilisation of the housing market were at least partially granted over the following years, and, as will be shown in the following, favoured the evolution of postmodern design PRIVATE HOUSES AND SMALL COOPERATIVES With the economic reforms that introduced free-market elements in the 1980s, an increasing number of clients were able to commission construction independent from the centrally planned socialist economy. These were private individuals, members of small-scale housing cooperatives, and, most importantly, the Catholic Church. Those who owned Polish złotys at the time were still not allowed to freely convert them into hard Western currency, and black-market exchange was a thriving business. But they were increasingly able to spend them on desired goods and services in their own country, including building materials and labour. Hence, unlike in some other socialist countries, trading in the domestic currency became increasingly attractive. The 1980s saw a growing number of what socialists, with a deprecating undertone, referred to as prywaciarze (private entrepreneurs): individuals who made their living from the modest options that the socialist regime had recently allowed for private business. Typically this was a kiosk or a grocery shop, but in some cases entrepreneurs used both formal and informal means to set up larger 13 This is evident in the rulers’ feverish attempts to end the protests without giving in. See for example Minutes of Politburo meeting on 23 September 1980, report “Sytuacja społeczno-polityczna oraz kierunki działania partii i państwa” Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “PZPR, KC, Biuro Polityczne” V/157, vol. 4 (July-September), 438. 14 Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy Solidarność, Program [worked out by a commission under Bronisław Geremek, passed on Solidarity’s First National Convention on 7 October 1981] (Warsaw: NSZZ Solidarność, 1981), thesis 17, paragraph 1 and 2.

9

9780367860721_text.indb 9

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

import-export firms and accumulate moderate wealth. Others took advantage of increasingly porous borders and temporarily worked in Western Europe for hard currency, where an unskilled job in a day would earn them the equivalent of an average monthly salary in Poland. A number of these small-scale investors built single-family houses for themselves—many of them in a postmodern style. Examples for such private homes in urban areas are the terraced houses in in Łódź-Rojna (1983–87, Andrzej Owczarek) discussed in Chapter 4, some of the buildings in the Old Town of Elbląg (1980s) mentioned in Chapter 5, or the Stanów Zjednoczonych Street development in Wrocław (begun 1984, Wojciech Jarząbek) described in Chapter 6.

Figure 0.4  Single-family house on Belgijska 18 in Wrocław (1986, Stefan Müller) (author).

10

9780367860721_text.indb 10

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

More important were those who joined their savings and formed small “private” housing cooperatives, as opposed to the large-scale cooperatives that had been the clients of the big socialist housing complexes. The establishment of such small cooperatives deriving from private initiative had been discussed in the Politburo since 1980.15 The Warsaw-based control organ, the Centralny Związek Spółdzielni Budownictwa Mieszkaniowego (CZSM—Central Organization for Cooperative Housing Construction), eventually legalised them in April 1981, thus factually abolishing the large cooperatives’ monopoly on housing construction.16 In the following ten years, the amount of housing providers increased from about 1,000 (mostly large) cooperatives to over 3,000 (large and small) cooperatives.17 A detailed discussion of cooperative legislation and practice in socialist Poland would reach beyond the scope of this book. Suffice it to mention that the membership status of both large and small cooperatives in the long run was more akin to ownership than cooperative tenancy in a capitalist country, as members were allowed to sell their rights to a flat with a profit once they had paid off what had been established as the price of the flat. While the small, private-initiative cooperatives were in principle organised in the same way as the large ones, they had significant advantages. They were often started by comparatively affluent groups, such as high-ranking government employees, small business owners, or seasonal workers returning from Western countries and thus could provide private funds for comparatively high cooperative contributions—mostly still in Polish Złotys, but in some cases also in hard Western currency. Their small scale and frequently good personal connections thus made them more efficient in coping with scarcity of materials and labour. In addition, in contrast to the large cooperatives, they were able to build infills on small plots between pre-war buildings, particularly in cities such as Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, and Warsaw-Praga, where the nineteenth-century tenement structure had survived the Second World War and where such plots were available. Among the curiosities of the late socialist economy was that the municipalities often gave cooperatives the building terrain for free and in addition gave financial support for construction. While this had, in principle, also applied for the large cooperatives that built the panel complexes on the periphery, and many panel block dwellers would end up owning their flats as well, in the case of the small cooperatives building in the inner city, it contributed to a new dimension of inequality. Here, a few lucky citizens who had already been privileged enough to afford the down payment, were additionally subsidised with what a decade later would be pricey land in a high-end location. 15 Minutes of Politburo meeting on 23 December 1980, memorial by Komisja do spraw Reformy Gospodarczej, “Tezy w sprawie podstawowych kierunków reformy gospodarczej”, dated Warsaw, December 1980, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “PZPR, KC, Biuro Polityczne” V/157, vol. 6 (Nov-Dec), pp. 612–45. 16 Łukasz Medeksza, “Wrocławskie plomby jako strategia polityczna,” Pamięc ́ i przyszłośc ́ 10 n. 37–38 (2017), 29. 17 Zuzanna Śliwa, Spółdzielczość mieszkaniowa w Polsce (Bydgoszcz 2004), quoted after ibid. 30.

11

9780367860721_text.indb 11

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

The new housing providers, both private individuals and small cooperatives, were particularly prone to commissioning postmodern architecture. Their small scale and focus on inner-city locations lent themselves favourably to historically inspired, postmodern typologies. Their greater financial strength allowed them to experiment with complex design and lush ornamentation. And their degree of private initiative tended to correlate with a desire for individualised design and an openness for architectural innovation. These developments align with Paolo Portoghesi’s much-quoted statement that postmodernism derives from the conditions of a post-industrial society.18 While Poland, until the demise of the socialist regime, was based on an industrial economy, postmodern architecture nonetheless came to bloom in those niches in which the basic principles of a socialist industrial society, such as state regulation, vertical integration, standardisation, and mass production, began to erode. SACRED ARCHITECTURE AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH The Catholic Church was one of the most significant clients for postmodern architecture, and at the same time the strongest opponent to socialist rule. As such, it was the focus of repressive party policies coordinated by the Central Committee’s Zespół do Polityki Wyznaniowej (Confession Policy Team), which since 1971 was directed by Stanisław Kania. The power of the Church and the impact of Catholicism on everyday life have been continuous for centuries and, in contrast to most other Eastern bloc countries, only marginally decreased under the socialist regime to the extent that many Poles to date essentialise religiosity as a trait of their national character. In 1987 the socialist authorities estimated that 70 per cent of Warsaw residents were practicing Catholics and that religious practice had even risen under socialism, particularly after the appointment of Pope John Paul II.19 The Church also continued to be an important provider of healthcare and social services throughout the socialist period, as thousands of deprived Poles relied on institutions run by priests, monks, and nuns. As the only organisation independent of state authorities, the Church was the most important facilitator for alternative visions to the ruling ideology, and throughout the socialist period more influential than the secular opposition. For decades, the Church stood at the forefront of peaceful anti-government struggle and suffered from persecution by state authorities. Dissident clergymen were frequently harassed and intimidated, in some cases even murdered.20 Likewise, many 18 Paolo Portoghesi, Postmodern: l’architettura nella società post-industriale (Milan: Electa, 1982), 7–11. 19 Urząd Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy, Wydział do Spraw Wyznań, Memo “Budownictwo sakralne i kościelne1945–87”, 1987?, Archiwum Państwowe w Warszawie 72/2305, p. 42. 20 Antoni Dudek and Ryszard Gryz, Komuniści i Kościół w Polsce (1945–89) (Kraków: Znak, 2006), 321. In the 1980s the Security Service killed several priests sympathising with Solidarity, including Stefan Niedzielak, Stanisław Suchowolec, and most prominently Jerzy Popiełuszko.

12

9780367860721_text.indb 12

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction Figure 0.5  Post office in Izabelin outside of Warsaw (1988, Tomasz Turczynowicz et al.) (author).

Poles perceived the increase of visible religious life, particularly in the context of the papal visits in 1979, 1982, and 1987, as a recovery of their human dignity from the coercions of socialist rule. Paradoxically, the party leaders’ decades-long and largely unsuccessful attempts to push back Church influence was a major hindrance for a comprehensive separation of Church and state, which theoretically was also enshrined

13

9780367860721_text.indb 13

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction Figure 0.6  Church of the Conversion of St Paul in WarsawGrochow (1978 -82, Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński, Andrzej Miklaszewski) (author).

in socialist Polish law.21 Just as the party, through their anti-clerical repressions, acknowledged the political nature of the Church, so did the majority of clerics in their resistance, and neither side was prepared to limit Church activity to purely religious matters, as it was practiced in most Western European countries at the time. In practice Poland’s clerics, including the parish priests who sponsored the postmodern buildings discussed in this book, associated themselves with very different political currents. These included the working-class activism of the Solidarity Trade Union, the cultural intellectualism connected to the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, the popular movement of Marian congregations supported by Poland’s highest-ranking church official Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, or the PAX Association founded in 1947 by fascist-turned-communist Bolesław 21 Ibid. 5

14

9780367860721_text.indb 14

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

Piasecki, who closely collaborated with the socialist regime while at the same time sharing national Catholic worldviews.22 Along with the political opposition to the socialist regime there was significant support for right-wing positions in the Catholic Church, to the extent that, for example, the conservative views of Pope John Paul II in the Polish context were perceived as comparatively liberal. Many Church leaders rejected the foundations of modern democracy just as staunchly as they abhorred socialism. These included Enlightenment values such as freedom of religion, separation of church and state, or secularism. In 1989 Cardinal Józef Glemp, who as Wyszyński’s successor was the country’s highest-ranking clergyman and carried the title Primate of Poland, stated that “the Church cannot support the right of non-believers to organise their own institutions” and that atheism was “abnormal.”23 Likewise, like many of his fellow clerics, he refused to cut ties with the traditions of the pre-war far-right movement Narodowa Demokracja (ND, National Democracy, usually referred to as Endecja), which, among other atrocities, in 1919 had been responsible for the murder of Poland’s first democratically elected president, Gabriel Narutowicz. In 1984 Glemp wrote the introduction to a re-edition of ND leader Roman Dmowski’s pamphlet Church, Nation, State of 1927, thus expressing support for Dmowski’s authoritarian politics, aggressive anti-Semitism, and advocacy for Catholicism as the state religion.24 Against this background the links between the Catholic and the secular opposition, which tightened at the peak of the Solidarity protests, were always tenuous. In 1977 Adam Michnik, a former student rebel of 1968 with a Jewish atheist family background and at the time one of Poland’s most prominent secular opposition leaders, reached out to the Catholic Church, which he praised as a defender of human values “which are as dear to Christians as they are to the secular left.”25 But only four years later Father Józef Tischner, a well-known Catholic intellectual often referred to as “the Solidarity Trade Union’s theologian” and promoter of a liberal humanist Catholicism, openly rebuffed the rapprochement, expressing his mistrust not only for the secular left’s vision of a “democratic socialism” but also for the concept of a secular order as such, which he deemed to be irretrievably compromised by the socialist reality and incompatible with the deeply rooted Catholicism of the Polish nation.26 22 On Piasecki’s career and the connections between ultra-nationalism and communism in the post-war period see Mikołaj Kunicki, Between the Brown and the Red: Nationalism, Catholicism and Communism in Twentieth-Century Poland (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2012). 23 Józef Glemp, “Uwagi o projekcie dokumentu Prymasowskiej Rady Społecznej” dated 6 June 1988, published in Aneks (London) n. 53 (1989), 136. 24 Józef Glemp, “Introduction,” in Roman Dmowski, Kościół, naród i państwo [1927] (Chicago: Instytut Romana Dmowskiego, 1985). See also David Ost, “Introduction” in Adam Michnik, The Church and the Left (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 1-28. 25 Adam Michnik, The Church and the Left [1976] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 124. 26 Józef Tischner, Marxism and Christianity: The Quarrel and the Dialog in Poland [1981] (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1987), 154–55. Michnik wrote the foreword for the book, referring to Tischner as his “critic and friend.”

15

9780367860721_text.indb 15

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

In material terms the Catholic Church in Poland was in a stronger position than the churches in other socialist countries. The old proverb Kto ma księdza w rodzie, tego bieda nie ubodzie (He who has a priest in the family will not suffer from poverty) continued to hold true under socialism, as the Church remained a comparatively wealthy institution. Hundreds of destroyed pre-war churches were rebuilt with state funds and remained Church property.27 Furthermore, the expropriations in the post-war period notwithstanding, the Church remained an important landowner and received income through the lease of land and buildings. It was also supported by the state through the Fundusz Kościelny (Church Fund).28 There were also the expected weekly donations na tacę (“on the tray”) during Mass and the yearly donation na kolędę (“at the Christmas visit”) during the priest’s annual house call. And there were fees for christenings, weddings, funerals, and in particular cemetery maintenance. The authorities allowed priests to set these fees at their discretion. They were not published and not taxed and could vary significantly between parishes or even from case to case. The informal aspect of these fees, which could be in kind, made them particularly valuable in times of shortage and inflation. Given that for a believing Catholic there is “no salvation outside the Church,” the right to set the prices for indispensable religious rituals gave parish priests significant financial leverage, irrespective of the fact that many parishioners would happily donate to what they believed to be a good cause. In any case the asymmetric power relation between priests and parishioners was indicative of the Church’s influence under socialism, which the socialist rulers were unable or unwilling to curtail. Party leader Edward Gierek, in his attempt to appease the Catholic opposition, relaxed restrictions on church construction around 1975, giving in to popular pressure on what had been a bone of contention for decades and an inherently political matter. Up to the 1970s, the party leaders had only granted a tiny fraction of applications for church building; for example, in 1971 only 28 out of 680, or about 4 per cent.29 The policy change was never officially proclaimed, but permission for church construction subsequently had a significantly higher chance of being granted.30 The number of permissions rose particularly after the Solidarity protests of 1980–81. This was welcomed by Church officials as well as by the religious majority of the population. 27 Wydział do Spraw Wyznań of the Warsaw City Administration, document “Budownictwo sakralne i kościelne 1945–87,” Archiwum Państwowe, Warsaw 72/2305, p. 44. 28 The Church Fund was a state institution incorporated in 1950 as a compensation for expropriated church property, paying, for example, for priests’ pension schemes and church maintenance. Antoni Dudek and Ryszard Gryz, Komuniści i Kościół w Polsce (1945–89) (Kraków: Znak, 2006), particularly 13–14. 29 Ibid. 311. 30 There is no evidence of a particular directive allowing for increasing church construction. According to architect Konrad Kucza-Kuczyn ́ski, rather, it was a practice backed by Gierek. Konrad Kucza-Kuczyn ́ski, Widzialne niewidzialnego – nowe kościoły warszawskie (Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Warszawskiej, 2015), 28, and conversation with the author, Warsaw, 27 November 2018. Another influence might have been Stanisław Kania, since 1971 the Central Committee’s responsible person for policy towards the Church. Antoni Dudek and Ryszard Gryz, Komuniści i Kościół w Polsce (1945–89) (Kraków: Znak, 2006), 286–87.

16

9780367860721_text.indb 16

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

At a personal level the difference between Church and state affiliates was not as clear-cut as the institutional antagonism might suggest. Die-hard Marxist-Leninist ideologues were rare in Poland throughout the socialist period, and many party members more or less openly attended church. And, of course, there were countless personal and professional contacts between clerics and state officials, including on architectural matters. Occasionally there was even cooperation between Church and municipal institutions, as evidenced by the St Albert Social Care Centre in Warsaw discussed in Chapter 6. And while the majority of clerics staunchly resisted any collaboration with the socialist regime, the rulers’ continuous attempts to infiltrate the clergy were not entirely unsuccessful: in 1977 one in every seven priests was an unofficial informer for the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, the Polish Secret Service.31 From the perspective of the embattled rulers, liberalising the permission for Church construction was also a gesture aimed at those portions of the political opposition who, possibly due to fear of escalation and bloodshed, rejected confrontations with the socialist state apparatus. These included most of the Church hierarchy.32 The highest-ranking Church leaders persistently opposed strikes and other acts of civil disobedience, although they eventually expressed their support for Solidarity’s cause.33 Sacred architecture in the following years became the subject of intense debates, and church buildings such as St Jadwiga in Kraków, Our Lady of Peace in Wrocław, or Ascension of the Lord in Warsaw-Ursynów came to be icons of Polish postmodernism.34 The postmodern design of many new churches derived from the particular context of their construction. As will be shown in Chapters 2 and 4, they were less regulated than buildings sponsored by the central planning authorities and thus lent themselves to experimentation. They were also built with more resources, both formal and informal, and therefore allowed for ornamentation and diverse materials even in times of scarcity. The new churches also absorbed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), most importantly that Masses were now celebrated in Polish and no longer in Latin and that during Mass the priest was now facing the congregation. 31 These were 2,760 out of approximately 18,500 Polish priests. Andrzej Leon Sowa, Historia polityczna Polski 1944–91 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2012), 430. 32 Even the Politburo acknowledged “the activities of the Church leadership in calming down the stirred minds [of the striking workers in 1980] and encouraging their return to work.” Minutes of the Politburo meeting on 23 September 1980, report “Sytuacja społeczno-polityczna oraz kierunki działania partii i państwa” Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “PZPR, KC, Biuro Polityczne” V/157, vol. 4 (July-September), p. 438. 33 Brian Porter-Szücs, Poland in the Modern World (Chichester: Wiley, 2014), 292–96. 34 Andrzej Bruszewski et al., “Architektura sakralna, czyli unikalność tematu, a wartość dzieła” Architektura 32 n. 5 (September 1980), 4–71; Henryk Drzewiecki, “Ruch nowoczesny w architekturze sakralnej: nowość a tradycja myśli klasycznej” Architektura 37 n. 5 (September 1983), 18–24; Stefan Müller, “Symbol i alegoria na przykładzie architektury kościołów katolickich w Polsce” Architektura 37 n. 6 (November 1983), 19–21; Stefan Müller, “Problemy symboli i alegorii na przykładach aktualnej architektury kos ́cioło w ́ katolickich w Polsce” in Architektura Sakralna (Warsaw: SARP, 1983), 52–66; Henryk Drzewicki, “O architekturze sakralnej” Architektura 43 n. 3–4 (March 1989), 79–80.

17

9780367860721_text.indb 17

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

Vatican II induced a new spirit of community and a focus on the congregation, which in architectural terms favoured the design of open and integrative spaces, often around central plans, and often with a more exposed location of the altar. However, the formal differences between churches designed before and after Vatican II are not as clear-cut as one might expect, and neither did they reflect a clear distinction between modern and postmodern styles. Much suggests that the political affiliation of the parish priests had some influence on the style of new churches, although the connections were never unambiguous.35 Eclectic neo-classical churches were often built by traditionalist supporters of Marian congregations, while nostalgic historicism was sometimes sponsored by opportunistic priests with good connections to both socialist authorities and wealthy émigré sponsors, and sometimes by oppositional activists sympathising with Solidarity and relying on meagre donations from their congregations. Some clerics sympathising with the PAX Association were open to collaboration with the socialist regime and ended up sponsoring ostentatious modernism. At the same time the late modernist, Ronchamp-inspired Arka Pana Church in Kraków-Nowa Huta (1967–77, Wojciech Pietrzyk) was closely connected to anti-government protests and admired by Catholic intellectuals across Poland. For many architects of the middle generation, churches were also the realisation of what had been an “unfulfilled love,” as the prominent Wrocław architect Stefan Müller put it in 1983. Müller, like many of his fellow graduates in the 1950s, chose a church project as his diploma work and was sorely aware that such a building could never be realised at the time.36 Along these lines also in the later socialist period sacred architecture retained a high prestige. There was also an element of escapism in this approach: given the dire economy of the 1980s, which involved periods of hunger for some and gloomy professional perspectives for most future architects, traditional settings and a spiritual context were an alluring contrast to the unappealing everyday. Churches, along with cooperative multifamily buildings and private single-family homes, demonstrate the scope of architectural projects that in the late phase of socialism resulted from the growing importance of non-state clients and private architectural practices. They complemented the declining output of housing and public buildings by national and municipal institutions and gave rise to a growing architectural diversity that formed the basis of postmodernism in Poland. METHODOLOGY This book is based on archival documents, contemporaneous and current publications, and an analysis of the buildings. National and municipal archives are generally accessible, and also church archives tend to be comparatively open to

35 Maciej Miłobędzki, e-mail conversation, 7 February 2020. 36 Stefan Müller, “Symbol i alegoria na przykładzie architektury kościołów katolickich w Polsce” Architektura 37 n. 6 (November 1983), 19–21.

18

9780367860721_text.indb 18

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

architectural research, although some documents from the late socialist period have only been partially catalogued. Researchers are nonetheless challenged by the fact that Poland, like all socialist countries, was characterised by a strong oral culture. It was always less dangerous to say certain things than to write them down, and not producing written evidence of contentious opinions or decisions was also a means to evade repression. To address these challenges further insights were drawn from interviews with architects, priests, and former public servants, most of which were conducted during the author’s tenure as a visiting scholar at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw in 2018–19. These oral histories often provided valuable links. At the same time they were complex sources, not only for the subjectivity and selectivity of any individual memory but also for the fact that in contemporary Poland the interpretation of the late socialist period is often seen as a statement on current political events. In the context of this book, oral histories were therefore mostly used to give additional information on processes and occurrences that are already documented in written sources. The book focuses on Poland’s largest cities: Warsaw, Kraków, Łódź, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Wrocław, as well as on select buildings in small towns and villages. Most of the cases were chosen for their prominence in the domestic architectural discourse at the time, but some, particularly the apparently unspectacular buildings in rural and small-town contexts, were included because they illustrate a characteristic development of wider significance. Nearly all buildings covered in the book are unusual in the sense that they were built during a period of economic crisis and very limited overall architectural production, defying shortages of material and labour. At the same time they are evidence of innovative design connected to a thriving architectural discourse, and in this sense provide important insights into life under late socialism. LITERATURE In Poland, the different currents of postmodern architecture have recently become a popular topic of research. Most publications focus on the continuities of postmodern architecture beyond the break of 1989 and comprise both the late socialist and the democratic periods. A classic in this context is the two-volume work edited by Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska, which combines a collection of scholarly essays with a number of interviews with prominent architects.37 Other views on late-twentieth-century architecture in Poland include recent publications by Polish scholars such as Anna Cymer, Błażej Ciarkowski, Paweł Knap, Łukasz Stanek, Piotr Wińskowski, and others.38 There is also growing work on the big 37 Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska, eds., Postmodernizm Polski. Architektura i urbanistyka. (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013). 38 Piotr Winskowski, Modernizm przebudowany. Inspiracje techniką w architekturze u progu XXI wieku (Kraków: Uniwersitas, 2000); Paweł Knap, ed., Pod dyktando ideologii. Studia do dziejów architektury i urbanistyki w Polsce Ludowej (Szczecin:

19

9780367860721_text.indb 19

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

wave of church construction in the late twentieth century, including a noteworthy attempt to take stock of all sacred buildings constructed at the time.39 The estimates about the number of churches built in Poland between approximately 1975 and 1989 vary. Contemporaneous estimates mentioned about 1,500, more recent research over 8,000.40 Many of them were built in a neo-traditional style readable as postmodern. In recent years there have also been several exhibitions intersecting with the topic of postmodernism. Some of them were accompanied by significant scholarly publications authored or edited by Tomasz Fudala, Dorota Leśniak-Rychlak, Łukasz Stanek, Cezary Wąs, Michał Wiśniewski, and others.41 There is also an extensive coverage of historical postmodern buildings in architectural journals such as Architektura-Murator or Autoportret.42 The interest in the architecture of the socialist period is widely shared by the general public, as evidenced, for example, by the ongoing popularity of Filip Springer’s captivating reports.43

39

40

41

42 43

IPN Szczecin, 2013); Anna Cymer, Architektura w Polsce 1945–89 (Warszawa: Centrum Architectury and Narodowy Instytut Architektury i Urbanistyki, 2018); Błażej Ciarkowski, Odcienie szarości. Architekci i polityka w PRL-u (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2017); Grzegorz Piątek, “Bardzo długa transformacja” Autoportret 54 n. 3 (2016), 36–43; Łukasz Stanek, Postmodernizm jest prawie w porządku: polska architektura po socjalistycznej globalizacji (Warsaw: Bęc Zmiana, 2012), 59–72 [in Polish and English] or Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska, “Late Socialist Postmodernism and Socialist Realism in Polish Architecture” in Vladimir Kulić, ed., Second World Postmodernisms (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). Izabela Cichońska, Karolina Popera, Kuba Snopek, Architektura siódmego dnia (Warsaw: Bęc Zmiana, 2016) [contributions by different authors] and the accompanying website architektura7dnia.com (accessed May 2019), English edition with different contributions Day-VII Architecture: A Catalogue of Polish Churches post 1945 (Berlin: Dom Publishers, 2019). Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński, Nowe kościoły w Polsce (Warsaw: PAX, 1991), 11; Izabela Cichońska, Karolina Popera, Kuba Snopek, Day-VII Architecture: A Catalogue of Polish Churches post 1945 (Berlin: Dom Publishers, 2019), 23-29 (research by Tomasz Świetlik based on parish documents and church statistics).On new sacred architecture in the context of political change see for example Konrad Kucza-Kuczyn ́ski, Widzialne niewidzialnego – nowe kościoły warszawskie (Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Warszawskiej, 2015); for an analysis of semiotics in recent church architecture see Anna Maria Wierzbicka, Architektura jako narracja znaczeniowa (Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Warszawskiej, 2013). On the political conditions see Andrzej Basista, Betonowe Dziedzictwo – Architektura w Polsce czasów komunizmu (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2001) or Błażej Ciarkowski, Odcienie szarości. Architekci i polityka w PRL-u (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2017). Cezary Wąs, Antynomie współczesnej architektury sakralnej (Wrocław: Muzeum Architektury, 2008); Łukasz Stanek, Postmodernizm jest prawie w porządku: polska architektura po socjalistycznej globalizacji (Warsaw: Fundacja Narodowej Kultury Bęc Zmiana, 2012); Tomasz Fudala, Spór o odbudowę Warszawy (Warsaw: Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, 2015); Marta Karpińska and Dorota Leśniak-Rychlak, eds., Wreszcie we własnym domu—dom polski w transformacji (Warsaw: Muzeum Warszawy, 2016). See for example Maciej Miłobędzki, “Lata 1988–97” Architektura-Murator 19 n. 4 (2018) or the thematic issue of Autoportret 16 n. 2 (2017). Filip Springer, Źle urodzone. Reportaże o architekturze PRL-u (Warsaw: Karakter, 2017), German translation Kopfgeburten: Architekturreportagen aus der Volksrepublik Polen (Berlin: Dom Publishers, 2016).

20

9780367860721_text.indb 20

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

Some of these publications give detailed and thorough analysis of particular architects and projects, pointing, as art historian Błażej Ciarkowski put it, to a change in architecture that overtook the transformation in politics and society.44 There is less attention to the relation between postmodern architecture and socialist politics, the transition towards capitalism, or the role of the Catholic Church as an influential socio-political actor. In the English-speaking world, the discussion of Polish postmodern architecture is nested in a rising interest in the architectural variations behind the Iron Curtain and an increasing awareness that architecture under socialism was not monolithic and limited to culture houses and tower blocks. This has spawned two much-reviewed publications by Vladimir Kulić, Ákos Moravánszki, and Torsten Lange, which contain chapters about Poland.45 There are also several noteworthy publications by Łukasz Stanek on the architectural exchange between the Eastern bloc and countries in North Africa and the Middle East.46 Against this background this book is meant as a contribution to the growing research on Polish postmodern architecture in English and an attempt to set the Polish case in the context of international postmodern historiography. CHAPTER STRUCTURE The first chapter “Architectural Debates in Late Socialist Poland” analyses the intellectual development that underlay postmodern architecture in Poland. While Polish architects and theorists were restricted by their country’s economic weakness and political repression, they enjoyed a professional and academic environment which, from the 1970s, was comparatively open and largely unaffected by forced ideological influence. They also had increasing opportunities to travel abroad, at least occasionally, and to participate in international meetings and conferences. This was reflected in intense architectural debates centring on the professional journals Architektura, Komunikat SARP, and Miasto, as well as on numerous scholarly publications. The 1970s were characterised by a contradictory attitude towards modern architecture. On the one hand the everyday life of many Poles was negatively affected by the watered-down modernism of often shoddily built prefabricated panel blocks. On the other hand, there was an ongoing modernist tradition both 44 Błażej Ciarkowski, Odcienie szarości. Architekci i polityka w PRL-u (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2017), 128. 45 Vladimir Kulić, ed., Second World Postmodernisms (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), chapter by Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska, “Late Socialist Postmodernism and Socialist Realism in Polish Architecture ”; Ákos Moravánszky and Torsten Lange, eds., Reframing Identities: Architecture’s Turn to History 1970–90 (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2017), chapter by Łukasz Stanek, “An Image and Its Performance: Techno-Export from Socialist Poland”. 46 Łukasz Stanek, “Miastoprojekt goes abroad: the transfer of architectural labour from socialist Poland to Iraq (1958–89),” Journal of Architecture 17 n. 3 (2012), 361–86, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2012.692603 and Łukasz Stanek, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2019).

21

9780367860721_text.indb 21

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

at universities and among prominent architects, which was not necessarily associated with the regime and which retained a certain spirit of dissidence. The search for an improved urban form and public space, as well as the reception of architectural structuralism, both foreign and domestic, was related to these forces. The chapter analyses the main threads of this discourse in the context of the difficult positioning of architecture between individual creativity and economic hardship. Sacred architecture and the Catholic Church as an important sponsor of postmodern architecture will be the focus of Chapter 2 “Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism.” The large wave of church building stood not only in contrast to increasingly secular Western Europe but also gave spatial evidence of the rising influence of the Church. Many of these churches were built in a postmodern style. They reflected individual creativity and international trends, as well as ideas of a “national” architecture and visions of a traditional society centred on the Catholic Church. This chapter presents a sample of the most important postmodern churches, including the Ascension Church in Warsaw-Ursynów (1980–85, Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, Piotr Wicha), Our Lady Revealing the Miraculous Medal in Zakopane (1980–88, Tadeusz Gawłowski and Teresa Lisowska-Gawłowska), Our Lady of Jerusalem in Warsaw-Łazienkowska Street (1979–c.89 Tomasz Turczynowicz, Anna Bielecka, Piotr Walkowiak), Immaculate Heart of Mary in Śródborów near Warsaw (1979–84, Małgorzata Handzelewicz-Wacławek, Zbigniew Wacławek), St Jadwiga in Kraków (1983–89, Romuald Loegler and Jacek Czekaj), Our Lady Queen of Poland in Głogów (1985–89, Marian Fikus, Jerzy Gurawski), and the Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation in Kraków (1985–93, Dariusz Kozłowski, Wacław Stefański, Maria Misiągiewicz). The third chapter, “Bottom-Up Village Churches,” will introduce a widespread phenomenon unexpected under an authoritarian system: churches that were built without proper permits, under the direction of a local parish priest, and with significant support from the local congregation. These buildings were often erected through parishioners’ volunteer work and other informal means, such as in-kind donations or financial help from partner congregations abroad. They were grudgingly tolerated by the authorities to prevent further confrontations in a politically unsettled climate. They also led to tensions between rank-and-file clerics and the Church hierarchy manoeuvring between general support for the cause of church construction and disapproval for the parish priests’ illegal actions. The unauthorised village churches show design elements readable as postmodern and were at the same time far removed from academic circles and architectural debates. Neo-historicism was the style of choice for many of these projects, lending itself favourably to the basic materials and limited technical means and expertise available, and corresponding to a popular imagination of a “real church” and the community around it. The chapter will show how these churches, despite their usually rather modest appearance, are visible results of significant socio-political transformations, as well as the impact of an international discourse. The postmodern principles of participatory architecture, pop-cultural

22

9780367860721_text.indb 22

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

references, and historic quotations intersect with the wider themes of state power and resistance under socialism and the Church’s struggle to secure a spatial presence. Examples include St Lucia in Warsaw-Rembertów (1972–93, priest Ryszard Łapiński and architect Feliks Dzierżanowski), St Michael Archangel in Kamion, Central Poland (1978–1990s, priest Paweł Flaszczyński and architect Tadeusz Bronowski), and St Francis of Assisi in Mierzowice, Lower Silesia (1977–c.90, priest Franciszek Rozwód and various architects). Chapter 4 “Postmodernism Mass Housing Complexes” will focus on residential architecture commissioned by the centrally organised institutions of socialist housing provision, and thus on postmodern architecture sponsored by the state. In the late 1970s, the increasing criticism of the by-now ubiquitous prefabricated panel blocks, on the one hand, and the inflexible structure of the state-operated construction industry that hardly allowed for anything else, on the other, led to a deadlock with no easy escape. This chapter analyses different attempts to break up this situation and build different kinds of panel block schemes that took up postmodern principles—visually harmonic, legible, diversified, and at the same time meaningful urban spaces. The chapter will show that the architects of these projects were influenced by structuralist and neo-rationalist theory, both domestic and international. Examples include Radogoszcz-East in Łódź (1979–89, Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, Andrzej Owczarek), the Różany Potok Scheme in Poznań (part of the Morasko university campus begun 1978, Marian Fikus, Jerzy Gurawski), and the Na Skarpie Scheme in Kraków-Nowa Huta (1987–95, Romuald Loegler, Wojciech Dobrzański, Ewa Fitzke, Michał Szymanowski). The fifth chapter “Postmodernism from the Spirit of Historic Conservation” will focus on the urban context of historic Old Towns. The Polish school of historic conservation did not only inspire the rebuilding of the famous old towns of Warsaw and Gdańsk, which were restored in the 1950s and 1960s after being razed in the Second World War, and which in defiance of traditional conservationist objections against neo-historical copies became internationally admired. In the 1970s and 1980s, conservationist theory and practice continued to reach beyond the preservation of old buildings and at a broad level came to influence new architecture and urban design. This chapter discusses the activities of architects and civil servants operating between neo-historical re-creation and contemporary interpretation, who connected the post-war concerns with recovery, resilience, and national identity with late-twentieth-century themes such as inner-city regeneration, gentrification, and the rise of urban tourism. This approach lay at the bottom of the neo-historical rebuilding of Elbląg Old Town (begun 1983, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka and others, promoted by Head Conservationist Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann), as well as of several construction projects in the city centre of Gdańsk (1980s, Stanisław Michel and others). Chapter 6 “The Urban Context” analyses the attempts to establish postmodern planning principles such as traditional blocks, density, mixed use, pedestrian orientation, and visible historicity in the urban context. Examples include infill

23

9780367860721_text.indb 23

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Introduction

buildings in Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, and Łódź. It will also discuss neo-historical housing projects such as the Nad Jamną Scheme in Mikołów near Katowice (Stanisław Niemczyk 1983–86) or Zielone Wzgórza near Poznań (begun 1982, Jerzy Buszkiewicz and others), Poland’s only neo-historical new town. These projects also fuelled a developing debate on inner-city regeneration. A prominent example is the city centre of Wrocław, which under chief planner Andrzej Gretschel in the 1980s experienced a renaissance along similar principles as central Berlin or Copenhagen. The Conclusion summarises the complex relation between architecture and power under an authoritarian regime. It rejects the idea of postmodernism as an architecture of political resistance and similarly that of postmodernism’s inherent political conservativism. It points out how committed individuals associated with both regime and opposition were able to use contradictions and inconsistencies within the socialist system to promote non-conformist design. Postmodernism in Poland grew from both domestic traditions and international influences. It took up distinctive themes that were often different from those developed by postmodern architects in Western Europe and North America and shaped Polish society beyond the end of the socialist regime. The chapter thus points to the adaptability of postmodern design to local cultures and conditions.

24

9780367860721_text.indb 24

04/11/20 9:19 PM

1 Architectural Debates in Late Socialist Poland

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter lays out the intellectual framework of architectural production under the late socialist regime. While censorship was ongoing and official journals such as Architektura or Komunikat SARP still did not openly criticise buildings or comment on the economic situation, theoretical debates were allowed to flourish. This included an increasingly open criticism of functionalism in architecture and planning, a domestic discourse on “national architecture,” and the reception of international postmodernism. An important inspiration for the discourse over historical forms came from the Polish school of historic conservation and the prestigious reconstruction of central Warsaw and Gdańsk. These influences account for several distinctive features of Polish postmodernism: a yearning for spirituality and a “deeper truth” beyond scientific rationality, a concern with national identity, and a search for meaningful urban spaces in response to the unsatisfactory panel-built housing complexes. POLAND AROUND 1980 Postmodernism coalesced in Poland around 1980, at the peak of economic crisis and political unrest. The socialist regime was under increasing pressure, riddled by economic decline and popular protest against party rule. The moderate rise in living standards financed by foreign credits under party leader Edward Gierek in the early 1970s had soon given way to economic hardship, peaking in the “hunger demonstrations” of 1981. But the years 1975–81 were also a period of optimism and cultural freedom, in which political protests inspired hopes for a profound transformation at every level of society. Along with the papacy of John Paul II, the former archbishop of Kraków, Poles felt a growth of religious freedom, as visible religious practice and the presence of the Catholic Church in public life were increasingly tolerated. The ensuing carrot-and-stick policy, in which repressions alternated with concessions, made the party leaders’ weakness even more apparent and continued to allow for new cultural expressions, including

25

9780367860721_text.indb 25

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

architectural innovation. This situation did not fundamentally change during the regime’s last wave of authoritarianism after the 1981 appointment of General Wojciech Jaruzelski as First Secretary and the subsequent declaration of martial law. Architectural innovation continued throughout the 1980s and beyond the end of the regime in 1989. The years around 1980 were also internationally a key period for postmodernism. In Venice, the first Biennale of Architecture opened in 1980 under the motto “The Presence of the Past,” making postmodern architects such as Aldo Rossi, Robert Venturi, and Michael Graves widely known and popularising the ideas of organiser Paolo Portoghesi and his collaborators, among them Christian Norberg-Schulz, Vincent Scully, and Kenneth Frampton.1 In Berlin, the preparations for the International Building Exhibit 1987, mostly known by its German acronym IBA, entered its crucial phase with landmark buildings that would adapt historical typologies for new residences in the inner city, including Alvaro Siza’s multifamily house Bonjour Tristesse (designed 1980, realised 1982–84), the Urban Villas curated by Rob Krier (competition won in 1980, realised 1980–84, architects Aldo Rossi, Hans Hollein, Rob Krier, and others), or the Lützowplatz Housing (Oswald Mathias Ungers, 1979–84).2 Charles Jencks’s The Language of Postmodern Architecture, the most popular book on the new current, first published in 1977, went into its third edition in 1980. This architectural discourse was mirrored in the conference of the Union internationale d’architects (UIA—International Architects’ Union), which took place in Warsaw in June 1981. This happened at the peak of what is often referred to as Karnawał Solidarności (“Carnival of Solidarity”)—the period of political freedom between 1979 and 1981, when, spearheaded by the protesters of the Solidarity Trade Union under Lech Wałęsa, the tottering socialist regime was forced to make significant concessions and start political reforms. At this event Polish architects shared the spirit of hope and optimism with their international guests, including Charles Jencks and Bruno Zevi, and at the same time raised expectations, as the official journal Architektura put it, to “overcome the Athens Charter.”3 Indeed, in an unusually open way for an Eastern bloc country the conference participants connected international anxieties about social justice and ecology with particular Polish concerns about the degradation of the built environment.4 After three decades of industrialised construction nearly every Polish city was dotted with shoddily executed system-built housing complexes, and the conviction that functionalist modernism had to be overcome was widely shared. The signature projects of the most famous Polish modernists, such as Oskar and Zofia Hansen, Halina Skibniewska, Kazimierz Wejchert and Hanna Adamczewska-Wejchert, or Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak, were still considered exemplary. At the same time, 1 Léa-Catherine Szacka, Exhibiting the Postmodern: The 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale (Milan: Marsilio, 2016), 109–45. 2 Florian Urban, The New Tenement (London: Routledge, 2012), 37–54. 3 See the theme issue titled “Czym przebić Ateńską Kartę?” Architektura 32 n. 3 (May 1980). 4 “Warsaw Declaration of Architects” Architektura 33 n. 5 (September 1981), 6–9.

26

9780367860721_text.indb 26

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

the disenchantment with cheaply built functionalist architecture, in particular prefabricated panel construction, was a common point of reference for both architects and the general population. Consequently, the hosts of the UIA Conference did not celebrate any icons of modernism, but rather the neo-historical reconstruction of Warsaw’s Old Town (rebuilt 1945–63), which will be discussed further later. At the conference it received the Sir Patrick Abercrombie Award—as the editor-in-chief of the journal Architektura, Andrzej Bruszewski, pointed out, “not as a conservationist phenomenon, but as the best of contemporary housing estates [osiedle mieszkaniowe] in Warsaw.”5 Small-scale, historically conscious architecture and urbanism were also themes of the international “UNESCO student prize” launched at the conference.6 The bilingual conference catalogue, published by Architektura’s editorial team, became a forum for a new architecture that displayed a lush, historically inspired vocabulary unexpected in an economically challenged socialist context.7 This included the historically inspired Holy Spirit Church in Tychy (1978–81 Stanisław Niemczyk), the regionalist Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Śródborów near Warsaw (1979–84, Małgorzata Handzelewicz-Wacławek, Zbigniew Wacławek), and the postmodern housing complex Radogoszcz-East in Łódź (1978–89, Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, Andrzej Owczarek), which will all be discussed in this book. The catalogue also published many unbuilt projects distinguished in architectural competitions, which in socialist Poland were an important way of circulating new ideas. The UIA Conference thus presented both a flourishing theoretical debate and examples of a fledgling postmodern practice, which reflected the state of the architectural discourse at the time. INTERNATIONAL POSTMODERNISM AND THE POLISH DISCOURSE The rise of postmodern currents in theory and practice around 1980 was favoured by increasingly porous borders, which led to an intensified exchange between Poland and Western Europe and to the encounter of domestic traditions and international debates. International influences were noticeable since the 1970s, when an increasing number of Polish architects managed to travel abroad. Although compared to today international trips were rare and carefully planned events, the Polish borders had always been more permeable than those of some other Eastern bloc countries. Emigration had been widespread for most of the twentieth century, and many families maintained contact with their émigré relatives in the United States, France, West Germany, or elsewhere. Also the economic ties between the Eastern bloc and left-leaning governments in Africa and the Middle

5 Andrzej Bruszewski, “From the Editor” Architektura 34 n. 3 (May/June 1981), 5. 6 The prize was awarded to David Page, Brian Park and Jim Nicol from Glasgow. See Grupa Revolutions, “Historia dla New Lanark” Architektura 33 n. 5 (September 1981), 12–32. 7 Andrzej Bruszewski et al. Architektura Polska ’81—Polish Architecture ’81 (Warsaw: Arkady, 1981).

27

9780367860721_text.indb 27

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

East provided numerous architects with working experience abroad.8 Likewise, particularly during the 1980s, numerous buildings in Poland were financed by Polish émigré communities in Western Europe or North America or by returning migrants and seasonal workers. At the same time inverse professional exchange was very limited. Throughout the socialist period there is next to no evidence of foreign architects working in Poland or of Polish buildings designed in international collaboration—the unloved, Soviet-financed Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw created by Russian architect Lev Rudniev and built 1953–55 was probably the only example. Like in most socialist countries where resources were limited and publications tightly controlled, the architectural environment in Poland was rather contained and developed around university departments and professional organisations. As the socialist planned economy did not encourage professional mobility and architects often remained with the same municipal or institutional employer for decades, architectural milieus were often very localised. This changed only slowly with the introduction of economic reforms in the 1980s. The most significant nationwide institution was the Stowarzyszenie Architektów Polskich (SARP, Polish Architects’ Association), which had its headquarters in Warsaw and regional chapters in every major city. SARP’s importance in channelling architectural discourses can hardly be overestimated. Next to conferences and professional meetings SARP organised scores of nationwide architectural competitions every year. Many of them were never intended to be implemented, and only a portion of them led to built projects. But they were well publicised and an important means to exchange ideas across cities and regions. SARP also published the journal Architektura, Poland’s largest architectural periodical with a print run of about 15,000, whose standing in the discipline was unmatched. Although SARP was not an independent organisation in the sense of an architects’ association in a Western country, during the 1970s and 1980s it operated with a comparatively high degree of political freedom. SARP functionaries were rarely disciplined by the party rulers, and censorship of Architektura and other periodicals was limited. At the time journalists were no longer forced to write what they did not believe, and in many cases they were allowed to voice open criticism. Influence from the Soviet Union was also significantly weaker than one would expect in a Soviet satellite state. The 1950s, when the Soviet Union forced Stalinist neo-classicism upon Polish architects and later led the introduction of functionalist panel construction, were long gone. In the 1970s and 1980s most architectural theorists and practitioners underlined their disapproval of Soviet rule with an ostentatious disinterest in Soviet architecture. Likewise, interest in the architecture of the neighbouring Eastern bloc countries was comparatively limited and took a back seat in comparison with the attempts to keep track with the latest developments in the West or to recover an allegedly lost national tradition. 8 Łukasz Stanek, “Miastoprojekt goes abroad: the transfer of architectural labour from socialist Poland to Iraq (1958–89)” Journal of Architecture 17 n. 3 (2012), 361–86, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2012.692603.

28

9780367860721_text.indb 28

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

This is also reflected in Architektura’s editorial focus. Acknowledgment of the Soviet “brother state” at the time was limited to a Russian translation of the table of contents and very occasional contributions of a Moscow correspondent. In comparison, from 1977 to the proclamation of martial law in 1981, and again from 1988 onwards, each single article was translated into English. International topics, although covered to a much smaller extent than domestic ones, were usually related to Western Europe and North America. Since the late 1970s, Polish architects took increasing notice of postmodern theory and practice in the West. At the same time there were century-old domestic currents concerned with vernacularism, regional variation, and national style, which had developed in reaction to the increasing standardisation of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and which in light of the disenchantment with socialist modernism, were once again on the rise. These domestic currents had a particularly strong impact on the main themes in Polish postmodernism: the concern with meaning and symbolism, a spiritual undercurrent that became particularly evident in sacred architecture, and the prominence of national narratives. Postmodern architecture first made it to Architektura’s headlines in May 1979. The issue, titled “Co Dalej?/What Next?” showed Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia in New Orleans on the cover and discussed textbook projects of international postmodernism, many of which, next to volumetric design and historical references, also showed a concern with small-scale, pedestrian-oriented urban spaces [Figure 1.1]. These included Enrique Ciriani’s residences in Saint-Denis near Paris, Rob Krier’s Ritterstraße development in West Berlin, and Christian de Portzamparc’s residential ensemble Les Hautes Formes in Paris.9 The editors also introduced the ideas of postmodern theorists, including Peter Eisenman, Robert Venturi, Philip Johnson, and Charles Moore, through summaries and partially translated articles from the West. These publications tended to stress postmodernism’s search for historical continuity in architectural style and the use of historic quotations. The choice of the two Polish examples presented in the issue shows a characteristic focus on nationally inspired symbolism. The first was a prize-winning, unrealised 1975 project for the rebuilding of the ruined nineteenth-century fortress Warsaw Citadel into a historically inspired museum landscape. The author, Marek Budzyński (born 1939), was the lead architect of the system-built housing complex Ursynów-North in Warsaw (begun 1971). Five years later he became the designer of the Ascension Church in Ursynów, an icon of Polish postmodernism that uses a national-romantic vocabulary, which will be discussed in Chapter 2. Together with his co-author Andrzej Kiciński (1938–2008) he expressed a commitment to “continuity, both in a historical and a landscape sense.”10 The other was a regionalist summerhouse near Poznań. The architect was Jerzy Buszkiewicz (1930–2000), a party member, former intern at the London County Council 9 In particular “Postmodernizm 1979” Architektura 33 n. 3 (May 1979), 70–74. 10 Marek Budzyński and Andrzej Kiciński, interviewed by Czesław Bielecki, Architektura 33 n. 3 (May 1979), 52.

29

9780367860721_text.indb 29

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates Figure 1.1  Title page of Architektura, May 1979 with Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia in New Orleans.

(1963–65), chief architect of Poznań since 1973, and SARP president from 1973 to 1975. His party affiliation and international experiences notwithstanding, he expressed his commitment to a Polish national vocabulary and the “yearning to define ourselves by architectural form,” which, as he pointed out, in Poland “has never disappeared.”11 This national undertone turned out to be significant for the 11 Jerzy Buszkiewicz, interviewed by Andrzej Bruszewski, Architektura 32 n. 379–80 (May 1979), 69. On the search for a national style in Polish architecture see also Andrzej Olszewski, “Poszukiwanie stylu narodowego w architekturze polskiej ostatniego stulecia” Architektura n. 2 (March 1977).

30

9780367860721_text.indb 30

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates Figure 1.2  Title page of Architektura, July 1982. Under the title architektura na rozdrożu (“Architecture at the Crossroads”) the issue contains an interview with Charles Jencks, a review of the 1980 architecture biennale in Venice, and discussions of postmodern theory.

subsequent course of postmodern architecture in Poland, which will be discussed in the next section. Similar approaches appeared in the July 1982 issue of Architektura, titled Architektura na rozdrożu (“Architecture at the Crossroads”)12 [Figure 1.2]. The Polish focus is best summarised in an article titled “On the Day after Modernism,” in which the author Daniel Karpiński pointed out that “the most important aspect of postmodernism is its attitude towards tradition.”13Along similar lines, Czesław 12 Architektura 36 n. 2 (July 1982) with contributions by Ada-Louise Huxtable, Charles Jencks and others. 13 Daniel Karpiński, “Nazajutrz po modernizmie” Architektura 36 n. 2 (July 1982), 32–35.

31

9780367860721_text.indb 31

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

Witold Krassowski (1917–85), a well-known professor at Warsaw Politechnika and designer of modernist buildings based on classical harmonies, set the new current in relation to past aesthetics and theorised “architecture as one of the beauxarts,” which should not only be based on harmonies and geometries but also on long-standing cultural traditions.14 By the early 1980s Polish architects were familiar with international postmodern theorists such as Robert Stern, Robert Venturi, and in particular Charles Jencks, who visited Poland twice and also gave interviews in Polish journals.15 However, there were few original texts in Polish, as of the best-known postmodern references only Umberto Eco’s 1968 La struttura assente [The Absent Structure] and Jencks’s 1977 The Language of Postmodern Architecture were translated before the end of socialism.16 But given the permeable borders many Poles read original English texts, while others turned to French or (West) German translations.17 There were also abbreviated summaries. The editors of Architektura, for example, in 1979 presented the ideas of Peter Eisenman, Robert Venturi, Philip Johnson, and Charles Moore and others not by translating their texts, but rather by summarising their ideas and reprinting journal articles from West Germany and the United States that reviewed their work.18 Through these translations and summaries international ideas became widely known, and at the same time subject to very selective reception. By and large, international postmodernism was read through the lens of domestic conditions and desires. Architektura, in particular under chief editor Andrzej Gliński from 1981 to 1987, promoted various architectural currents, both domestic and international, that grappled with the heritage of modernism. These included discourses explicitly referred to as postmodern, as the work of Jencks, Venturi, etc., but similarly neo-historical, neo-vernacular, or ecologist currents. Among the driving forces for Architektura’s turn towards contemporary theory were the new staff members 14 Czesław Witold Krassowski, “Piękno, sztuka, architektura” Architektura 36 n. 2 (July 1982), 87–88. 15 For example Charles Jencks, “Pluralism jest dobry na wszystko” (interview by Henryk Drzewiecki and Lech Kłosiewicz) Architektura 36 n. 2 (July 1982), 20–21. 16 Umberto Eco, Pejzaż semiotyczny (Warsaw: Arkady, 1972); Charles Jencks, Architektura postmodernistyczna, translated by Barbara Gadomska, (Warsaw: Arkady, 1987). Robert Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas was only translated in 2013, Christopher Alexander’s A pattern language in 2008, and Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City in 2011. 17 Jakub Wujek, for example, quotes Robert Venturi in French, “Une definition de l’architecture comme abri décoré” L’architecture d’aujourd’hui n. 197 (1978). 18 See for example Tadeusz Barucki’s one-page editorial “Co dalej?” p. 24, the article “Ostatnie dwadzieścia lat w architekturze” pp. 24–45, which is a shortened version of Paulhans Peters, “Aspekte einer neuen Freiheit in der Architektur” (published in Baumeister n. 12 1978, 1041–42), and “Żegnajcie szklane pudełka” pp. 46–53, a shortened version of Robert Hughes, “Doing their own thing” (published in Time Magazine 12 January 1979, 52–54), all in Architektura 33 (May 1979). See also Christian Norberg-Schulz, “Między niebem i ziemią—o zamieszkiwaniu” Architektura 38 n. 5 (September 1984), 42–47, which is a translation by Piotr Choynowski of a text that was later published in Christian Norberg-Schulz, The Concept of Dwelling (New York: Rizzoli, 1985).

32

9780367860721_text.indb 32

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

Jeremi Królikowski (since 1982) and Jacek Zielonka (since 1983), who were both in their thirties at the time.19 Królikowski, the deputy chief editor and responsible for culture, art, and criticism, had already previously published on architectural semiotics and aesthetic values.20 He was also an assistant to the previously mentioned theorist of architectural aesthetics, Czesław Witold Krassowski at Warsaw Politechnika. At the same time he had worked on the neo-historical Lord’s Mercy Church on Żytnia Street in Warsaw (rebuilt since 1978), along with Tomasz Turczynowicz, whose postmodern Łazienkowska Street Church will be discussed in Chapter 2. Among his first contributions after becoming a permanent member of staff was the programmatic article “Nic nowego” (Nothing New), in which he rejected imposing gestures and called for a renewed sensitivity to the meaning of place.21 Two years later, in January 1984 he co-edited the issue titled Czy mamy polską architecturę? (“Do We Have a Polish Architecture?”). The programmatic question referred to the discourses surrounding a book by Stefan Szyller of the same title, which was published in 1916 shortly before Poland became independent as a modern national state. Many Polish critics at the time took great pains to insert postmodernism into a traditional architectural historical canon. Some constructed their own narratives of twentieth-century high architecture with prominent West European or North American designers, including Jencks, Stern, and Venturi22 Others promoted the postmodern concern with meaning and symbolism through references to Palladio and Vignola, who had been central to architectural historical education in Poland. Another domestic point of reference was the aesthetic philosopher and political dissident Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886–1980), whom the socialist rulers had attempted to discredit as a “bourgeois idealist.”23 Venturi’s and Stern’s architectural semantics were also related to that of architect and conservationist Jan Sas-Zubrzycki (1860–1935), an advocate of an aesthetically sophisticated “high architecture” that is to be distinguished from other forms of building that develops from historic styles and that expresses a national identity.24 19 Maciej Miłobędzki, “Od gorsetu socbiurokracji do służby niewolników bez panów” [interview]Autoportret 54 n. 3 (2017). 20 Jeremi Królikowski, ”Elementy semiotyczne dzieła architektury,” Studia Semiotyczne 8 (1978), 165–81. Jeremi Królikowski, “Kilka uwag o wartosciach przestrzennych” Architektura 33 n. 3 (May-June 1980), 83–90. 21 Marta Herman, Jeremi Królikowski, Tomasz Turczynowicz, “Nic nowego” Architektura 36 n. 1/407 (May-June 1982), 71–75. 22 For example Jakub Wujek, Mity i utopie architektury XX wieku (Warsaw: Arkady, 1986), first published in chapters in Architektura 35 n. 1–4 (January-July 1983); Krystyna Januszkiewicz, “Nie Jencks wymyślił postmodernizm”Architektura 38 n. 3 (May 1984), 59–60; or Elżbieta Gieysztor-Miłobędzka, “Postmodernistyczne nieporozumienia na przykładzie architektury” Architektura 43 n. 3 (March 1989), 70–74. 23 Jakub Wujek, “Pięćdziesiąt lat później”Architektura 32 n. 3 (May 1980), 10–22; Andrzej Duszka and Jerzy Dziuba, “Architektura znaczenia” Architektura 32 n. 4 (July 1980), 86–95; Jeremi Królikowski, “Kilka uwag o wartosciach przestrzennych” Architektura 33 n. 3 (May 1980), 83–90. 24 Andrzej Duszka and Jerzy Dziuba, “Architektura znaczenia” Architektura 32 n. 4 (July 1980), 86–95.

33

9780367860721_text.indb 33

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

Such theorisations of postmodernism appeared to be far removed from architectural practice in late socialist Poland, where everyday life was characterised by continuous struggle with shortages, bureaucracy, and the limitations of the centralised economy. Architectural theorists and journalists largely blinded out any political dimension, possibly for fear of repression and censorship, but possibly also because engaging in a depoliticised aesthetical debate was a convenient way to reflect on contemporary architectural concerns and simultaneously maintain a critical distance from the socialist regime’s vacuous rhetoric. At the same time Polish architects, just as their colleagues around the world, attempted to transcend modern architecture and give a greater significance to history and tradition. These included some of the protagonists of interwar and early postwar modernism. Juliusz Żórawski (1898–1967), the architect of the famous Glass House in Warsaw of 1937 and a professor at Kraków Politechnika, in 1962 published a much-read handbook O budowie formy architektonicznej (On the Construction of Architectural Form), which married a sober high modernism with “eternal” classical principles of harmony and proportion, as well as with unchanging laws of architectural psychology along the lines of Heinrich Wölfflin and Max Wertheimer. Along similar lines Kraków Politechnika professor Włodzimierz Gruszczyński (1906–73), who in the 1960s theorised a functionalist miasto wstęgowe (ribbon city), at the same time promoted a regionalist “new Zakopane Style” with “emotional” historical references.25 Gruszczyński also coined the term “mushroom aesthetic” as a desirable architectural approach, referring to individualised aesthetic variations over the same theme, just as every individual mushroom is very different but still recognisable as belonging to the same species.26 Similar ideas were later brought forward by Aldo Rossi in his idea of the architectural type as a rule for the model, or by Vittorio Lampugnani in his call for common architecture as a continuous variation over the same themes.27 Several protagonists of Polish postmodernism discussed in this book explicitly acknowledged Gruszczyński’s influence on their own work, including Marek Budzyński, Stanisław Niemczyk, Henryk Buszko, and Witold Cęckiewicz. The influence of phenomenology on architecture since the 1970s, which in Anglo-American academia is often related to the teachings of Christian NorbergSchulz and Alberto Pérez-Gómez, entered the Polish discourse mainly through the Kraków-based philosopher and Edmund Husserl student Roman Ingarden (1893– 1970). Although not actively involved in architectural debates, Ingarden provided a vocabulary that was eagerly taken up by a generation of Polish architects 25 Emilia Kiecko Przyszłość do zbudowania. Futurologia i architektura w PRL (Warsaw: Bęc Zmiana, 2018). 96–100; see also Tomasz Węcławowicz and Agnieszka JankowskaMarzec, Architektura wzruszeniowa Włodzimierza Gruszczyńskiego (Kraków: Societas Vistulana, 1999). 26 Gruszczyński’s ideas are for example discussed in Wojciech Kosiński, “Regionalizm” Architektura 33 n. 399–400 (January-February 1981), 90. 27 Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City [1966] (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), 21; Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, “Die Provokation des Alltäglichen. Für eine neue Konvention des Bauens” Der Spiegel n. 51 (1993), 142–47.

34

9780367860721_text.indb 34

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

disappointed with modernism. His ideas about the architectural work as a scheme to be realised by the user, as well as his analyses of surface and appearance, famously reappear in the writings of Dariusz Kozłowski. Kozłowski was a professor of architecture at Kraków Politechnika and author of Kraków’s most prominent postmodern ensemble, the Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation (built 1985–93), which will be presented in Chapter 2.28 Ingarden’s ideas were also discussed in architectural periodicals.29 Also some of Ingarden’s family promoted new architectural currents: his son Janusz Ingarden (1923–2005) became the co-author of Nowa Huta, and his grandson Krzysztof Ingarden (born 1957) the (co-)designer of postmodern buildings such as the Manggha Museum in Kraków (1992–94, lead architect Arata Isozaki). These and other influences were discussed in circles of architectural practitioners, who often at the same time were university teachers. Examples included the groups around Ryszard Semka and Szczepan Baum in Gdańsk, Jakub Wujek in Łódź, Romuald Loegler in Kraków, or the “Warsaw group” around Marek Budzyński, Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski, and Olgierd Jagiełło.30 In a more idiosyncratic way, the Silesian “medieval postmodernist” Stanisław Niemczyk engaged in designing churches and residential ensembles based on pre-modernist references and typologies.31 His approach was mirrored by the Warsaw-based team around Tomasz Turczynowicz and Anna Bielecka.32 In some cases local politicians and public servants were strongly supportive of architectural innovation. Jerzy Ziętek (1901–85), party leader and administrative head of the Katowice area in the 1970s, promoted architects such as Aleksander Franta and Henryk Buszko and initiated numerous postmodern projects. Andrzej Gretschel, chief planner in Wrocław in the 1980s, became a driving force of postmodern infill buildings in the city centre. Jerzy Buszkiewicz, the previously mentioned chief architect of Poznań, did not only design the neo-traditional new town Zielone Wzgórza (begun 1982) but also promoted other postmodern designers, including Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski, whom he invited to Poznań in 1974.33 28 Roman Ingarden, “Das architektonische Kunstwerk” [first version written in 1928] in Untersuchungen zur Ontologie der Kunst: Musikwerk, Bild, Architektur, Film (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1962), 270–71; see for example Dariusz Kozłowski, Wacław Stefanski, “Koncepcja” [concept for the church Matki Bożej Saletyńskiej in Kraków], dated June 1983, pp. 5–6, Archiwum Urzędu Miasta Krakowa, Binder BA, Osiedle Cegielniana, Kos ́cio ł́ . 29 See for example the discussion of Ingarden’s “artistic values” in Jeremi Królikowski, “Kilka uwag o wartosciach przestrzennych” Architektura 33 n. 3 (May 1980), 83–90. 30 Ewa Przestaszewska-Porębska, “Nowy tradycjonalizm warszawski” Architektura 40 n. 4 (July 1986), 99–102 31 Anna Cymer, “Stanisław Niemczyk – postmodernista średniowieczny” in Lidia Klein, ed., Postmodernizm Polski. Architektura i urbanistyka. Antologia tekstow (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 268–327. 32 See for example Tomasz Turczynowicz et al. “Poszukiwania – Dom na Bednarskiej” Architektura 39 n. 6 (December 1984), 53–55. 33 Already in the 1970s he celebrated regional architecture as “the logic dictated by the context.” Jerzy Buszkiewicz, interview with Andrzej Bruszewski, Architektura 32 n. 3 (May 1979), 69–71.

35

9780367860721_text.indb 35

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

And Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, the head conservationist of Elbląg from 1975, was a driving force in the postmodern rebuilding of the war-destroyed Old Town in the 1980s. These individuals managed to stretch the boundaries of what was possible under the socialist regime, and thus facilitate the emergence of architectural innovation. THE POLISH SCHOOL OF HISTORIC CONSERVATION Postmodernism in Poland was influenced by the Polish school of historic conservation and the continuously high prestige of historic conservation in Poland compared to some other socialist countries. The Polish approach is often associated with Jan Zachwatowicz (1900–83), Poland’s first general conservator after the Second World War and professor at Warsaw Politechnika. Zachwatowicz initiated the rebuilding of Warsaw Old Town, which had been razed by the German invaders shortly before the end of the Second World War in an attempt to obliterate Polish cultural achievements. The Old Town and some of its surrounding areas were reconstructed (1945–63, design by Jan Zachwatowicz, Józef Sigalin, and others). It is the world’s only rebuilt Old Town declared a UNESCO World Heritage site—not as a monument to the medieval and early modern periods when the buildings were first erected, but rather to “the will of the [Polish] nation” and the “efficiency of restoration techniques of the second half of the twentieth century.”34 As such, Warsaw’s rebuilt historic core attained significance far beyond the conservationist context. Next to being a tourist destination and an educational experience for schoolchildren, it also contains mixed-use residential areas to date, which were, as previously mentioned, proudly presented as successful examples of contemporary urbanism. The project made Zachwatowicz a celebrity and popularised historic conservation far beyond professional circles. As a result, several of Zachwatowicz’s successors as general conservator became widely known, including Bohdan Rymaszewski (1935–2016), an influential theorist of Old Town conservation, and Wiktor Zin (1925–2007), a TV star and host of the programme Piórkiem i Węglem (With Pen and Coal), which in the 1960s and 1970s presented historical architecture to an enthusiastic general audience. Zachwatowicz justified the rebuilding, on the one hand, with the unprecedented destruction wreaked by modern warfare and, on the other hand, with the need to protect national culture and identity. His famous dictum that the wilful destruction of cultural values should never be accepted heralded a new era of conservationist practice.35 Against the non-interventionist tradition in historic conservation from John Ruskin to Georg Dehio, Zachwatowicz and his followers regarded the rebuilding of historical monuments as legitimate, but at the same time continued to stress the significance of authenticity and originality. 34 ICOMOS Poland, Request for inscription into the World Heritage List, dated 6 June 1978, online at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/30/documents/ (accessed January 2020). 35 Jan Zachwatowicz, ‘Program i zasady konserwacji zabytków’ Biuletyn Historii Sztuki i Kultury 8 n. 1–2 (1946), 48–52, here p. 48.

36

9780367860721_text.indb 36

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

This somewhat contradictory approach had its origins in the Polish response to the destructions of the First World War. During the 1920s, conservationists such as Jarosław Wojciechowski, Alfred Lauterbach, and Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz pointed the value of original building fabric, and simultaneously promoted replicas of destroyed monuments considered to be of national importance for the recently founded modern Polish state.36 These included the famous Old Town of Kalisz in Central Poland (rebuilt 1914–39, various architects) or the Gothic Collegiate Church at Wiślica in South Poland (rebuilt 1920s, Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz). Along with the objective of coming to terms with wartime devastation, the patriotic/ nationalist goals, which had been part and parcel of historic conservation all over Europe since the times of Viollet-le-Duc, remained strong in Poland throughout the twentieth century. After the Second World War, when Poland faced vastly larger destructions and at the same time extensive shortages in materials and labour, the principle of historically conscious rebuilding was only practised in select cases. They nonetheless became particularly significant for the national discourse and were widely publicised. Next to Warsaw Old Town these were the Old Market Square in Poznań (rebuilt 1946–56 after a design by Zbigniew Zieliński and others) and the historical city centre of Gdańsk (rebuilt since 1946, various architects). They also include the Zamek Królewski (Royal Palace) in Warsaw (1971–84, Jan Zachwatowicz, Stanisław Lorentz, Jan Bogusławiecki, and others), which was rebuilt under party leader Edward Gierek three decades after the German invaders had blown it up and can be considered the final project of the Warsaw Old Town rebuilding. The party rulers by and large supported the rebuilding and conservation of historic monuments. In Poland there were no cases such as the Royal Palace in East Berlin or the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, which were demolished by socialist ideologues as undesired relics of the feudal past. In particular during the period of Stalinist neo-classicism usually referred to as “socialist realism” or “socrealism” (approximately 1949–56), the Polish communists embraced historic conservation as a part of propagandistic cultural politics.37 They also continued to acknowledge the necessity to conserve pre-socialist monuments, including churches and aristocratic palaces. Zachwatowicz repeatedly pointed out, rather emotionally, that his licence to build historical copies derived from the particular condition of Poland as a victim of Nazi Germany’s destruction strategies and that “in the face of the tragic fate of our monuments we applied certain methods that were appropriate in such a situation.”38 At the same time the Polish approach paralleled a changing focus of the discipline all over the world. In the post-war period historical conservation 36 Bohdan Rymaszewski, Polska ochrona zabytków (Warsaw: Scholar, 2005), 54–59; Zachwatowicz, Jan, “O polskiej szkole odbudowy i konserwacji zabytkow” Ochrona Zabytków 34 n. 1–2 (1981), 8–10. 37 Piotr Majewski, Ideologia i konserwacja. Architektura zabytkowa w Polsce w czasach socrealizmu (Warszawa 2009), particularly 139–57. 38 Jan Zachwatowicz, “O polskiej szkole odbudowy i konserwacji zabytkow” Ochrona Zabytków 34 n. 1–2 (1981), 10.

37

9780367860721_text.indb 37

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

experienced an increasing destabilisation of authenticity.39 Internationally, conservationists turned away from the authentic architectural monument as a gold standard and increasingly focused on non-material aspects of heritage, such as memory, atmosphere, personal attachment, and cultural practice. The 1964 Venice Charter, of which Zachwatowicz was a co-author, for the first time established standards of protection for entire urban ensembles, which may only partially consist of authentic historical buildings. With the UNESCO’s Nara Document on Authenticity of 1994, which sanctioned multiple ways to assess cultural heritage, the Ruskinian ideal of centuries-old stones and mortar lost further significance. This Polish school of conservation pre-empted postmodernism in the sense that it accepted and promoted historically inspired architecture that was only to some degree similar to the original. Even the most “authentic” examples of postwar rebuilding, such as Warsaw Old Town and Poznań Market Square, were not exact historical copies. They were based on simplifications and adaptations to modern use, as well as on modifications aiming at a political message of national grandeur or cultural strength. This is noticeable, for example, in Warsaw residential buildings where eighteenth-century façades were combined with modern flats and large courtyards following the needs of twentieth-century residents.40 It is also evident in reconstructed monuments that supported a national narrative through stylistic purity. The most famous example is St John’s Cathedral in Warsaw’s Old Town (begun c. 1390, rebuilt 1945–56, Jan Zachwatowicz, Maria Piechotka, Kazimierz Piechotka), which was rebuilt in a “pure” Gothic style devoid of the copious eighteenth- and nineteenth-century modifications that were part of the building before its destruction in 1944.41 Similar ideas underpinned the reconstruction of the Old Market Square in Poznań, where it was connected to an idea of “Polish” Renaissance and baroque architecture as opposed to “German” nineteenth-century construction, a strategy also applied in the historic core of Gdańsk.42 Such politically motivated conservation/reconstruction determines the aspect of many Polish cities to date.43

39 Miles Glendinning, The Conservation Movement: A History of Architectural Preservation (London: Routledge, 2013), 446. 40 For example, the blocks between Świętojańska and Piwna in Warsaw’s Old Town, or the block containing the building Koźla 20–22 in Warsaw’s New Town (designed 1956 by Zofia Rożecka), State Archive Warsaw, collection MSW01, call number 44. 41 Marta Leśniakowska, Architektura w Warszawie (Warsaw: Arkady, third edition 2005), 12. 42 K.J., ‘Odbudowa Starego Rynku w Poznaniu’ Ochrona Zabytków 6 n. 2 (1949), 133; Jacek Friedrich, Odbudowa Głównego Miasta w Gdańsku w latach 1945–60 (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo słowo/obraz terytoria, 2015). 43 See for example Bohdan Rymaszewski, ‘Motywacje polityczne i narodowe związane z zabytkami’ in Andrzej Tomaszewski, Badania i ochrona zabytków w Polsce w XX wieku (Warsaw: Towarzystwo Opieki nad Zabytkami, 2000); Arnold Bartetzky, ‘History Revised: National Style and National Heritage in Polish Architecture and Monument Protection before and after World War II’ in Matthew Rampley, Heritage, Ideology and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe: Contested Pasts, Contested Presents (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2012), 93–113.

38

9780367860721_text.indb 38

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

As will be shown in Chapter 5, the applied historicism propagated by Polish conservationists influenced the architectural discourse far beyond the context of post-war rebuilding. In historic cities such as Elbląg or Gdańsk during the 1970s and 1980s, the venerated examples of creative historic conservation helped to popularise a historical design vocabulary and fuel an eclectic postmodernism that was no longer connected to the preservation of cultural identity or to a national resistance against the German invaders. Rather, it responded to contemporary needs, including urban development and regeneration. Also in practical terms the Polish school of historic conservation influenced the course of postmodern architecture. Unlike in some other socialist countries, in Poland the industrialization of the construction industry during the 1950s and 1960s had not been as comprehensive as to completely wipe out pre-modernist construction skills. Residual craft traditions were kept alive, for example, by teams of Góral (highlander) joiners from South Polish mountain villages, who were seasonally employed on construction sites all over the country and appreciated for their workmanship. The rise of historical conservation contributed to the continuity of such skills, which were crucial for the execution of postmodern design. The most important organisation for the promotion of traditional skills was the state-operated Pracownie Konserwacji Zabytków (PKZ, Historic Conservation Studios). PKZ was founded in 1951 under Zachwatowicz’s direction to carry out the Warsaw rebuilding, and over the years grew into a large institution with branches in numerous Polish cities. PKZ employees were sometimes also involved in postmodern design that had no conservation aspect, as will be shown in Chapter 3. PKZ had several thousand employees, which included both craftspeople and architects/conservationists, some of whom, like Zachwatowicz, at the same time also taught at university departments. Over the years PKZ carried out hundreds of projects in Poland and abroad. As Zachwatowicz pointed out, PKZ’s reputation was so high that the number of requests for international collaborations seriously limited its employees’ capacities to work in their own country.44 As such, PKZ helped to cultivate both the skills necessary for the execution of historically inspired details and the knowledge needed for an eclectic vocabulary, and thus significantly influenced the further course of architectural culture in Poland. IN SEARCH FOR TRUTH Przeistoczenie, one of the terms commonly used for the transition from socialism to capitalism in 1989, translates into both “transformation” and “transubstantiation,” the physical change of bread into the redeeming body of Christ during Mass according to Catholic belief. As unintentional as the spiritual double meaning might be it nonetheless points to an expectation that was widely shared at the time: that along with the hollow-ringing socialist regime a state of falsehood was to be removed in order to reveal a deeper truth. 44 Jan Zachwatowicz, “O polskiej szkole odbudowy i konserwacji zabytkow” Ochrona Zabytków 34 n. 1–2 (1981), 10.

39

9780367860721_text.indb 39

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

The search for truth was an important driver in oppositional activities aiming at demasking governmental misinformation. Official propaganda eagerly presented all aspects of socialist society as being based on socjalizm naukowy (“scientific socialism”), originally a term distinguishing Marx’s socio-economic theory from the utopian socialism of his predecessors. “Scientific socialism” came with the implication of an inherent and evidential superiority to any other way of interpreting the world, and somewhat added insult to injury on those who on a daily basis experienced the malfunctioning of overbureaucratised kombinaty (state-owned factories) and crumbling osiedla (housing complexes). on a daily basis. The term also damaged the convincing power of science and “scientific proof” for years to come and made many Poles particularly susceptible to ideas about a spiritual truth that lies beyond scientific or scholarly evidence. Against this background postmodern architecture in Poland came to be connected to a spiritual quest that was largely absent from postmodern currents in Western Europe or North America. Stefan Müller already in 1983 saw the search for a “deeper meaning” as the basic characteristic of Polish postmodernism.45 Along similar lines Polish émigré architect Andrzej Pinno (1927–2006) in 1980 called for “truth, goodness, and beauty in architecture” and demanded a synthesis between architecture and culture that was apparently absent in socialist modernism.46 And when in 1985 the well-known Kraków architect Romuald Loegler criticised socialist housing complexes as being devoid of artistic values and warned against “the death of culture,” he did not aim at a superficial aestheticism, but rather at a deeper humanist dimension beyond the functionality of “scientific socialism.”47 The search for truth also has to be understood in a context in which censorship and the suppression of free speech characteristic of any authoritarian regime were slowly eroding. In the 1970s the influence of the censorship authority Główny Urząd Kontroli Prasy, Publikacji i Widowisk (Central Control Office for Press, Publications and Public Performances) became less pressing. The journal Architektura would still not openly review new buildings or assess the state of the construction economy. Also the phenomenon of autocenzura (self-censorship), by which Poles for fear of repression deliberately kept themselves from criticising the government, continued at many levels.48 But theoretical debates were allowed to flourish.49 Some journals even started covertly denouncing censorship. 45 Stefan Müller, “Symbol i alegoria na przykładzie aktualnej architektury kościołów katolickich w Polsce” in Materiały pokonferencyjne seminarium SARP na temat architektury objektów sakralnych, Kazimierz Dolny 20/21 October 1983 (Warsaw: SARP, 1983) [conference proceedings]. 46 Andrzej Pinno, “Prawda, dobro, i piękno w architekturze” Architektura 32 n. 6 (November 1980), 83–86. 47 Romuald Loegler, “Rozmowa z Jeremim Kro ĺ ikowskim” Architektura n. 2 (1985), 28–30. 48 Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 17 November 2017. 49 Andrzej Basista, Betonowe Dziedzictwo – Architektura w Polsce czasów komunizmu (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2001), 52; Maciej Miłobędzki, architect,

40

9780367860721_text.indb 40

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

The independent Catholic journal Tygodnik Powszechny, for example, since 1980 marked censored passages with ostentatious hyphens and a reference to the censorship paragraph and continued to do so under martial law. Hence it became obvious, for example, that the critic Andrzej Basista was allowed to openly lash out at the partactwo (“incompetence”) of housing complex builders, while his ensuing praise of the famous late modernist Arka Pana Church (1967–77, Wojciech Pietrzyk), which had been a symbol of anti-government protest in Kraków-Nowa Huta, was cut short.50 Being able to state uncomfortable truths and not having to fear repressions, however, remained an aspiration that was not fulfilled until the end of the socialist regime. The search for truth beyond the obvious aligned with an Augustinian tradition in Christian teaching and was therefore an important aspect of religious architecture. But often it also extended into the secular sphere. A good example is the representation of the aforementioned Ascension Church in Warsaw-Ursynów by one of Poland’s best-known filmmakers, Krzysztof Kieślowski. In his 1988 movie Dekalog I, which was shot in the Ursynów housing complex, Kieślowski presents the computer as a false god and opponent of true faith.51 The antagonism is visualised by the contrast between Ursynów’s functionalist housing blocks and the postmodern Ascension Church that repeatedly appears in the background. The church is also the setting of the final scene, in which the protagonist, devastated by the death of his 12-year-old son, turns to faith. The cross-shaped entrance to the church contained the promise of a deeper truth beyond the fallacies of a scientific worldview, which lay at the bottom of the functionalist panel blocks, as well as socialist ideology in general, much like the protagonist’s “heretic” belief in the power of the computer. Kieślowski’s imagery evidences the symbolic dimension of postmodern architecture in the Polish context, in which a spiritual truth was pitched against the emptiness and superficiality not only of socialist everyday life but also of a secular existence as such. EXPRESSING NATIONAL IDENTITY From an early-twenty-first-century perspective, it is easy to interpret the last decades of socialism as a prelude to the subsequent outburst of national chauvinism under the Kaczyński brothers and their right-wing populist party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice), and, likewise, postmodernism as an expression of these tendencies. However, nationalism and the persistent search for national identity are not recent phenomena, but have been central to Polish culture since the nineteenth century. In contrast to what one might expect under a socialist regime, such ideas persisted throughout the post-war decades and became more apparent to the extent that socialism’s ideological impact was waning. conversation with the author, Warsaw, 25 July 2018; Grzegorz Buczek, former secretary of SARP, conversation with the author, 12 November 2018. 50 Andrzej Basista, “O polskości nowych świątyń” Tygodnik Powszechny 36 n. 49 (2 January 1983). 51 Krzysztof Kieślowski, Dekalog I, 1988, originally produced for Polish Television.

41

9780367860721_text.indb 41

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

Against this background, postmodern references to a “national past” were just as political as historicist or neo-vernacular currents had been in the interwar years or before the foundation of modern independent Poland in 1919. The concern with a regionalist vernacular, which in the 1890s had inspired the Zakopane Style as an expression of Polishness against Austro-Hungarian rule, once again spawned a discourse on Polish identity in the 1970s.52 The early-twentieth-century national historicism of the aforementioned Jan Sas-Zubrzycki was again considered relevant in 1980.53 The question “Do we have a Polish architecture?” which the architect and conservationist Stefan Szyller (1857–1933) asked in 1916, was once again discussed in the early 1980s, albeit no longer along the lines of Szyller’s affection for the Polish Renaissance.54 And the nationally influenced modernism of architect and conservationist Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz (1883–1948), who in the 1920s also led the conversion of the famous Wawel Castle in Kraków into a national monument, became a reference for many 1980s church designers.55 The commitment to “national tradition” offered a contrast to socialist rule that had never been successful in asserting its legitimacy. It also was a response to physical decay and economic insecurity. Along these lines in 1982, a year after the proclamation of martial law, the architect Aleksander Böhm pointed to the silhouettes of churches and chapels, which for centuries had been a “symbol of Polishness,” and called for a national appearance of new sacred buildings.56 A year later Andrzej Basista, an architectural historian and professor at Warsaw University, celebrated the “firework of forms” in postmodern churches as an expression of popular creativity and “Polishness” in contrast to the “international” modernism of the serially built residential complexes that often surrounded them.57 The effective association of the search for sense, meaning, and truth with “Polishness” relied on the fact that in Poland, in contrast to many other countries, the concept of a national tradition was always seen as an essential part of contemporary culture. The nation and national references retained unambiguously positive connotations throughout the twentieth century, to the extent that apparently antagonistic groups, such as Catholic Church officials and communist party functionaries, engaged in patriotic rhetoric with similar zeal. They appropriated similar concepts such as the historic continuity of the Polish nation and the need for continuous struggle against its real and imagined enemies. Particularly radical versions 52 Przemysław Szafer, “Architektura pasterska” Architektura 33 n. 5 (September 1979), 36–55; Wojciech Kosiński, “Regionalizm” Architektura 33 n. 1 (January 1981), 88–93. 53 Andrzej Duszka, Jerzy Dziuba, “Architektura znaczenia” Architektura 32 n. 4 (July 1980), 86. 54 “Czy mamy polską architekturę?” theme issue Architektura 38 n. 1 (January 1984), with an excerpt of Stefan Szyller, Czy mamy polską architekturę? (Warsaw: Rubieszewski & Wrotnowski, 1916). 55 Henryk Drzewiecki, “Ruch nowoczesny w architekturze sakralnej: nowość a tradycja myśli klasycznej” Architektura 37 n. 5 (September 1983), 18–24. 56 Aleksander Böhm, “Budować kościoły w Polsce” Tygodnik Powszechny 36 n. 49 (5 December 1982), 7. 57 Andrzej Basista, “O polskości nowych swiatyń” Tygodnik Powszechny 37 n. 1 (2 January 1983), 4.

42

9780367860721_text.indb 42

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

of this narrative were used, for example, by the “national communists” under party leader Władysław Gomułka (in office 1956–70), who in the row over the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops in 1965 fashioned themselves as protectors of the fatherland against an allegedly traitorous internationalist Church. Ironically, many Church officials at the time used similar rhetoric and claimed that socialism, like any non-Catholic religion or ideology, was “un-Polish” and an expression of detrimental foreign influence.58 Simultaneously, large portions of the left-leaning secular opposition engaged in a search for national identity as an alternative to socialism and related national narratives to the struggle for political freedom against authoritarian socialist rule. Along these lines, the national thread came to be one of the distinctive aspects of postmodern architecture. It distinguished Polish postmodernism, for example, from that in Britain or the United States and accounted for much of its socio-political impact at the time. THE POST-FUNCTIONALIST CITY The Polish discourse over postmodernism, like that in many West European countries, was also connected to the revision of the functionalist city and the rise of postmodern planning principles such as density, functional mixture, and visual historicity. Such criticism became mainstream around 1980 and despite censorship subject of open debate: the popular magazine Stolica denounced “the aesthetic crime of large-panel construction”59; the editorial team of Architektura asked “Why is big no longer beautiful?”60; and the architect Marek Budzyński pointed out that “the industrialization of the construction industry was a catastrophe.”61 In Poland, however, there was no Pruitt-Igoe demolition and no Ronan Point disaster that turned public opinion decidedly against modernist blocks. Serially designed housing complexes on the periphery were built until the end of the socialist regime and beyond, and given the ongoing housing shortage, flats in such buildings remained sought after and to a certain extent continue to be to date. 58 See for example Brian Porter-Szücs, Poland in the Modern World (Chichester: Wiley, 2014), 248–50 or Faith and Fatherland – Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 328–59. Even in the 1970s party documents are full of patriotic rhetoric, conjuring “the development of the Polish nation.” See for example Minutes of the Politburo Meeting on meeting on 2 October 1979. Projekt Wytycznych na VIII Zjazd PZPR “O dalszy rozkwit socjalistycznej Polski, o rozwój narodu polskiego” Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “PZPR, KC, Biuro Polityczne” V/153, vol. 4 (October-December). 59 Waldemar Łysiak, “Estetyczna zbrodnia wielkiej płyty” Stolica 34 n. 38 (23 September 1979), 14. 60 Jerzy Hryniewicki, Tadeusz Szumielewicz, Maciej Krasiński, Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński, Andrzej Trojanowski, “Dlaczego duże już nie jest piękne?” Architektura 32 n. 1 (January 1980), 4–77. 61 Marek Budzyński, “Trochę wolności, trochę czasu…” [interwiew with Hanna Krall] Tygodnik Powszechny 36 n. 49 (5 December 1982), 7. For open criticism of panel construction see also Halina Zielińska, “Wielka płyta: Jak odzyskać kapitał?” Architektura 36 n. 3 (September 1982), 21–22.

43

9780367860721_text.indb 43

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

A lasting policy change is only evidenced by the fact that no new housing complexes were planned after the mid-1970s, which was related as much to growing criticism of panel construction as it was to the slumping economy that simply would no longer allow for large state investment. From the perspective of the political decision-makers, the choice to promote a neo-traditional infill on a gap site in the inner city as opposed to a modernist panel block on the periphery was often merely pragmatic and based on the smaller size of the infill.62 At a theoretical level, the Polish response to the shortcomings of functionalist urban design was an increasing concern with a “hospitable” living environment, which at the time was also theorised by Dutch structuralists such as Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger and which was noticeable all over Europe.63 In the 1970s Budzyński and his team attempted to diversify system-built construction in their plan for Warsaw-Ursynów-North. They adopted particular aspects of such anti-functionalist criticism, such as the search for a heterogeneous “spatial grammar” theorised by Christopher Alexander and the goal to involve diverse actors in the planning and construction process. They aimed to create what in the Polish context was referred to as przestrzeń kameralna (“chamber space”), small-scale interconnected sequences of space designed to generate cosiness and familiarity.64 Along similar lines, in 1974 the then 26 years old Czesław Bielecki passionately criticised mass housing complexes and top-down planning.65 He soon became a prominent architect and regular contributor to Architektura. Bielecki promoted historical continuity and a city of multiple principles, which paralleled the ideas famously expressed in Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter’s Collage City.66 After being jailed in the 1980s for participation in the Solidarity protests, he founded one of Poland’s first private architectural practices and subsequently designed some wellknown postmodern buildings. Some of the older generation of modernist practitioners shared the new ideas and aimed at transcending functionalist urban design. Kazimierz Wejchert (1912– 93), the Warsaw-based lead architect of the modernist new town Nowe Tychy (begun 1951) and, along with his wife Hanna Adamczewska-Wejchert (1920–96), an influential teacher at Warsaw Politechnika, published his version of an urbanism beyond the functionalist automotive city in 1974. His manual Elements of Urban Composition focuses on composition and user perception, which he justifies through close reading of medieval and early modern cities.67 Wejchert’s book exemplifies the transnational travel of ideas that would transcend functionalist urbanism. His references include Kevin Lynch and Jane Jacobs, which he read in 62 Tadeusz Szumielewicz, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 3 January 2020. 63 Florian Urban, The New Tenement (London: Routledge, 2018), 51–54. 64 Lidia Pańkow, Bloki w słońcu – mała historia Ursynowa Północnego (Sękowa: Czarne, 2016), 52–54 and 66. Christopher Alexander also figures prominently in Bielecki’s criticism Czesław Bielecki, “Zdepczemy osiedla i trawniki,” Polityka 18 n. 32 (1974), 3. 65 Ibid. 66 Czesław Bielecki, “Ciągłość w architekturze” Architektura n. 3–4 (1978), 26–75. 67 Kazimierz Wejchert, Elementy kompozycji urbanistycznej (Warsaw: Arkady, 1974), German translation Elemente der städtebaulichen Komposition (East Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen, 1979).

44

9780367860721_text.indb 44

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

(West) German translations, as well as the works of art psychologists and art theorists from both East and West, including Rudolf Arnheim, László Moholy-Nagy, Władysław Strzemiński, and Włodzimierz Szewczuk. An East German edition of the book was published in 1979 and widely read among Eastern bloc architects in search for inspiration beyond the socialist housing complex. Wejchert relied on his earlier investigations on Polish small towns published in 1947, in which he had already developed ideas about genius loci and individual character.68 To a certain extent the postmodern urban environments conceptualised in the 1980s, including Elbląg’s Old Town discussed in Chapter 5, or the Warsaw-Ursynów Arcades and the new town Zielone Wzgórza near Poznań mentioned in chapter 6, result from these discourses. Also Edmund Goldzamt (1922–90), who in the 1950s was an ideological leader of Stalinist neo-classicism and later designed modernist buildings, in his 1971 book Urbanism of Socialist Countries promoted historical continuity and the value of pre-modernist architecture. Like Weichert’s, his book was soon translated and widely read across socialist countries.69 The criticism of functionalist urbanism was supported by a thriving discourse over the values of urban space, both modernist and pre-modernist, which was influenced by Henri Lefebvre and connected with sociologists and cultural theorists such as Bohdan Jałowiecki, Jadwiga Sławińska, and Aleksander Wallis.70 Wallis analysed cultural processes in architecture and urbanism, promoting distinctive, small-scale spaces in historic city centres as “areas of intense feelings and tensions.”71 The debate on the value of pre-modernist urbanism picked up in the 1980s, particularly in light of the progressive neglect of historic city centres and the disappointing results of tabula rasa reconstruction in many war-destroyed towns and cities.72 Calls for continuity and diversity led both to a greater concern with pre-modern urban buildings and the planning principles on which they relied.73 68 Kazimierz Wejchert, Miasteczka polskie jako zagadnienie urbanistyczne (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Odbudowy, 1947). 69 Edmund Goldzamt, Urbanistyka krajów socjalistycznych—problemy społeczne (Warsaw: Arkady, 1971), German translation Städtebau sozialistischer Länder— soziale Probleme (East Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen, 1974), revised Russian version Gradostroityelnaya kultura evropeiskikh sotsialisticheskikh stran (Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1985). 70 Jadwiga Sławińska, Ruchy protestu w architekturze współczesnej (Wrocław: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wrocławskiej, 1995); Bohdan Jałowiecki, Społeczne wytwarzanie przestrzeni (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1988); Aleksander Wallis, Kultura i więź przestrzenna (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1978). See also Łukasz Stanek, Henri Lefebvre on Space (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2011). 71 Aleksander Wallis, Kultura i więź przestrzenna (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1978), 164 72 See for example “Problemy rewaloryzacji” Architektura 32 n. 4 (July 1979); “Zakresy rewaloryzacji” Architektura 32 n. 1 (January 1980), 4-79; Andrzej Bruszewski, Witold Cęckiewicz, Romuald Loegler, Stanislaw Demko et al. “Odnowa historycznej architektury”Architektura 32 n. 6 (November 1980), 7–51. 73 Wojciech Kosiński, “Nowa urbanistyka – miejskość, ciągłość, wielość” Architektura 38 n. 4 (July 1984), 35–39

45

9780367860721_text.indb 45

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Architectural Debates

Over the following years, critics repeatedly pointed out the increasing significance of post-functional urbanism and the renaissance of traditional streets and squares.74 In light of economic shortages and bureaucratic inefficiency, most of these approaches remained unrealised paper architecture. A few examples, however, were begun in the 1980s and generated spectacular new urban environments. Those included the Ursynów Arcades at the centre of the Warsaw-Ursynów housing complex, the rebuilt Old Town of Elbląg near Gdańsk, and the New Town of Zielone Wzgórza near Poznań, which will all be discussed in Chapter 5. The architectural discourse in 1980s Poland was indicative of a country in which creative energy and a strong desire for change met with political restrictions and limited economic possibilities. Despite these limitations, architects and theorists nonetheless prepared the intellectual grounds for a revised architectural practice, in which select themes of international postmodernism were appropriated to reflect local conditions and cultural dispositions, including spiritual longings, national aspirations, and the hope to overcome functionalist urban design.

74 Ewa Przestaszewska-Pore b̨ ska, “Nowa utopia? Polska myśl urbanistyczna lat osiemdziesiątych na tle tendencji powojennych” Architektura 41 n. 3 (May 1987), 12–21 and “Postmodernizm w niedzielę—uwagi o najnowszej polskiej urbanistyce” Architektura 43 n. 3 (May 1989), 75–78; Barbara Buldys, “Czy postmodernizm w Krakowie?” Architektura 43 n. 2 (March 1989), 16–27.

46

9780367860721_text.indb 46

04/11/20 9:19 PM

2 Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter discusses the socio-political conditions that informed the design of well-known postmodern churches, such as the Ascension Church in WarsawUrsynów (1980–85, Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, and Piotr Wicha), St Jadwiga in Kraków-Krowodrza Górka (1983–89, Romuald Loegler and Jacek Czekaj), Our Lady Queen of Poland in Głogów (1985–89, Marian Fikus, Jerzy Gurawski) or the Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation (1985–93, Dariusz Kozłowski, Wacław Stefański, Maria Misiągiewicz). These buildings reveal the mechanisms of architectural change under the declining socialist regime in connection with an increasing influence of the Catholic Church. The chapter will also focus on postmodern historicism as a signifier for lasting values that transcended the mundane socialist everyday life and as a vehicle for national/patriotic narratives that are influential in Poland to date.1 THE ASCENSION CHURCH IN WARSAW-URSYNÓW Walking through the centre of Ursynów, a typical modernist housing complex on Warsaw’s southern periphery, one is taken by surprise. On a small square, off a six-lane thoroughfare flanked by serial ten-storey high-rises, stands the opulent Kościół Wniebowstąpienia Pańskiego (Ascension Church) [Figure 2.1]. It boasts a curved, quasi-baroque façade with two stubby Romanesque columns in the centre that flank a huge, lavishly ornamented cross, which at the same time serves as the main entrance. The church is part of a greater ensemble that includes a church hall, a presbytery, and other adjacent buildings with similar historically inspired details: a bell-tower reminding a medieval city gate [Figure 2.2], a side entrance with a flamboyant flight of steps, columns with natural stone plinths, 1 This chapter is derived in part from the author’s article “Postmodern Architecture Under Late Socialism – The Ascension Church in Warsaw-Ursynów,” Journal of Architecture, 25 n. 3 (2020), 1–30, DOI 10.1080/13602365.2020.1758747

47

9780367860721_text.indb 47

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.1 Ascension Church in Warsaw-Ursynów (1980– 85, Marek Budzyński and Piotr Wicha) (author).

and a facsimile of a historic well. The ensemble was not, as one might assume, an addition of the post-socialist period, but rather begun in 1980, ten years after the district was founded and nine years before the collapse of the socialist regime. The contrast to the bleak prefabricated panel blocks in the wider area is even more astonishing when one learns that both share the same designers. And yet, as will be argued later, the seemingly paradoxical ensemble is much more characteristic of the conditions in late socialist Poland than one might expect. Figure 2.2 Belltower, Ascension Church (author).

48

9780367860721_text.indb 48

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.3 Father Tadeusz Wojdat, parish priest of the Ascension Church, with construction workers, c. 1981 (courtesy T. Wojdat).

The church was the work of several committed individuals, including a recently appointed (in 1975) parish priest in his thirties, Father Tadeusz Wojdat [Figure 2.3], and a strong-minded architect of the same age, Marek Budzyński, who had been the lead architect of the Ursynów estate since 1971 and worked with a team of similarly young architects, among them Zbigniew Badowski and Piotr Wicha. Their enthusiasm and their unusual collaboration under adverse conditions underpinned the Ascension Church’s unorthodox design, which soon rose to prominence at a national scale. With its traditional typology, historical quotations, and conspicuous ornamentation the Ascension Church is an outstanding example of how postmodern sacred architecture marked the spaces that the ailing socialist regime was increasingly unable to occupy. Like other churches that will be introduced in this chapter, they were the most conspicuous signifiers for a growing importance of religious life, and at the same time for a forward-looking urbanism promoting social cohesion. As the centrepiece of a planned mixed-use ensemble around the Ursynów Arcades, which will be discussed in Chapter 6, the Ascension Church also contributed to the proliferation of city planning principles, such as small scale, incremental growth, and the involvement of heterogeneous actors. From the very beginning the Ascension Church was a mediated building, which to some extent owed its prominence to the numerous interviews that the architects gave over the course of four decades.2 The building is also mentioned in 2 Marek Budzyński, “Trochę wolności, trochę czasu…” [interview] Tygodnik Powszechny 36 n. 49 (5 December 1982), 7; Marek Budzyński and Piotr Wicha, “Kościół na Ursynowie Północnym w Warszawie” [interview] Architektura 36 n. 1 (May 1982), 61–69; Marek Budzyński, Anna Koziołkiewicz and Piotr Wicha, “Pasaż Ursynowski” [interview Architektura 38 n. 1 (January 1984), 32–2, 42–2; Marek Budzyński et al.,

49

9780367860721_text.indb 49

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

several local histories of the Ursynów housing complex.3 Against this background, this chapter will show that the design of the church evolved from a discursive context that was not only different from capitalist Western Europe but also, for example, from neighbouring socialist East Germany. A HOUSE OF PRAYER IN A SOCIALIST COMPLEX For the socialist authorities, the foremost bone of contention was not the extraordinary design of the church, but rather the construction of a sacred building as such. By the standards of the time, Father Tadeusz Wojdat’s four-year-long fight for a construction permit was comparatively short and evidences the beginning liberalisation of party politics towards sacred architecture. For Wojdat the project was first of all a practical necessity in light of a rapidly growing congregation. But it also reflected the struggle over the symbolic occupation of public space in the new housing complexes, in which the Catholic Church in the long run prevailed.4 In February 1976 Wojdat first approached the First Secretary of the Warsaw Party Committee, Józef Kępa.5 His request appeared on the Warsaw Curia’s list of construction projects as early as September 1978.6 A month later, Warsaw’s Mayor, Jerzy Majewski, was formally notified.7 Governmental consent for the construction of a church was given in March 1980.8 Shortly afterwards Wojdat chose Budzyński as designer, first and foremost, because the project would have been hard to realise with anyone but the housing complex’s lead architect, who was well connected and headed a large team.9 Budzyński at the time was not closely associated with the Church, although later in his life he referred to himself as a practicing Catholic.10 In “Najbardziej ludzka sypialnia—Ursynów trzydzieści lat później” Architektura-Murator n. 6 (2005) 64–72; Marek Budzyński, “Rozmowa” in Alicja Gzowska and Lidia Klein, Postmodernizm Polski – Rozmowy z Architektami (Kraków: Stowarzyszenie 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 5–60. 3 See for example Krzysztof Mycielski, “Ursynów wczoraj i dziś” Archtektura Murator n, 12 (1998), 46–49; Lidia Pańkow, Bloki w słońcu – mała historia Ursynowa Północnego (Sękowa: Czarne, 2016); Andrzej Rogiński, Historia Ursynowa – Okiem dziennikarza (Warszawa: Południe, 2017). 4 Such symbolic occupations were, for example, the “field Masses,” unauthorised open-air gatherings at which a priest celebrated a Mass. This was a frequent practice in 1980s Poland and often related to popular protest. See for example memorandum dated 24 April 1987, Urząd Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy Wydział do Spraw Wyznań, Budownictwo sakralne i kościelne 1985–89, Archiwum Państwowe w Warszawie 72/2305, call number 30, p. 103. 5 Tadeusz Wojdat, quoted in Kazimierz Kłos, “Kościół na Ursynowie,” WTK Tygodnik Katolicki (Warsaw) n. 3, 18 January 1981, 1–3. 6 Józef Jaroń, vice-director of the Wydział do Spraw Wyznań, Warsaw City Administration, Memorandum “Tezy do rozmów z biskupem Jerzym Modzelewskim” dated 8 September 1978 (after the talk) Archiwum Akt Nowych, Urząd do Spraw Wyznań 108/15, p. 27. 7 Tadeusz Wojdat, letter to Jerzy Majewski, Mayor of Warsaw, dated 18 October 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Urząd do Spraw Wyznań 108/18, p. 201. 8 Wydział do Spraw Wyznań, Warsaw City Administration, Archiwum Państwowe Warsaw 72/2305, p. 9. 9 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 September 2018. 10 Marek Budzyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 August 2018.

50

9780367860721_text.indb 50

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.4 Ascension Church, construction site, c. 1981 (courtesy T. Wojdat).

late July 1980 Chief architect Tadeusz Szumielewicz confirmed the exact location, and in October Wojdat’s parish was granted property rights.11 In September 1980 the project was presented to the Warsaw Curia.12 Planning permission was eventually given in December 1980.13 A few weeks later, in January 1981, construction started—less than a year before the proclamation of martial law [Figure 2.4]. The conspicuous location, one of the foremost symbolic aspects of the building, resulted from Budzyński’s negotiating skills at a crucial moment. The architect remembered this as being facilitated by a helpful coincidence.14 In the spring of 1980, the authorities had already approved the construction of a church but had not yet agreed on a location. Budzyński learned that a commercial centre, which originally had been planned for the site, was cancelled. At a meeting with members of the Warsaw Party Committee, he therefore asked to be given this site and in return was asked whether he was the brother of a high-ranking party official called Budzyński. He wasn’t, but remained silent, which his interlocutors interpreted as a yes. In retrospect Budzyński was convinced that this helped to gain the approval for the location, which was given in July 1980. Whether or not this speculation is accurate, the socialist rulers would have had good reasons to give in to a popular request at this particular moment. A few 11 Andrzej Rogiński, Historia Ursynowa – Okiem dziennikarza (Warszawa: Południe, 2017), 37; Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, 6 September 2018. 12 Opinion by the session of the Kuria Metropolitalna, dated 23 September 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248. 13 Kazimierz Kłos, “Kościół na Ursynowie”, WTK Tygodnik Katolicki (Warsaw) n. 3, 18 January 1981, 1–3. 14 Magdalena Kaczorowska and Andrzej Kaczorowski, Pierwszy na Ursynowie – Ks. Prałat Tadeusz Wojdat i Kościół Wniebowstąpienia Pańskiego (Warsaw: Self-published, 2015), 43.

51

9780367860721_text.indb 51

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

weeks earlier the first strikes had broken out near the city of Lublin and rapidly spread across the country. The workers demanded lower food prices and political freedom and put the regime under increasing pressure. In August 1980, the government signed the Gdańsk Agreement and was forced to recognise Solidarity as the first independent trade union in the Eastern bloc. In September 1980 Edward Gierek was removed from power and for a brief period replaced by Stanisław Kania, who previously, as Head of the Central Committee’s “Confession Policy Team,” had been in charge of party policy towards the Church. For more than a year, until the declaration of martial law in December 1981, the power of the political opposition was continuously on the rise. Under these conditions, facilitating a building desired by many aligned with other concessions that the rulers readily made in their attempt to calm the protesters. The subsequent discussions over the design of the Ascension Church took place during this politically unsettled period and were certainly influenced by the general spirit of hope and renewal. Budzyński produced the first model in the summer of 1980.15 The design was then accepted first by the Rada Parafialna (Parish Council), a local advisory board of which Wojdat was a member. A Styrofoam model was exhibited at the old church and according to Wojdat did not generate any major controversies.16 After that came the official consultations with the Church hierarchy. These stretched over more than a year and continued after construction had already started. It was during this phase that the most conspicuous postmodern elements were finalised. These include the flat brick façade, the “entrance through the cross,” the medieval-style bell tower, and the large square that became essential for the urban integration of the church building. A change in Church leadership became an important factor. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Archbishop of Warsaw and Primate of Poland, died in May 1981. His successor Józef Glemp, according to observers, was more open to architectural innovations than Wyszyński had been and eventually approved the design. 17 The next tiers of approval were the municipal Department of Architecture and Urbanism and, most importantly, Chief architect Tadeusz Szumielewicz, who in retrospect does not recall any controversies over the unusual design.18 These were not independent authorities, but reliant on the decisions of the Warsaw Party Committee. Both the Mayor, Jerzy Majewski, and the First Secretary of the Warsaw Party Committee, Alojzy Karkoszka (Kępa had been removed from this post after the 1976 strikes), were presented with architectural drawings through the Warsaw Curia. However, neither the architect nor the client recalls any exertion of influence on the part of the party.19 By and large, party officials tended to 15 Ibid., 43-46; Marek Budzyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 August 2018. 16 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018. 17 The significance of Glemp’s opinion was confirmed by both Budzyński and Wojdat. Marek Budzyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 August 2018; Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 September 2018. 18 Tadeusz Szumielewicz, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 3 January 2020. 19 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018, Marek Budzyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 August 2018.

52

9780367860721_text.indb 52

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

respect Cardinal Glemp’s and the Church hierarchy’s design decisions once they had granted permission to build a church.20 Hence, the most significant discussions at a level beyond that of the architect and his team took place within Church institutions. Somewhat surprisingly, however, these were rather mundane and focused mostly on functional details, such as entrance locations or the connection of particular buildings with the surroundings, and not, as one might expect, the appropriate representation of Christian faith or the image of the Catholic Church in times of political upheaval.21 A forum for these debates was the Rada Prymasowska do Budowy Kościołów (Primate’s Council for Church Construction), a Warsaw-based organisation within the Church composed of architects and other lay experts and chaired by Bishop Jerzy Modzelewski.22 The responsible committee for discussing the design of particular parish churches was the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej (Warsaw Archdiocese Commission on Art and Architecture), which assembled a selection of Primate’s Council members. Those present at the meetings of the Archdiocese Commission were in the majority architects and engineers, in addition to Bishop Modzelewski.23 There is evidence that also in the Church context Budzyński’s assertiveness was crucial for getting the unusual design approved. The Archdiocese Commission discussed his proposal at seven meetings, which stretched over two years and, as one can read in the minutes, were characterised by repeated outbreaks of temper.24 Commission member Lech Dunin, for example, pointed out that “any proposal for change suggested by the commission was received by the architects in an authoritatively negative way, requiring long discussions.”25 Architecture professor Tadeusz Zieliński called the large homogeneous facade “unrealisable” and insufficiently connected to the section. And his colleague Bolesław Szmidt called 20 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, 6 September 2018. 21 See for example Minutes of the meeting of the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, dated 26 March 1981 and 11 September 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248. Architect Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński remembered the level of debate as rather low. Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 27 November 2018. 22 The Primate’s Council had grown out of the consultative commission for the rebuilding of churches destroyed in the Second World War; its remit ranged from publishing calendars and bulletins to giving loans to churches for renovations. It had about 30 members, including Bolesław Szmidt, the co-founder of the Liverpool School of Architecture during the Second World War; Mieczysław Twardowski, the author of the standard work on church construction published by the council; church architect Władysław Pieńkowski; and Warsaw Politechnika lecturer Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński. Rada Prymasowska Budowy Kościołów Warszawy, members list 1980–85, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 59. 23 See for example Minutes of the meeting of the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, dated 26 March 1981 and 11 September 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248. Members included the architects Bolesław Szmidt, Władysław Pieńkowski, Lech Dunin, Tadeusz Zieliński, and the priest Edward Żmijewski. 24 Minutes of the meeting of the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, dated 11 September 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248. 25 Ibid.

53

9780367860721_text.indb 53

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.5 Ascension Church, drawing, published in 1981 (Archiwum Akt Nowych Warsaw, repository Urząd do Spraw Wyznań 108/18).

Budzyński’s design “very bad architecture” that “tries to turn scenographic shots into sacred architecture.” At the same time parish priest Wojdat pushed for swift approval and stressed that further delay would put the whole project in danger.26 Hence, it seems that also for the Church a new sacred building was more significant than any particular formal expression, as it was poised to seize the moment and settle design controversies in the interest of rapid execution. The controversy in the commission was explicitly not rooted “in the general conception that stands in contrast to modern design,” but rather in the difference and quantity of the forms “provoking disquiet,” in particular the presbytery.27 The commission also asked to replace the cross-shaped entrance/window, one of the building’s most distinctive features, with a solid cross.28 In all these aspects, the architects eventually prevailed, making only symbolic concessions. While design discussions were still not settled, the church was already under construction. Moreover, the first drawings had already been published in January 1981 in the Catholic newspaper Tygodnik Katolicki, showing the façade more or less as it was eventually built, a column-lined presbytery and a tall helm-roofed bell tower (both presbytery and bell tower were later modified) [Figure 2.5 and Figure 2.6]. The reviewer enthusiastically praised the homogeneous façade with the cross-shaped entrance.29 Budzyński’s tenaciousness in the end led to the approval of his bold façade, whose “speaking” qualities were soon commonly understood according to the much-repeated motto “through the cross to salvation.”30 Eventually the commission reluctantly signed off on the design on 11 September 1981, about nine months after construction had begun, and appointed Zieliński and Kucza-Kuczyński as

26 Ibid. 27 Minutes of the meeting of the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, dated 26 March 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248. 28 Ibid. 29 Kazimierz Kłos, “Kościół na Ursynowie”, WTK Tygodnik Katolicki (Warsaw) n. 3, 18 January 1981, 1-3. 30 The motto does not appear in any planning document, but has been widely used since the early 1980s. Ibid.

54

9780367860721_text.indb 54

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.6 Ascension Church, drawing of interior, still with traditional columns, published in 1981 (Archiwum Akt Nowych Warsaw, repository Urząd do Spraw Wyznań 108/18).

consultants to give the architects further guidance—probably a largely symbolic measure.31 Construction went on and was mostly completed by 1985. The debates show the strengthened position of the Catholic Church at the time, whose right to design and occupy conspicuous urban spaces was less and less contested by the socialist authorities. Budzyński was even allowed to publicly state what had become increasingly noticeable. In a 1982 interview in the official journal Architektura, which was given under martial law and probably would not have made it through the censorship organs in the Soviet Union or East Germany, he pointed out that “in the nearest future… the church will become the most important building in Ursynów. There is no other function that could compete with the church.”32 SEMIOTICS AND PATRIOTISM The design of the Ascension Church exemplifies the impact of postmodern theory despite the conspicuous absence of the term “postmodern” in the project’s early phase. None of the early reviewers mentions the word, and neither did it appear in any planning document. At the same time, the building’s most debated stylistic innovations reflect the selective reception of international postmodernism discussed in Chapter 1: semiotic qualities and the ability of the building to “speak,” as well as the ostentatious eclecticism and the references to particular historic styles. 31 Minutes of the meeting of the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, 11 September 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248. 32 Marek Budzyński and Piotr Wicha [interview] “Kościół na Ursynowie Północnym w Warszawie” Architektura 36 n. 1 (May 1982), 65

55

9780367860721_text.indb 55

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.7 Stairs to the side entrance, Ascension Church— according to some a reference to the perron at the famous late-sixteenthcentury palace in Baranów Sandomierski/South Poland (author).

Whenever non-modernist qualities became the subject of broader discussion, it was under the umbrella of “national tradition” or polskość (Polishness). In January 1981, when construction had barely started, a journalist praised the “intentional reference to the tradition of Polish sacred architecture.”33 Similar interpretations could soon be read all over. The journal Architektura in 1982 observed that the altar wall was reminiscent of counter-reformation–age churches in the Małopolska region, and the exterior stairs [Figure 2.7] referred to the late-sixteenth-century Baranów Palace, a schoolbook image of national glory and a remnant of a purported “Golden Age.”34 Critic Henryk Drzewiecki in 1983 praised the rootedness in Polish tradition and that the fieldstones in the entrance gave the façade a “native beauty” (rodzime piękno).35 Art critic Paweł Giergoń called Budzyński “the most Polish of all architects.”36 And also priest Wojdat saw “Polishness” as one of the foremost design qualities. He praised the references to “old Polish architecture” and to “values particular to Polish history.”37 In addition, the architects pointed to intentional references to a national tradition. Architect Piotr Wicha saw historic references as particularly significant in a country where “tradition has been destroyed so many times,” and Budzyński even described his

33 Kazimierz Kłos, “Kościół na Ursynowie”, WTK Tygodnik Katolicki (Warsaw) n. 3, 18 January 1981, 1–3. 34 “Kościół na Ursynowie Północnym w Warszawie” Architektura 36 n. 1 (May 1982), 61–69. 35 Henryk Drzewiecki, “Ruch nowoczesny w architekturze sakralnej: nowość a tradycja myśli klasycznej” Architektura 37 n. 5 (September 1983), 23. 36 Paweł Giergoń, quoted in Lidia Pańkow, Bloki w słońcu – mała historia Ursynowa Północnego (Sękowa: Czarne, 2016), 208. 37 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018.

56

9780367860721_text.indb 56

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

design as “related to the Polish constitution of 1791,” possibly as an oblique reference to the historic achievements of the Polish nation.38 This interpretation of historical quotations was very different from, for example, the situation in East Germany, where neo-historical forms catered to a non-specific nostalgic longing, but at the same time sought to avoid references to a national past haunted by memories of Nazi crimes or working-class misery.39 In Poland, by contrast, the nation and national references retained unambiguously positive connotations throughout the late twentieth century. Against economic insecurity and ideological uncertainty there was a vision of national unity under the guidance of the Catholic Church. Along those lines, symbolic forms and references to historic precedents were mostly discussed in reference to “Polishness.”40 As a matter of fact, Budzyński, in some other projects from the 1980s, assumed influences from historical styles widely regarded as particularly Polish, including the styl zakopiański (Zakopane style) modelled after peasant architecture of the Tatra mountains and the styl dwórkowy (manor house style) that borrows from the manor houses of the eighteenth-century nobility. This can be seen, for example, in Budzyński’s designs for single-family houses in the villages of Podkowa Lesna (1983) and Owczarnia (1988) near Warsaw. The Ascension Church, however, has few formal references that could be identified as particularly Polish. There are generic elements that a historically trained observer might trace back to Brunelleschi’s fifteenth-century Santo Spirito Church in Florence, Vignola’s sixteenth-century Il Gesù in Rome, or baroque village churches in many European countries. There is also evidence that Budzyński received influences from Mexico, where during his visit for the 1978 UIA conference in Mexico City he was impressed by colonial baroque churches dominating town squares with their shiny white façades.41Accordingly, early models show the Ascension Church with a white stucco façade, which remained unrealised purely due to material shortages [Figure 2.8].42 Also the multicoloured mosaic work on the cross-shaped entrance and other adornments could be related to folk art ornaments, although many of them are hard to relate to a particular nation. Eventually, the symbolic power of Budzyński’s eclectic postmodernism operated through collapsing “non-modern” with “non-socialist” and “Polish.” At the same time, the design was also connected to the goal of a spiritual revival. The appearance of the Ascension Church and the symbolic “entrance through the cross” in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s 1988 movie Dekalog I have already been mentioned. Along these lines postmodern historicism suggested a spiritual

38 Marek Budzyński and Piotr Wicha [interview] “Kościół na Ursynowie Północnym w Warszawie” Architektura 36 n. 1 (May 1982), 65 39 Florian Urban, Neo-historical East Berlin (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 237–39. 40 This applies particularly to the Archdiocese Commission. Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 27 November 2018. 41 Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 27 November 2018. Kucza-Kuczyński accompanied Budzyński on this trip. 42 Ibid.

57

9780367860721_text.indb 57

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.8 Ascension Church, model, c. 1980. The open-work bell tower and the design of the subsidiary buildings on the left were later modified (courtesy T. Wojdat).

truth that transcended the emptiness of everyday life under socialism.43 A discussion of architectural principles, on the other hand, which was characteristic for the discourse on postmodernism in the West at the time was missing in the Polish debate. A good example is the interpretation of the “hanging columns” in the main nave, which evidently do not do what columns are supposed to do: they do not support the roof [Figure 2.9]. Rather, they are an ornamental element that both divides and unites the main room of the church—a move that the architect explained as purely aesthetic and a critic celebrated as a “heroic gesture.”44 Popular anecdotes nonetheless soon gave different interpretations: that the “hanging columns” were supposed to prevent Security Service officers from hiding and secretly recording the Mass; that they were removed symbolically to unite the Polish people under the umbrella of the Church; or that they should make it clear that the Church, above all, does not rest on stone pillars but on the parishioners’ faith.45 Taken together, these popular interpretations show the difference in the perception of postmodern architecture in Poland.

43 For example in Kazimierz Kłos, “Kościół na Ursynowie”, WTK Tygodnik Katolicki (Warsaw) n. 3, 18 January 1981, 1–3. 44 Marek Budzyński, quoted in Magdalena Kaczorowska and Andrzej Kaczorowski, Pierwszy na Ursynowie – Ks. Prałat Tadeusz Wojdat i Kościół Wniebowstąpienia Pańskiego (Warsaw: Self-published, 2015), 46; Henryk Drzewiecki, “Ruch nowoczesny w architekturze sakralnej: nowość a tradycja myśli klasycznej” Architektura 37 n. 5 (September 1983), 23. 45 Ibid., 46; Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018; Marek Budzyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 August 2018.

58

9780367860721_text.indb 58

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.9 Ascension Church, interior with “hanging columns” (author).

The canonical Western interpretation, along the lines of Robert Venturi or Peter Eisenman, was conspicuously absent: that the “hanging columns” could be a semiotic device to question architectural logic or that they could be an ironic statement on the no-longer-venerated classical orders. The interpretative detail shows the extent to which the postmodernism of the Ascension Church operated at a different level: it was interpreted along the lines of national and religious ideas rather than architectural principles, and its “speaking” elements were received in a

59

9780367860721_text.indb 59

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

straightforward and literal way. The building thus became the carrier of a narrative that combined patriotic with spiritual elements: national revival was seen as a remedy for a modern life perceived as unsatisfactory and Catholic spirituality as a superior alternative to a “scientific socialism” that had long lost its convincing power. RESOURCING “OUTSIDE THE PLAN” How was such an opulent building financed in times of exacerbated economic shortage, and what does this tell about the interaction between Church and state? Like similar churches at the time, the Ascension Church was not financed by the national and municipal planning authorities, but rather through Church funds, parishioners’ donations, volunteer work, and to some extent hard-currency donations from the West, often by partner congregations or Polish émigré communities. As was mentioned in Chapter 1, the socialist rulers had always tacitly granted the Church the right to generate income through fees and donations. Donations frequently included building materials or food that could be exchanged for building services. Along those lines Poznań architect Jerzy Gurawski pointed out that at a certain level the late socialist period was a better time for church construction than the ensuing post-communist era. Not only was the Church able to run more effective construction sites than the state authorities, but it also got locations that it would not have been able to secure in competition with cash-rich capitalist investors.46 Also for Ascension Church the access to both formal and informal resources was a decisive factor that allowed for sophisticated and individualised design. Parish priest Wojdat remembered construction as tenuous, as funds were only obtained from one week to the next, and both materials and labour were precarious. At the same time workers accepted this insecurity, as most of them personally identified with the project and deemed a new church a worthy cause. About 40 to 50 regular workers were legally employed by the parish, which in this respect was allowed to act as a quasi-private developer47 [Figure 2.10 and Figure 2.11]. Alongside regular Church funds there were informal contributions. A Catholic congregation in Saint-Malo in France donated a truckload of cement.48 Another one in Paris donated diverse materials.49 Volunteers cut and brought wood from the nearby forests to fence in the construction site.50 Wojdat also recalled “the occasional 100 dollars” from foreign visitors supporting the cause.51 Such donations made a huge difference at a time when the unofficial exchange rate for 100 dollars—slightly more than what a minimum-wage earner in the United States 46 Jerzy Gurawski, “Rozmowa” in Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska Postmodernizm polski – architektura i urbanistyka. Rozmowy z architektami (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 298. 47 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018. 48 Andrzej Rogiński, Historia Ursynowa – Okiem dziennikarza (Warszawa: Południe, 2017), 39. 49 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018. 50 Tadeusz Wojdat, quoted in Kazimierz Kłos, “Kościół na Ursynowie”, WTK Tygodnik Katolicki (Warsaw) n. 3, 18 January 1981, 1–3. 51 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018.

60

9780367860721_text.indb 60

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.10 Ascension Church, construction site, c. 1982 (courtesy T. Wojdat).

Figure 2.11 Ascension Church, subsidiary buildings, c. 1987 (courtesy T. Wojdat).

would make in three days—was 60,000 Złoty, which was three times an average Pole’s monthly salary.52 Just as important were construction workers who donated their now idle Saturdays to the project (up to 1980 Saturday had been a regular working day). 52 In 1985 the minimum wage in the United States was 3.35 dollars per hour; the unofficial exchange rate was slightly over 600 złoty for 1 dollar, Brian Porter-Szücs, Poland in the Modern World (Chichester: Wiley, 2014), 309.

61

9780367860721_text.indb 61

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.12 Our Lady of Jerusalem on Łazienkowska Street in Warsaw (1979–c.89, Tomasz Turczynowicz, Anna Bielecka, Piotr Walkowiak) (author).

At some point over 50 skilled volunteers were working at the construction site. In this respect the Ursynów Church was typical of Warsaw’s churches of the late socialist period, which in contrast to sacred buildings in rural areas were mostly built by skilled workers.53 There were also indirect donations, for example, when an engineer offered an especially low price.54 The postmodern design with its customised details and labour-intensive ornaments thus directly reflected the social standing and influence of the Church, which became even more conspicuous through the contrast with the surrounding tower blocks. Against this background the formal references to the baroque churches of the counter-reformation, a time when the Catholic Church also emerged from a period of crisis, appear not to be accidental. ŁAZIENKOWSKA STREET CHURCH, WARSAW Another prominent example of an ostentatiously neo-historical church was the Kościół Matki Bożej Jerozolimskiej (Church of Our Lady of Jerusalem) in Warsaw, which is often referred to as the Łazienkowska Street Church (1979–c.89, Tomasz Turczynowicz, Anna Bielecka, Piotr Walkowiak). The ensemble is situated north of the Łazienki Park and combines a church with several auxiliary buildings such as a church hall and residences for church employees [Figure 2.12]. All are united by a historically inspired style. The main building features a conspicuous crow-stepped gable, brick ornaments along the entrance, a steep pitched roof, and elongated, gun-hole-like windows. The largely unadorned, brick-faced bell tower west of 53 Wydział do Spraw Wyznań of the Warsaw City Administration, Memorandum dated 21 January 1985, Archiwum Państwowe, Warsaw 72/2305, p. 109. 54 Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018.

62

9780367860721_text.indb 62

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

the main building resembles a medieval keep, were it not for the metal cross at the top. Somewhat unexpectedly, the tower is linked to the main building by a neo-classical colonnade. The four-storey residential building on the site’s western portion, well visible from the distance, is an urban villa with a façade structured by different colours of brick facing, as well as by a protruding gable with a rounded pediment and a niche showing a relief of a crowned Virgin Mary holding the child. Red and beige brick colours characterise the ensemble as a unifying element, as in the horizontal stripes on the ground floor of the main building and on the sides of the gun hole windows, or in various geometrical ornaments. The project, strictly speaking, is neo-neo-historical, as the historicising forms originally were a reference to the destroyed predecessor building on the site. This was the neo-classical parish church Our Lady of Jasna Góra, which was built 1923–33 and destroyed in the Second World War and for which a replacement was later built in the wider neighbourhood. The ruins remained largely untouched for decades, while the surviving spaces continued to be used. These were the Rector’s Chapel, which now forms the lower portion of the pseudo-medieval bell tower on the western portion of the site, some portions of the residential spaces, and the aforementioned colonnade. As in many other Polish postmodern buildings, the eclectic neo-historicism of the new design was justified by the context and the desire for some form of historic conservation, that is, to integrate as much as possible of the destroyed prewar structures. The result nonetheless by far surpasses the conservationist impulse. The architects converted the historical remainders into the overarching stylistic element. Moreover, they changed the focus from a restrained neo-classicism to a garish faux-medieval expression that had no correspondence in the wider neighbourhood, but could be read as a loose reference to the icons of past national glory: the thirteenth-century crow-stepped gable of Warsaw’s St John’s Cathedral, which, as previously mentioned, in itself was a (re-)invention of the post-war era, or the medieval fortifications of the Barbican built as part of Warsaw’s Old Town reconstruction. The fortress references soon gave the building the nickname “Malbork” after Poland’s largest medieval castle near Gdańsk. Probably the most contemporary element is the red-and-beige horizontal stripes, which also appear in the drawings of two of the most eminent postmodern architects at the time, Aldo Rossi and Leon Krier, where they are connected to typological continuity and the permanence of urban form. The unusual architecture was the result of a convoluted design process. In 1980 the archdiocese gave the site to Rodzina Rodzin (Family of Families), a Catholic family organisation founded in 1952 and based on “self-sacrificing service for Church and Fatherland.”55 To avoid confusion with the relocated parish church, the building was renamed Our Lady of Jerusalem. The head of Rodzina Rodzin, Father Ryszard Marciniak, became a driving force of the rebuilding, which was also supported by the Warsaw Archdiocese Commission on Art and Architecture. While the archdiocese continued to be the owner, Rodzina Rodzin

55 Official website rodzinarodzin.pl (accessed October 2018).

63

9780367860721_text.indb 63

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

was responsible for building maintenance and conservation.56 Over the following years the organisation rebuilt the ensemble as a community centre, which next to the church contained meeting rooms, classrooms, offices, a library, and flats for two priests and four employees.57 The interiors were modified again in the 1990s, when a portion was converted into a Catholic secondary school. The ensemble was built in two phases. The first, carried out approximately 1980–83, comprised the refurbishing and extension of the pre-war structures on the western portion of the plot. The second, started around 1983, included the church on the eastern part of the plot.58 Chief architect Tadeusz Szumielewicz in retrospect claimed credit for providing an important impulse for the rebuilding.59 After receiving a request for permission to remove part of the ruins, he inspected the site, and when he found that large portions of the subterranean premises were still intact, suggested rebuilding rather than demolition. He remembers signing the necessary paperwork “on the first anniversary of Primate Wyszyński’s death.”60 Indeed, the permission to rebuild bears that day, 28 May 1982, at the time not yet specifying any design details.61 In what followed, Szumielewicz’s involvement evidences the complex ties between state powers, architectural practitioners, and Catholic Church officials. As chief architect of Warsaw, Szumielewicz was in charge of rubber-stamping any building permission in the city. At the same time he was allowed to run a quasi-private practice that took on design commissions. Being a high-ranking public servant and party member, he was a representative of a socialist regime that officially promoted atheism. At the same time he was a practicing Catholic and co-designer of sacred buildings, such the Church of Our Lady Mother of the Church on Domaniewska Street (1981–94, Marek Martens, Lech Kordowicz, and Tadeusz Szumielewicz). In retrospect he did not perceive this as a contradiction, but rather pointed to the leeway under the socialist regime.62 Following Rodzina Rodzin’s request for rebuilding Szumielewicz also worked out a design for Łazienkowska Street Church, possibly starting after he had stepped down or was removed from his post as chief architect in 1982. In any case the Archdiocese Commission eventually rejected his proposition—apparently because his proposal for a second tower over the church was deemed unsatisfactory.63 Whether 56 Father Eugeniusz Klimiński, Information on “Sytuacja historyczna i prawna ośrodka” dated 28 February 1996, Archiwum Kurii Metropolitanej w Miodowej, binder Kościół ul. Łazienkowska 14. 57 Ibid. 58 Programme “Rozbudowy i modernizacji Kaplicy Rektorskiej pw. MB Jasnogórskiej wraz z zespołem towarzyszym”, dated 10 May 1983, signed Rektor Ryszard Marciniak, Archiwum Kurii Metropolitanej ul. Miodowa, binder Kościół ul. Łazienkowska 14 59 Tadeusz Szumielewicz, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 3 January 2020. 60 Ibid. 61 Tadeusz Szumielewicz, confirmation of the “plan realizacyjny”, dated 28 May 1982 Archiwum Kurii Metropolitanej ul. Miodowa, binder Kościół ul. Łazienkowska 14. 62 Tadeusz Szumielewicz, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 3 January 2020. 63 Minutes of the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, dated 16 September 1982, Archiwum Kurii Metropolitanej, ul. Miodowa, binder ul. Łazienkowska 14

64

9780367860721_text.indb 64

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

or not the controversies surrounding his post were related to the rejection remains speculation. In any case, the issue shows how postmodern sacred construction often resulted from the close intertwining of Church and state at a personal level. Next, the Church authorities commissioned the architects Tomasz Turczynowicz (1942–2012), Anna Bielecka, and Piotr Walkowiak with the design. Turczynowicz, who was at the time employed with the state design office Inwestprojekt Warszawa, was an unexpected choice for a conservative Catholic congregation. A hippie character with a love for oriental spirituality, he had gained his first professional experience in the 1970s working on an unrealised open-air museum in the remote Bieszczady Mountains. Later he left his job in Warsaw to spend time in the Himalayans, following his passion for mountaineering as well as his spiritual interests. This was an unusual move even for a member of the small alternative scene in socialist Poland and contributed to his status as a non-conformist role model for his peers.64 The first drawings show a rather contained design solution with a more austere front elevation, featuring the conspicuous window openings, but without the crow-stepped gable and the brick ornaments that were eventually built.65 A slightly more ornamented front façade appears on a 1986 plan.66 It seems that in subsequent versions the design became more eclectic, lusher, more ornamented, and increasingly different from the neighbouring buildings. Like many other sacred buildings, the Łazienkowska Street Church owed the resources necessary for its exuberant design to donations from abroad. The main sponsors were Catholic organisations such as the West German charity Caritas and the internationally active Pallottine Society, of which the project initiator, Father Ryszard Marciniak, was a member.67 The rare opportunity to realise lush design under conditions of crisis therefore hinged on the fledgling capitalism and the influx of hard currency from the West. While the exterior expression related to a narrative of patriotism and national awareness, the economic base was international collaboration and capitalist exchange. IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY IN ŚRÓDBORÓW NEAR WARSAW The Kościół Niepokalanego Serca Maryi (Immaculate Heart of Mary Church) in Śródborów near Warsaw (1979–84, Małgorzata Handzelewicz-Wacławek and Zbigniew Wacławek) is an example that brings together the themes of vernacular 64 Maciej Miłobędzki, “Warszawscy pejzażyści, Krakówscy geometrzy” Autoportret (Kraków) 16 n. 2 (2017), 89 and Maciej Miłobędzki, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 2 January 2020. 65 Tomasz Turczynowicz et al., plans for “Ośrodek Duszpasterski Rodziny Rodzin” (1983?), Archiwum Kurii Metropolitanej ul. Miodowa, binder Kościół ul. Łazienkowska 14 66 Tomasz Turczynowicz et al. “Zamienny projekt koncepcyjny II-etapu modernizacja i remont kościoła MB Jasnogórskiej, ul. Łazienkowska 14”, dated 1986, Archiwum Kurii Metropolitanej ul. Miodowa, binder Kościół ul. Łazienkowska 14 67 Other sponsors include the Warsaw Curia, the Instytut Prymasowski, and personal donations from the members. Father Eugeniusz Kliminski, “Informacja dla Kurii Archidiecezjalnej Warszawskiej dotyczająca Ruchu Apostolskiego Rodziny Rodzin w Warszawie” dated 5 August 1999, Archiwum Kurii Metropolitanej, ul. Miodowa, binder Kościół ul. Łazienkowska 14.

65

9780367860721_text.indb 65

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.13 Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in OtwockŚródborów near Warsaw (1979–83, Małgorzata Handzelewicz-Wacławek, Zbigniew Wacławek) (author).

influence, historic quotations, and regional language [Figure 2.13]. Śródborów is a quiet residential neighbourhood in the township of Otwock, 30 kilometres southeast of central Warsaw. It was established as a garden city in the 1920s close to a sanatorium and extensive woodlands. Śródborów is composed of single-family houses and small blocks tucked away under pine trees, as well as a number of stately wooden villas in the neo-vernacular świdermajer style (a tongue-in-cheek reference to the petit-bourgeois German Biedermeier and the River Świder that runs through Otwock). After the Second World War the settlement slowly turned into a dormitory suburb for Warsaw, with many of the old villas decaying. The church was initiated by Father Stanisław Żebrowski (1935–2006), who in a memorial plaque on the church is honoured as a “Solidarity Trade Union Chaplain.” At the time he worked for the Orionist Sisters, a Catholic social care association in Otwock, and was also running an informal community centre. Along with the relaxing of restrictions against church construction under Gierek he received permission to build a new temple in 1977 and subsequently became the priest for the newly established parish. A parishioner donated the land in his will. Construction was a collective endeavour, although not supported by all parishioners—one third, Żebrowski remembered, contributed with “a penny, prayer, and work”; another third with “prayer and work”; and another third not at all.68 The building, which was consecrated in 1984, takes its cues from local references to both traditional architecture and early-twentieth-century neo-vernacular. 68 Stanisław Żebrowski, quoted in Piotr Chmieliński, “Parafia wśród borów,” Niedziela Warszawska 38 (2003), online at niedziela.pl (accessed March 2020).

66

9780367860721_text.indb 66

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

Tucked away under pine trees, the pitched-roof building from wood and bricks harmonically blends into the landscape; early drawings show the building lighting the pine trees from below. The single nave over a rectangular plan is brightly lit by two rows of triangular dormers left and right of the roof beam, as well as by windows above the altar and where the roof meets the wall. The walls are plastered white on both inside and outside. The sophisticated woodwork on ceiling and doors not only reflects the surrounding świdermajer villas but also influences from the aforementioned late-nineteenth-century Zakopane Style and south Polish folk art that also inspired the Miraculous Medal Church mentioned below. The latter is evident in the small open bell tower with helm roofs, the sophistically ornamented wooden doors, the two turret-like spires, and the carved folk-art statue of Chrystus Frasobliwy (Pensive Christ) on the building’s southern façade. Małgorzata Handzelewicz-Wacławek (1922–96) was a well-known architect, who together with her husband Zbigniew Wacławek (1917–87) directed a studio at the state architecture office Biuro Projektów Budownictwa Ogólnego (Bureau of Civil Construction Projects), taught at Warsaw Politechnika, and in 1982 founded the Autorskie Pracownie Architektury (“architectural authors’ studios”), a quasi-private office operating within the Warsaw-based state firm Biuro Projektów Budownictwa Ogólnego. A former assistant of Bohdan Pniewski, she was connected to the tradition of a restrained modernism built on neo-classical harmonies. In some of her contemporaneous projects she also experimented with traditional forms, including the multifamily house on 11 Kwiatowa/55 Madalińskiego in Warsaw-Mokotów (built 1979–80), a four-storey perimeter block building with irregular window distribution and conspicuous pediments. Influences from Alvar Aalto and Jørn Utzon, the two architects that Kenneth Frampton later celebrated as precursors of Critical Regionalism, were also visible in her earlier works. Her doctoral dissertation, which she wrote in 1965 under the title “Influence of physiographic conditions on the spatial design of sanatory complexes in a mountain environment” was dedicated to place-specific elements.69 These elements came to full bloom in the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, where she was able to work with greater creative freedom than in the context of state clients. Her approach pre-dated the formulation of Critical Regionalism in Western Europe by Liane Lefaivre, Alexander Tzonis, and Kenneth Frampton a few years later, as well as Alvin Toffler’s 1980 analysis of a regionally based, post-industrial society that was translated into Polish six years later.70 The church can be read as an attempt, in Frampton’s words, to “mediate the impact of universal civilization with elements derived indirectly from the peculiarities of a particular place.”71 69 Tadeusz Tulibacki, “Maria Małgorzata Handzelewicz-Wacławek” Gazeta Wyborcza 11 January 2007. 70 Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis “The Grid and the Pathway” Architecture in Greece 15 (Athens, 1981); Kenneth Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism – Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” in Hal Foster, The Anti-Aesthetic (Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press, 1983), 16–30; Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave (New York: William Morrow, 1980), translated Trzecia Fala (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1986). 71 Kenneth Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism – Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” in Hal Foster, The Anti-Aesthetic (Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press, 1983), 21

67

9780367860721_text.indb 67

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

Thus the building came to be exemplary not only for Handzelewicz-Wacławek’s extraordinary creativity but also for the course of postmodern architecture in Poland. International concerns with regional architecture aligned with domestic neo-vernacularism and a tradition of modern architecture that allowed for localised expression. This is reflected in a 1981 article on regionalism in the journal Architektura. The architect Wojciech Kosiński praised regionalism as the future style of the post-industrial society and, just as the nineteenth-century promoters of Arts and Crafts had done before him, called for an architectural rebirth from the spirit of folk culture.72 Particularly interesting are his frontlines. He blamed communism for having uprooted Polish peasant culture (and does not mention the paradox that ending cultural alienation once had been one of Marxism’s key concerns); he praised contemporary Norway and Switzerland as models of neo-regionalism built on a post-industrial society; and he bolstered his argument with domestic Polish theory developed two generations earlier—an important point of reference was the previously mentioned Kraków professor Włodzimierz Gruszczyński (1906–73). Against this background the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church delineates the field from which postmodern regionalism in Poland grew. OUR LADY REVEALING THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL, ZAKOPANE A similarly emblematic case was the building with the lyrical name Sanktuarium Matki Boskiej Objawiającej Cudowny Medalik (Sanctuary of the Mother of God Revealing the Miraculous Medal) (1980–88, Tadeusz Gawłowski, Teresa LisowskaGawłowska). Built as an imposing wood-and-concrete structure in the Olcza district of the small town of Zakopane in south Poland, it stands out against the majestic view of the Tatra Mountains, as well as against the single-family houses in the immediate surroundings [Figure 2.14]. The church reflects the traditional architecture of Zakopane, Poland’s most famous mountain resort at the foot of the Tatras with approximately 25,000 inhabitants. The local farmsteads with characteristic steep-hipped roofs inspired the building’s main space, which is covered by a concrete rather than wood structure, as well as in the canopies interrupting the gabled front façade. Instead of wooden cladding, the church gable features a large stained-glass window that fills the interior with colourful light. The wooden-gable motif is repeated in the interior, which is structured by both load-bearing concrete pillars and ornamental rafters that resemble the beams of a truss. Also the doors are made of wood, adorned with wrought-iron rivets and traditional sunray-shaped ornaments. The side view reveals the stunning modernity of the building, which from this perspective looks more like Jørn Utzon’s Sydney opera house than like a historical peasant abode. One might also detect a similarity to the famous tent-shaped church in Mexico City dedicated to the same Blessed Virgin of the Miraculous Medal (Félix Candela, 1953–55). Such resemblances were already noticeable in the architects’ earlier Good Shepherd Church in the nearby village of Rudy Rysie (1968–73). Rather than revealing a 72 Wojciech Kosiński, “Regionalizm” Architektura 33 n. 1 (January 1981), 89.

68

9780367860721_text.indb 68

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.14 Sanctuary of the Mother of God Revealing the Miraculous Medal, Zakopane (1980–88, Tadeusz Gawłowski, Teresa Lisowska-Gawłowska) (Zoobek/Wikimedia commons).

straight roofline, the view from the side shows an assemblage of triangular forms that take up the theme of the farmstead roof as well as the shape of the mountains in the background. With these references, the building appears like a modern variation over the roofscape of a traditional village. The Kraków-based architects, the husband-and-wife team Tadeusz Gawłowski (1926–2007) and Teresa Lisowska-Gawłowska (1928–2006), were among the most prominent representatives of regionally inspired design. The Miraculous Medal Church was their most important work. Gawłowski, a student of Gruszczyński and later professor at Kraków Politechnika, taught generations of students a contextual approach in which a new design did not need to be invented from scratch. Unusual for the patriarchal culture of the time, he repeatedly pointed out his wife’s equal contribution, despite the fact that it was mostly him who promoted his design in the press (and in 1982 received recognition in the form of a regular professorship at Kraków Politechnika). From his writings we know about his concern with folk culture and the local context, following the principle that good architecture was merely to add to an already existing whole.73 The richly carved wooden buildings of the Zakopane region had inspired the imagination of Polish intellectuals since the nineteenth century and gave rise to an interpretation of local Góral (Highlander) culture as an incarnation of Polishness unaffected by a century of Austrian occupation. The neo-traditional Zakopane style was already mentioned. Popularised in the 1880s by the painter Stanisław Witkiewicz, it was a Polish version of Arts and Crafts. It married a 73 Kamila Twardowska, “Forma z lica ziemi” Autoportret (Kraków) 16 n. 2 (2017), 69–78. See also Tadeusz Gawłowski, “O twórczym poszukiwaniu współczesnej koncepcji architektury sakralne w Polsce” Inżynieria i Budownictwo 1991 n. 4–5, p. 133–40.

69

9780367860721_text.indb 69

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

counterproposition to the burdens of industrial modernity with a narrative of national rebirth. Accordingly, the “Polishness” of Zakopane’s architecture, both vernacular and neo-traditional, is an underlying theme in the design of the building. The church was commissioned by an influential society of priests, the Congregation of the Mission, also known as Lazarites, which was founded in Paris in the seventeenth century and engaged in missionary activities all around the world. Their international connections were crucial in securing the funding for this extraordinary building. The church was largely financed by a New York–based organisation of Polish émigrés with ties to Zakopane. For the construction, the “Polish National Alliance of Brooklyn” offered 100,000 dollars collected among their members.74 This was an unbelievable sum at a time when an average Polish monthly salary was worth about 30 dollars. A first instalment of 50,000 dollars was sent in December 1976.75 Noteworthy is the nationalist tone in which the president of the association, who after all was a representative from a capitalist enemy country, addressed the communist voivode of the Nowy Sącz district who had to approve the plan. Expressing his “support for the cause of the Polish People,” he praised the missionaries as “eager defenders of Polishness.”76 The “Polish National Alliance of Brooklyn” had previously financed the cultural centre Dom Polaka (“House of the Pole”) in Pułtusk near Warsaw, and its vice president readily attended the cornerstone ceremony.77 The documents show an unexpected easiness with regard to the flow of large sums from the United States to an Eastern bloc country, the willingness of certain socialist bureaucrats to support sacred construction, and the common belief in ostentatious churches as a means to support the Polish national cause. The church also reflected the economic oddities of the place. Historian Jerzy Kochanowski called Zakopane “probably the most wildly capitalist place” in late socialist Poland.78 The significance of the Tatras in Polish imagination had long been out of proportion with their actual size, covering less than 0.05 per cent of the Polish territory. Zakopane is the only sizeable settlement in the Tatras and the country’s oldest and most famous holiday and ski resort. Correspondingly, it has been overrun by holidaymakers for decades—already in the 1970s about 2 million per year. This gave rise to a highly profitable informal economy of unofficial accommodation and 74 Józef Głowacki, Executive Vice President of the Polish National Alliance of Brooklyn, letters to Lech Bafia, Voivode of Nowy Sącz, dated 18 October 1977 and 26 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Urząd do Spraw Wyznań, Wydział do Spraw Wyznania Rzymskokatolickiego 108/22 (1978), p. 115–18. 75 Father Józef Szpilski (of the Missionaries Association), parish priest of St Stanislaus Kostka Church in New York, letter to the Polish General Consulate in New York, dated 28 December 1976, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Urząd do Spraw Wyznań, Wydział do Spraw Wyznania Rzymskokatolickiego 108/22 (1978), 123. 76 Józef Głowacki, Executive Vice President of the Polish National Alliance of Brooklyn, letter to Lech Bafia, Wojewoda of Nowy Sącz, dated 26 October 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych Urząd do Spraw Wyznań, Wydział do Spraw Wyznania Rzymskokatolickiego 108/22 (1978), p. 115–18. 77 Ibid., 104. 78 Jerzy Kochanowski, presentation “A ‘Free City’? The Zakopane of Władysław Gomułka 1965–70” at the conference “Room for Manoeuvre in State Socialism” German Historical Institute in Warsaw, 22 November 2018.

70

9780367860721_text.indb 70

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

unauthorised construction, which was often covered by corrupt party officials. The town was a money-spinner for unlicensed investors of all kinds, from the local peasant adapting his barn into an unauthorised boarding house to the Warsaw factory director pumping company funds into illegal holiday homes. At the same time the Miraculous Medal Church was first initiated by local residents and not by national or international capital flows. Parishioners had been asking for permission to build a church since 1956. With the relaxation of restrictions against church construction under Gierek in the mid-1970s, the struggle gained momentum. At this time, the local priest Jan Kowalik became a driving force. In 1978 a resident organisation was able to collect 1,000 signatures.79 Permission was given in May 1980, and construction started soon after.80 The church was eventually consecrated in 1988, and ever since has served as a cultural centre for the neighbourhood as well as a much-reviewed model for regionally inspired architecture. It is thus an example for the intertwining of the local and the international at the levels of architectural models, social significance, construction, and financing. OUR LADY QUEEN OF POLAND, GŁOGÓW The neo-traditional church Our Lady Queen of Poland, officially Kościół Najświętszej Maryi Panny Królowej Polski (Church of the Most Holy Virgin Mary Queen of Poland) in the Silesian small town of Głogów (1985–89, Marian Fikus, Jerzy Gurawski) is another good example of creative potential mobilised by a Church client and at the same time of how postmodern vernacularism harnessed the themes of community, continuity, and social space [Figure 2.15]. The architects Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski were selected in a closed competition. While designing the church they worked for the Poznań municipality on the new campus of the Adam Mickiewicz University, which will be discussed in Chapter 4 and which at the time was a proposal based on late modernist rather than neo-traditional principles. But Our Lady Queen of Poland did not only contrast with the architects’ other work at the time, but also with the immediate surrounding. The central building from brick and wood is situated at the centre of a panel-built modernist mass housing complex. It is decorated with elements from historic folk architecture, including the brick aesthetics, the wooden bell tower top, and a surrounding podcień—a covered archway frequent in Eastern Polish vernacular architecture. The church reflects a concern with small scale and historical awareness. The architect explained the contrast from social rather than formal requirements. Most parishioners were former peasants resettled from the eastern territories, which Poland lost to the Soviet Union in 1945. Gurawski, who was himself a refugee from the east, wanted to give them a church they could identify with, 79 Citizens petition to Lech Bafia, Voivode of Nowy Sącz, dated 15 November 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych Urząd do Spraw Wyznań, wydział do Spraw Wyznania Rzymskokatolickiego 108/22 (1978), 131–55. 80 Bolesław Leśnik, director of the Wydział do Spraw Wyznań, Nowy Sącz, to Urząd do Spraw Wyznań, Warsaw, dated 16 May 1980, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Urząd do Spraw Wyznań, wydział do Spraw Wyznania Rzymskokatolickiego 108/22 (1978), p. 110.

71

9780367860721_text.indb 71

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.15 Our Lady Queen of Poland in Głogów (1985–89, Marian Fikus, Jerzy Gurawski) (Paweł Dembowski/Wikimedia commons).

precisely not a modern one, but one “that feels like a church, with a tower and a nave” and one that reflected the new liturgy after Vatican II centring on the connection between priest and parishioners.81 His partner Marian Fikus, who at the time was a regular churchgoer and only later turned away from religious practice, also pointed to the aspect of protest against the socialist regime, which was inherent in any religious building.82 In that respect postmodern vernacularism was a response to both social context and the availability of larger resources. Also in Głogów the parish priest was the main driver behind the construction. Father Ryszard Dobrołowicz is remembered as an “entrepreneur in a cassock,” a skilful organiser and mover and shaker of local politics. As a journalist put it, “it was an open secret that for years nothing important could advance in Głogów without his approval.”83 He took advantage of the fact that many party functionaries were at the same time secretly devout Catholics. Gurawski remembered a party representative covertly asking Dobrołowicz to christen his child so that no one would find out. Dobrołowicz happily did it, and in return received 200 tonnes of cement for his construction site.84 In this respect the church’s design was based on market transactions, but those of a pre-modern barter rather than an advanced capitalist economy. 81 Jerzy Gurawski, “Rozmowa” in Lidia Klein, and Alicja Gzowska Postmodernizm polski – architektura i urbanistyka. Rozmowy z architektami (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 260. 82 Marian Fikus, conversation with the author, 24 September 2018, Poznań. 83 Anna Białecka, “Przedsiębiorca w sutannie”, Gazeta Lubuska 20 May 2006, online at gazetalubuska.pl (accessed January 2020). 84 Jerzy Gurawski, “Rozmowa” in Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska Postmodernizm polski – architektura i urbanistyka. Rozmowy z architektami (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 298.

72

9780367860721_text.indb 72

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

ST JADWIGA, KRAKÓW St Jadwiga in Kraków (1979–89, Romuald Loegler and Jacek Czekaj), officially Kościół Świętej Jadwigi Królowej (Church of the Holy Queen Jadwiga), is among the most famous examples of postmodern sacred architecture in Poland. The design shows a geometrical vocabulary with no obvious historic quotations, but at the same time with a strong resemblance to James Stirling and the early works of Aldo Rossi [Figure 2.16]. The building is situated in the Krowodrza Górka housing complex in Kraków’s northern Krowodrza district. At the time the complex was called Osiedle Trzydziestolecia PRL (Housing Complex of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the People’s Republic of Poland). Like the Ascension Church in Warsaw and Our Lady Queen of Poland in Głogów, it was initiated by a strong-minded parish priest, Father Jan Dziasek, the “stubborn shepherd of Krowodrza.”85 He was supported by local residents sorely in need of a place of worship, as the newly designed housing complex with several thousand inhabitants had no other church. St Jadwiga is a single-nave church on a square plan interrupted by an undulating north-eastern wall. It was built forming a U-shaped arrangement with adjacent service buildings, containing, among others, a church hall, a library, administrative offices, and eight flats plus a garage for vicars and a parish priest.86 Eventually the building would also become an important neighbourhood hub, containing an indoor sports hall in the basement and a theatre. Rows of steel-framed windows from bottom to roof provide a brightly lit interior that is structured by white unadorned columns. The conspicuously white, rough concrete finishing and the exposed location on a hill increase visibility and stress the contrast to the adjacent housing blocks. St Jadwiga’s prestige in the postmodern canon contrasts with its humble beginnings. The church originated in improvised construction connected to what the authorities deemed to be illegal activities. Dziasek in 1971 began to organise unauthorised praying circles on his property on the street Pod Fortem about 100 metres south of what would later become St Jadwiga. Construction of a more permanent church hall was started there in 1976, but stopped after a few weeks under the authorities’ pressure.87 At the same time Dziasek continued to lobby for a building permit that was eventually given in 1979, possibly due to the ongoing support of Archbishop Karol Wojtyła, who in 1978 became Pope John Paul II. The architect Romuald Loegler was chosen by Archbishop Franciszek Macharski, Wojtyła’s successor, who was familiar with his design of a library for the Kraków Curia.88 Loegler subsequently worked out the design with his business partner Jacek Czekaj. 85 Marta Paluch, “Uparty góralski pasterz z Krowodrzy” Gazeta Krakowska 25 June 2010. 86 Św. Jadwigi, February 1980, technical description, in Folder “Kościół na Osiedlu XXXlecia w Krakowie” in Archiwum Urzędu Miasta Kraków, Binder UAN Urbanistyka, Architektura Nadzór (UAN). 87 Wydział do spraw Wyznań, Kraków city administration, Memorandum on illegal construction activities on Ulica Pod Fortem 33, Kraków, [1976] Archiwum Narodowe Kraków, Department IV, call number 29/1431/40, pp. 7–12. 88 Romuald Loegler, conversation with the author, Kraków, 1 September 2018.

73

9780367860721_text.indb 73

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.16 St Jadwiga in Kraków (1979–89, Romuald Loegler and Jacek Czekaj) (author).

Like Tadeusz Wojdat in Warsaw-Ursynów, Jan Dziasek cared little about design specificities and was mostly concerned with starting construction as soon as possible. Accordingly, the relevant Church authority, the Diocese Commission on Art and Architecture, swiftly approved Loegler and Czekaj’s proposal. Negotiations with the municipal authorities were trickier. The Miejska Komisja Urbanistyczna i Architektoniczna (City Commission on Urbanism and Architecture) rejected Loegler’s proposal—according to Loegler because it was “too modern” and not traditional enough.89 In this deadlock situation Loegler remembers finding an unexpected supporter in Archbishop Wojtyła, who in other respects was not known as being particularly progressive. Wojtyła praised Loegler’s proposal as a potential “second cathedral” for Kraków and used his influence to have the commission accept the proposal. Much suggests that it was also due to Wojtyła’s influence that the church was built in the present location, which the socialist authorities had originally foreseen for a culture house. Loegler remembered that Wojtyła, in a letter to the Voivode, pointed to the likeliness of popular unrest 89 Ibid.

74

9780367860721_text.indb 74

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

comparable to the protests surrounding the Arka Pana Church in Kraków NowaHuta in the 1960s if the request to build St Jadwiga were to be rejected.90 Whether or not this particular letter made a difference, much suggests that the party leaders gave in, in view of the growing protest movement all over Poland at the time and approved construction on such a conspicuous site. Subsequently Dziasek used his talent for kombinować (organising through improvisation or half-legal means) to advance construction. For example, he persuaded 30 parishioners to lend him their identity cards in order to buy 15 tonnes of cement, as there was a rule that limited cement purchase by private individuals to half a tonne.91 He also received donations from partner congregations in West Germany.92 Defying material shortages and bureaucratic hurdles, the church was eventually completed in 1989. Wojtyła, now Pope John Paul II, continued his commitment to the parish, donating a relic of St Jadwiga and repeatedly visiting the building. The building helped to kick-start Loegler’s career, who eventually became one of Poland’s most eminent architects and also one of the few who accepted the label “postmodern.”93 He was educated at Kraków Politechnika and soon became the assistant of his professor Zbigniew Kupiec (1905–90), whose ideas of a modernism with classical rules and integrated folk elements were an important influence.94 Unlike most Polish architects of his generation, Loegler also managed to gain ample work experience abroad. Already as a student he won scholarships to travel to France and Finland. In 1973 he spent two years in Vienna, where he studied at the Technische Hochschule under Karl Schwanzer. St Jadwiga shows the absorption of influences from Schwanzer’s sophisticated use of geometrical volumes. At the same time the stay in Vienna exposed him to international postmodern theorists such as Aldo Rossi.95 While designing the church Loegler headed one of the first privately run architecture offices in Kraków and maintained close ties with the international architectural world. He was the driving force behind the first Biennale of Architecture, which took place in Kraków in 1985. Loegler subsequently designed other important postmodern buildings, most famously the Na Skarpie complex in Kraków-Nowa Huta, which will be mentioned in Chapter 4. Along similar lines as St Jadwiga, the Na Skarpie complex also evidences a sophisticated use of historical typologies.96

90 Ibid. 91 Jan Dziasek, quoted in Marta Paluch, “Uparty góralski pasterz z Krowodrzy” Gazeta Krakówska 25 June 2010. 92 Romuald Loegler, interview with the author, Kraków, 1 September 2018. 93 Ibid.; see also Maciej Miłobędzki, “Warszawscy pejzażyści, Krakowscy geometrzy” Autoportret (Kraków) 16 n. 2 (2017), 89. 94 Romuald Loegler, conversation with the author, Kraków, 1 September 2018. 95 Ibid. 96 See Florian Urban, “Postmodernism and Socialist Mass Housing in Poland,” Planning Perspectives xy (2019),Dorota Jędruch, “Osiedle Centrum E – czyli piknik nad wiszącą skarpą” in Jarosław Klaś, ed., Nowa Huta—architektoniczny portret miasta drugiej połowy XX wieku (Kraków: Ośrodek Kultury im. Cypriana Norwida, 2018), 96–103.

75

9780367860721_text.indb 75

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

From 1970 and again in the 1980s, Loegler was part of a team of Polish architects working in Syria. The influence of his and his colleagues’ Middle Eastern experience on the course of postmodern architecture has been the subject of recent research.97 A variation over historic typologies, which is crucial in many postmodern projects, was already visible in his 1984 design for the Commerce and Service Centre in Aleppo. Loegler himself acknowledged such influences, pointing out that his work in Syria forced him to think about “the persistence of the urban structure, which paralleled the evolution of architectural language.”98 This approach is also visible in St Jadwiga. The volumes and window design appear to be taken from historic precedents. At the same time the reference is disguised, there are no evident historic quotations. In this respect the church both blends in with and sticks out from its surroundings. SEMINARY OF THE RESURRECTIONIST CONGREGATION, KRAKÓW Next to St Jadwiga, the Wyższe Seminarium Duchowne Zmartwychwstańców (Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation, 1985–93, Dariusz Kozłowski, Wacław Stefański, and Maria Misiągiewicz) was the most important postmodern project in Kraków. Built in a quiet residential district in the city’s southwestern part, the building was a training facility for missionaries of the Resurrectionist Congregation. This international association of priests was founded in the nineteenth century by Polish émigrés in Paris and to date operates missions in Europe and North and South America. The seminary was closed down in the 2010s; since 2017, the building has housed a Catholic Montessori School. The project reflects the “search for truth” beyond the obvious inherent in many Polish postmodern buildings, which in its seriousness could not be more different from the happy superficiality often ascribed to postmodernism in the West. The assemblage of a church, offices, residences, and classrooms embodies a fascination with secretness and discovery, as well as a sophisticated framework of references. Around 1980 the congregation’s old seminary building on Lobzowska 10 close to Kraków’s Old Town was bursting at the seams, and the authorities complained about subsidiary buildings that were illegally added on the site in the mid1960s.99 In this situation Father Adam Piasecki, the rector of the seminary, planned a grand new ensemble with a total of 25,000 square metres on the periphery. The seminary was built on an empty site facing the lakes and rocks of the Zakrzówek landscape park, a situation on the edge that the architect would later describe as 97 Łukasz Stanek,Postmodernizm jest prawie w porządku: polska architektura po socjalistycznej globalizacji (Warsaw: Bęc Zmiana, 2012); Łukasz Stanek, “Miastoprojekt goes abroad: the transfer of architectural labour from socialist Poland to Iraq (1958–89),” Journal of Architecture 17 n. 3 (2012), 361–86, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2012.692603. 98 Romuald Loegler, 2011, quoted in Łukasz Stanek, Postmodernizm jest prawie w porządku: polska architektura po socjalistycznej globalizacji (Warsaw: Bęc Zmiana, 2012), 41. 99 Archiwum Narodowe Kraków, binder O.O. Zmartwychwstańcy 1974–85, call number 29/1431/150, p. 264.

76

9780367860721_text.indb 76

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

embodying the tension between nature and civilisation. As the Resurrectionists were an internationally operating organisation, it can be assumed that this project also received funding from the West.100 The architect Dariusz Kozłowski (born 1942) at the time was a young teacher at Kraków Politechnika in his thirties with a track record of experiences beyond the panel-built housing complexes that most of his colleagues would be forced to design. As part of a university research team he had travelled to Iraq to work on a model design for the General Housing Programme (1976–79), which the Iraqi government had commissioned to Miastoprojekt Kraków.101 Together with his well-known professor Tomasz Mańkowski (1926–2012), he co-designed the much-reviewed building for the Kraków Politechnika’s Kolegium Polonijne (Polish Emigrants’ College) in 1974–79, a brick-faced structure with both brutalist and postmodern elements. He also authored a private villa in Kraków in 1978 and in the same year completed his doctorate. Being a university employee, Kozłowski was allowed to take on external commissions and thus was able to operate with a certain degree of liberty even before private business became an attractive option for Polish architects. In this respect, the seminary derived from a similar constellation as St Jadwiga and many other churches. The project was a direct commission by the seminary’s rector Adam Piasecki. Kozłowski recalls that his idea of the building as a spiritual journey through four gates was the main factor that convinced his client.102 Kozłowski laid out his idea in an unpublished article that he forwarded to Piasecki. Not all gates were designed to be physical structures. The Gate of Initiation is made up of the celebratory entrance to the complex; the Gate of Youth and Gate of Knowledge were structures in the inner portion of the complex. The fourth gate, the Gate of Faith, only exists in the imagination of the initiated—it can be related to the “cross in the air,” a cross-shaped space framed by the four elements of the Resurrection Tower, the belfry of the church. The ensemble consists of the central U-shaped structure around a trapezoid courtyard [Figure 2.17]. It houses administrative offices, the rector’s office, a conference room, a chapel, and students’ and professors’ flats. The left leg of the courtyard leads to the Resurrection Tower, the central belfry of the ensemble. The “courtyard buildings” are situated to the left and right of the entrance. They house guest rooms and the refectory. The adjacent buildings, among others, house a library and flats for seminarists. While there is no clearly determined route through the different portions of the buildings, the “journey” is reflected in evocative spaces: the enclosed polygonal courtyard at the centre of the ensemble, with its partial double façade resembling the ruin of a previous building; the colourful entrance designed from interlocking geometrical volumes; the play with light and shadow in the corridors 100 Dariusz Kozłowski, conversation with the author, Kraków, 23 October 2018. 101 Łukasz Stanek, Postmodernizm jest prawie w porządku: polska architektura po socjalistycznej globalizacji (Warsaw: Fundacja Narodowej Kultury Bęc Zmiana, 2012), 57 102 Dariusz Kozłowski, conversation with the author, Kraków, 23 October 2018.

77

9780367860721_text.indb 77

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.17 Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation, Kraków (1985–93, Dariusz Kozłowski, Wacław Stefański, Maria Misiągiewicz), central courtyard (archiwum D. Kozłowski).

and walkways [Figure 2.18]; or the rough concrete elements that appear to form ornaments in the air—most significantly the previously mentioned “cross in the air” at the top of the belfry. The ensemble contains copious references to historical monastery architecture, including Le Corbusier’s famous La Tourrette Monastery (1953–61). The play with secret and discovery takes its cues from diverse sources, including sixteenth-century grottos, Giorgio de Chirico’s paintings, and baroque church architecture.103 Also the influences of Italian rationalism are obvious. Kozłowski had visited the 1984 Venice Biennale, where he started long-lasting contacts with Italian architects such as Giorgio Grassi, whom he subsequently invited to Kraków [Figure 2.19]. The influence of phenomenology is unacknowledged by the architect, but clearly noticeable in the design. It transpires in the focus on experience, the concern with a deeper truth beyond rationality, and in the haptic use of materials and forms. The author points to the “magical details” and “theatrical absurdity” of his design made by “real” and “false” things.104 These are embodied by the building within a building, the non-functional columns, the false gates or walls hanging from the ceiling, and the “open cross” roof of the belfry that does not protect from the rain. He also points to the mystical postmodernism of Ricardo Bofill’s residential complex Les espaces d’Abraxas outside Paris (1978–83). As such the complex spatial sequences have been interpreted as embodying “the journey of 103 Dariusz Kozłowski, Interview with Anna Frysztak, Architektura 43 n. 3 (March 1989), 33–34; Dariusz Kozłowski, conversation with the author, Kraków, 23 October 2018. 104 Dariusz Kozłowski, “O detalu architektonicznym zbędnym i niezbędnym” Czasopismo Techniczne 109 n. 15 (2012), 170–79, here 171 available online at https://suw.biblos. pk.edu.pl/ (accessed November 2019).

78

9780367860721_text.indb 78

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.18 Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation, Kraków (1985–93, Dariusz Kozłowski, Wacław Stefański, Maria Misiągiewicz), interior corridor (archiwum D. Kozłowski).

the soul.”105 The apparent references to Christian mysticism and spiritual growth notwithstanding, the architect did not conceive of himself as a devout believer, pointing out that when designing a good church, it might be better not to be a good Catholic.106 105 Ewa Węcławowicz-Gyurkovich, Postmodernizm w polskiej architekturze, (Kraków: Politechnika Krakowska, 1998), 40–41. 106 Dariusz Kozłowski, conversation with the author, Kraków, 23 October 2018.

79

9780367860721_text.indb 79

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism Figure 2.19 Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation, Kraków (1985–93, Dariusz Kozłowski, Wacław Stefański, Maria Misiągiewicz), plan (archiwum D. Kozłowski).

The site was approved in October 1983, a few months before permission for construction had been given directly by the Warsaw Chief architect Szumielewicz— another sign how important the socialist authorities considered the project.107 The building was only finished in 1993, four years after the fall of the socialist regime. Its completion paralleled other projects in which Kozłowski applied his mystical approach to architecture, including his unbuilt de-Chirico-inspired proposal for the church Matka Boska Saletyńska (Our Lady of La Salette) in Kraków, which was eventually built after a design by Witold Cęckiewicz, or the HEAN Cosmetics Factory in Kraków, referred to as “The Alchemist’s House.”108 It further promoted 107 Site permit, dated 12 October 1983, Archiwum Narodowe Kraków, binder O.O. Zmartwychwstańcy 1974–85, call number 29/1431/150, p. 304. 108 For Our Lady of La Salette see Dariusz Kozłowski, Wacław Stefański, “Koncepcja”, p. 5–6 dated June 1983, Archiwum Urzędu Miasta Krakowa, Binder BA, Osiedle Cegielniana, Kos ́cio ł́ . See also Kozłowski’s drawings in Architektura 43 n. 1 (January 1989), 2.

80

9780367860721_text.indb 80

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

Kozłowski’s reputation, who subsequently became dean of Kraków Politechnika’s Department of Architecture. THE POSTMODERN CHURCH AND THE FUNCTIONALIST BLOCK The surprising contrast between a modernist socialist housing complex and a postmodern church, which is characteristic for the Ascension Church in Warsaw, St Jadwiga in Kraków, and Our Lady Queen of Poland in Głogów, was more common than one might expect. In many cases, like in Warsaw-Ursynów, the modernist tower block complex and the church shared the same designer. For example, the well-known Katowice-based duo Aleksander Franta (1925–2019) and Henryk Buszko (1924–2015) were the lead architects on the Tysiąclecia Complex (begun 1960), a rather monotonous compound of 12-storey tower blocks on the outskirts of Katowice. Two decades later they designed the exceptional Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church (1979–91) at the centre of the complex. Featuring both late modernist and postmodern elements, the brickfaced spiral towers and cubature with undulating walls are an ostentatious break with modernist seriality. Witold Cęckiewicz, one of the most eminent postmodern architects, first designed the modernist housing complex Osiedle Podwawelskie in Kraków (begun 1966) and later the previously mentioned, flamboyantly ornamented church Our Lady of La Salette (built 1985–99) a few hundred metres to the south. Cęckiewicz also authored the plan for the modernist mass housing complex Mistrzejowice (built 1963–83) in Kraków-Nowa Huta before designing the spectacular Holy Brother Albert Chmielowski Church (1986–94) nearby, with is richly ornamented orientalising arches. As art historian Anna Cymer pointed out, the conspicuous difference of church buildings to their surroundings can be interpreted as a communicative device of both priests and parishioners to stress the significance of the church.109 As such, it was used long before postmodernism. The famous Arka Pana Church with its flamboyant late modernist design, built 1967–77 in Kraków-Nowa Huta after a long struggle, conspicuously contrasts with surrounding serial blocks, just as much as postmodern churches would do two decades later. There were nonetheless other reasons for the conspicuous differences between monotonous panel blocks and inventive church design. First and foremost, there were economic factors. As was pointed out previously, the Catholic Church continued to be comparatively wealthy under the socialist regime, and the difference to many underfunded state institutions became particularly noticeable during the economic crisis of the late 1970s. An important aspect was access to formal and informal resources beyond the reach of state authorities—already Arka Pana was largely financed through hard-currency donations from Polish émigrés.110 109 Anna Cymer, Architektura w Polsce 1945–89 (Warsaw: Centrum Architektury and NIAIU, 2018), 424–26. 110 Ibid., see also Jan Franczyk, “Z dziejów nowohuckiego kościoła (1949–2009)” in Kamil Jurewicz, ed., Budujemy kościół, Współczesna architektura sakralna w Nowej Hucie (Kraków: Muzeum Krakowa, 2010), 19.

81

9780367860721_text.indb 81

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Churches, Semiotics, and Patriotism

Second, the programme and functions of sacred architecture lent themselves to greater architectural freedom than standardised mass housing complexes. Church architects were not bound by the planning targets and requirements that housing estate designers had to cope with and often perceived their work as an opportunity for creative experimentation. And third, the socialist rulers limited their restriction to church construction as such and did not attempt to restrict particular types of design. Accordingly, once permission for construction of a new church was given, the civil authorities tended not to interfere in the form-finding process.111 This applied particularly if the church designer was at the same time the architect of the entire scheme, and underlines the strategic aspect of commissioning lead architects such as Budzyński or Franta/Buszko with the design of a church in their respective housing complexes. Against this background the contrast of an attractively designed postmodern church to the surrounding repetitive mass housing blocks reflects not so much an architectural resistance against the rulers, but rather the contradictions of design politics under the socialist regime. The Ascension Church, the Łazienkowska Street Church, Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Miraculous Medal Church, Our Lady Queen of Poland, St Jadwiga, the Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation, and many other churches built in the 1980s show postmodernism’s potential to reconcile conflicting desires with historicity and innovation. The church and its surrounding buildings referred to a city of the future that was decidedly different from the functionalist ideas inherent in the mass housing blocks: a dense and functionally mixed environment that was connected to community values and social cohesion. The eclectic historical references also catered to a deliberately unspecific image of a desirable national past, patriotic narratives, and a society centred on the Catholic Church. This was particularly effective in a context in which “Polishness” possessed unambiguously positive connotations and was claimed by very different political factions. In this context the building helped to catalyse long-standing nationalist ideas that gained momentum in the last decade of socialism and remained influential thereafter. The postmodern churches were also indicative of a new socio-economic reality under late socialism, which transcended the Fordist model of mass production that had formed the basis of functionalist housing complexes such as WarsawUrsynów, Kraków-Krowodrza Górka, and Katowice-Tysiąclecia. Just as the power of the centralised planning apparatus was on the wane, the architecture of the church became a showcase for the new stylistic variety and, at the same time, a testing ground for the diversification of both formal and informal economies.

111 Tadeusz Szumielewicz, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 3 January 2020.

82

9780367860721_text.indb 82

04/11/20 9:19 PM

3 Bottom-Up Village Churches

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter introduces an unusual kind of postmodern architecture: Catholic churches in rural or semi-rural settings, which were built under the direction of a local parish priest and financed through informal means. They were erected without or with insufficient permission, but grudgingly tolerated by the authorities, who feared further confrontations with an increasingly unruly population. The chapter focuses on three characteristic examples: St Lucia in the Warsaw suburb of Rembertów (1972–93, priest Ryszard Łapiński, architect Feliks Dzierżanowski), St Michael the Archangel in Kamion, central Poland (1978–90s, priest Paweł Flaszczyński, architect Tadeusz Bronowski and others), and St Francis of Assisi in Mierzowice, Lower Silesia (1977–c.90, priest Franciszek Rozwód, various designers). The chapter will show that although the architects and clients of these buildings were often unaware of postmodern theory or contemporaneous precedents, they eagerly employed the postmodern principles of “non-elitist” design, pop-cultural references, and use of historical typologies. These lent themselves favourably to the requirements of the context, such as the limited availability of modern construction materials, the need for popular support, and the desire to respond to the local environment.1 NEO-HISTORICISM IN THE COUNTRYSIDE Many Polish villages boast remarkable examples of recent sacred architecture. Churches such as Świętej Łucji (St Lucia) in the Warsaw suburb of Rembertów; Świętego Michała Archanioła (St Michael the Archangel) in Kamion, Central Poland; or Świętego Franciszka z Asyżu (St Francis of Assisi) in Mierzowice, Lower Silesia, might at first glance appear to be centuries-old monuments. Upon closer examination, they are clearly recognisable as examples of neo-historicist 1 This chapter is derived in part from the author’s article “Bottom-Up Postmodernism – Unauthorised Church Architecture in Socialist Poland” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 79 n. 4 (December 2020).

83

9780367860721_text.indb 83

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

architecture, where carefully chosen historical references are combined with late-twentieth-century forms and technology. Much suggests that these buildings are best understood as a localized variant of international postmodernism. Just as noteworthy is the history of these churches. Like hundreds of similar houses of worship, they were built in a “bottom-up” manner by local parishioners under the guidance of a parish priest. They evolved without or with insufficient authorisation, using informal resources, and in defiance of the socialist authorities, who often responded with repressive counter-measures. Along with popular discontent with socialist rule, they represent the efforts of priests and bishops to increase the Catholic Church’s spatial presence and social influence; further, they indicate tensions within the Church hierarchy, which was generally supportive of church construction, but at the same time sharply opposed unauthorised building or similar rebellious action against state powers. The three examples stand for the hundreds of churches that were built in late socialist Poland outside the metropolitan areas and in many respects provide a clearer or at least complementing picture of the socio-political contexts than the famous churches in cities discussed in the previous chapter. Not all of them include design elements readable as postmodern. But those that did were particularly effective in responding to the social and economic conditions of the era. While both the clients and architects of these churches were often unaware of postmodernism, their concern with neo-historicism and its symbolic dimensions nonetheless aligned them with strands of domestic and international postmodern discourse. Their buildings employed traditional modes of construction and symbolic frameworks alluding to idealised visions of the past St Lucia in Rembertów (built 1972–93 by parish priest Ryszard Łapiński and architect Feliks Dzierżanowski) and St Michael in Kamion (built 1978–c.90 by parish priest Paweł Flaszczyński and architect Tadeusz Bronowski), feature both modern and neo-baroque elements. St Francis in Mierzowice (built ca. 1977–90 by parish priest Franciszek Rozwód) is a modern adaptation of the late-medieval stone masonry type found throughout central and eastern Europe. St Lucia was built from scratch in a private garden; St Michael replaced an early-twentieth-century wood-frame church; St Francis evolved from the ruins of a late-seventeenth-century church destroyed during the Second World War. On all three buildings further work was done after the end of the socialist regime, and all are still in use. The buildings reveal a common approach to design and construction. Their builders made use of both formal and informal resources and to a great extent circumvented the official design and construction processes required by the centralised planning institutions. This provoked varying reactions from the authorities. The construction of St Michael resulted in legal prosecution and a suspended sentence against the parish priest (but with no mandate to demolish the building), while in the other cases repression was limited to threats and intimidation by the Security Service.

84

9780367860721_text.indb 84

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

ST LUCIA IN REMBERTÓW: PASTICHE DECONSTRUCTIVISM In Rembertów, a sleepy, semi-rural Warsaw suburb 10 kilometres east of the city centre, the harmony of repetitive two-storey, single-family houses with pitched roofs and front lawns is broken by an unusual church [Figure 3.1]. The white-and-yellow, quasi-baroque plaster façade is set back from the street. The interior is a traditional sanctuary space with three naves and colourfully glazed, round-arched windows; the clerestory rests on square concrete columns [Figure 3.2]. The gilded main and side altars, the carved wooden pews, and the statue of patron Saint Lucia at the entrance clearly recall baroque models. The most surprising feature is the Mediterrranean-inspired, tower-like gable ornament with a curved helm roof. The tower-like structure features loudspeakers rather than bells and is adorned with a Sacred Heart of Jesus statue. The tower seems to grow from the entrance wall and might leave the observer wondering whether it is an ornamental addition to the wall or a self-supporting element of the building’s main volume. There is no evidence of a direct or specific postmodern influence behind this unusual design; however, there are some striking suggestions. The façade-turnedtower looks like a pastiche version of the “different sensibility in which the dream of pure form has been disturbed,” as Mark Wigley described the “deconstructivist architecture” of Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, and others whose work was exhibited under that moniker at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1988, the year the tower was built.2 The building also conspicuously extends beyond the modernist approaches criticised by Eisenman eight years earlier.3 It is further a none-too-sophisticated manifestation of what Robert Venturi famously called “both-and” in his 1966 book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.4 St Lucia is in many ways related to the critique these authors express. Yet its unusual tower derived not from the influence of North American theorists, but rather from a distinct set of local circumstances. The church’s founder was a headstrong priest, Father Ryszard Łapiński (1918–2008). Born and raised in Rembertów, he saw his village grow from 120 houses into a thriving Warsaw suburb that profited from its location beside a military training ground on the eastern railway line. In 1971, at age 53, Łapiński took early retirement for health reasons and became associated with a parish a few kilometres south of St Lucia’s future site in Rembertów. The former village now had about 17,000 inhabitants, and the old church’s expanding congregation had outgrown the building’s limited capacity. His poor health notwithstanding, Łapiński did not retire to a quiet pensioner’s life. He soon started his efforts to 2 Mark Wigley, “Deconstructivist Architecture” in Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, eds., Deconstructivist Architecture (New York:The Museum of Modern Art, 1988), 10–20 [exhibition catalogue]. 3 Peter Eisenman, “Post-Functionalism” Oppositions 6 (autumn 1976), reprinted in K. Michael Hays, ed., Architectural Theory since 1968 (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2000), 237. 4 Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture [1966] second edition (London: Architectural Press, 1977), 30.

85

9780367860721_text.indb 85

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.1  St Lucia in WarsawRembertów, built 1972–93 by parish priest Ryszard Łapiński and architect Feliks Dzierżanowski (author).

build a new church in the spacious yard of the single-family home he inherited from his parents. Seeing no chance of official authorisation for his project, he took matters into his own hands. He developed his plans on the ground and over the next 20 years documented the construction process in a handwritten chronicle.5 5 Ryszard Łapiński, Księga Pamiątkowa [handwritten chronicle 1971–2016], available at St Lucia Parish, also online at http://swlucja.pl/node/836 (accessed December 2018).

86

9780367860721_text.indb 86

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.2  St Lucia in WarsawRembertów, interior (author).

Figure 3.3  St Lucia in WarsawRembertów, the first church building, c. 1974 (courtesy of St Lucia parish).

In the spring of 1972, Łapiński built a chapel of about 100 square metres and dedicated it to the saint after whom his mother was named, Lucia of Syracuse [Figure 3.3]. With a plan of 10 by 19 metres, the structure was made of “stones, bricks, cement, and chalk.”6 Having no construction permit, he was helped by his 6 Józef Jaroń, vice-director of the Warsaw municipality’s Wydział do Spraw Wyznań [Department of Religious Affairs], Memorandum dated 29 August 1978 Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań” 108/15, p. 63–65.

87

9780367860721_text.indb 87

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

cousin, another local volunteer, and two retired bricklayers.7 Over the following two years electric cables and pipes were installed, walls were painted, a terracotta floor was laid, and the interior was furnished. The building as finished in the summer of 1974 was a basic, pitched-roof shed decorated with simplified, traditional church insignia: a cross on the gable, a quasi-baroque statue flanking the entrance, and a lightweight bell tower from welded steel tubes topped with a lantern-like metal structure and second cross. The tabernacle, the ornamented cabinet where the hosts are kept, was a donation from a Catholic congregation in the United States, facilitated by Łapiński’s uncle Stanisław Łapiński, a priest in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Uncle Stanisław visited repeatedly throughout the 1970s, and also supported his nephew’s project with money and gifts. The local parishioners, in contrast, as Ryszard Łapiński sorely complained in his journal, initially did not chip in a single penny.8 This must have changed later, as in 1977 he proudly reports that stained-glass windows were financed by the parishioners’ traditional Christmas donations.9 To a great extent, Łapiński’s momentum hinged on backing by high-level Church leaders. Above all, he enjoyed protection from Primate Stefan Wyszyński, Poland’s most popular religious figure at the time. In 1971, Łapiński informed Wyszyński of his intention to build a chapel and establish a new parish.10 Wyszyński offered an official statement of support after Security Service officers made an intimidating late-night visit on 8 September 1974. He wrote that Church officials had given Łapiński permission to build a “public chapel” on his private land, but was deliberately vague on whether the building was substantial enough to require municipal authorisation.11 In December 1974, Wyszyński visited Rembertów and officially established St Lucia as a new parish, which indirectly granted approval for the construction of a new church building. For the two weeks following Wyszyński’s visit, parishioners guarded the church day and night to protect it against possible attacks by the Security Service.12 The conflict did not end, though, and in June 1975 the municipality’s Department of Architecture and Urbanism issued an order to stop celebrating Mass at the church, which Łapiński ignored.13 Over the next few years, the building was modified and expanded. Responding to his congregation’s growth, Łapiński and his aides widened the chapel in 1976 and also added a church hall. The Security Service visited again, but got nowhere. As Łapiński gleefully noted in his journal for 25 June 1976, the day after the visit, workers at the Ursus machine factory in Warsaw went on strike; they were soon joined by strikers all over Poland. The strike kept socialist authorities busy and eventually led to the removal of Józef Kępa, the First Secretary of 7 Ryszard Łapiński, Księga Pamiątkowa, p. 9. He reports to have poured foundations of 10 by 10 metres on 27-29 March 1972. 8 Ibid. p. 9. 9 Ibid. p. 21. 10 Ibid. p. 9. 11 The statement was signed by Father Hieronim Goździewicz, director of Primate Wyszyński’s office. Ibid. p. 11. 12 Ibid. p. 11. 13 Ibid. p. 15.

88

9780367860721_text.indb 88

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

the powerful Warsaw Party Committee.14 Unauthorised churches took a backseat to broader issues of civil unrest. Łapiński was fined for violating construction laws, but was eventually granted amnesty.15 In 1977, he enlarged his church again, adding about 72 square metres and ignoring municipal orders to stop construction and restore the building to its previous state. As in many similar cases, socialist authorities were unwilling to respond with brute force. Tacitly acknowledging their helplessness, officials at Warsaw’s municipal Wydział do Spraw Wyznań (Department of Religious Affairs) simply referred the issue to a superior administrative tier. The Warsaw Curia, in a statement of 1978, claimed that Łapiński was acting on his own and without instruction which, in light of his close relations to Wyszyński and other superiors, was at best a half-truth.16 During a meeting between Warsaw’s auxiliary bishop Jerzy Modzelewski and Mayor Jerzy Majewski in September 1978, the bishop campaigned for authorisation of new churches, including the one in Rembertów, while the mayor asked for a “decided standpoint of the Curia against unauthorised construction.”17 There is no evidence that the dispute was resolved, and unauthorised construction continued. The Warsaw Curia officially declined any responsibility, but also refrained from taking disciplinary action against Łapiński.18 This reaction was symptomatic of the Church’s strategy at the time: quietly supporting church construction while publicly condemning insurgent activity against the socialist state apparatus. In 1978, municipal authorities ordered a site visit to St Lucia.19 According to their report, the building had “taken on ever further traits of a church”: an annex/ nave had been added on the building’s right side, while the front featured three new brick arches. The church’s clearly traditional form was part of what provoked the authorities. The building undeniably looked like a church, testifying to a powerful, non-governmental presence in central Rembertów. Łapiński had always intended to build a more substantial church than the one he started with. By 1984, he was gathering bricks and other materials, “paying different prices,” and augmenting his efforts through prayers and a pilgrimage to the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa.20 The construction permit he had long desired was finally granted in 1986, 15 years after his first building efforts but, he 14 Andrzej Boboli, “Drugi po Komitecie Centralnym. Komitet Warszawski PZPR 1975– 1989,” in Konrad Rokicki and Robert Spałka, eds., Władza w PRL (Warsaw: IPN, 2011), 79–124. 15 Ibid., 19–24. 16 Józef Jaroń, Memorandum, 29 August 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań”, 108/15, 63–65 17 Józef Jaroń, Memorandum on the results of a meeting between Bishop Jerzy Modzelewski and Warsaw Mayor Jerzy Majewski on 5 September 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań”, 108/19, 14–15. 18 Józef Jaroń, Memorandum “Tezy do rozmów z biskupem Jerzym Modzelewskim,“8 September 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań”, 108/15, 23–27. 19 Józef Jaroń, Memorandum, 29 August 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań”, 108/15, 63–65. 20 Ryszard Łapiński, Księga Pamiątkowa, 44.

89

9780367860721_text.indb 89

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.4  Father Ryszard Łapiński (1918–2008), parish priest of St Lucia in Rembertów and initiator of the church at the construction site, c. 1987 (courtesy of St Lucia parish).

sorely noted, without allowing for a traditional church tower.21 The cunning workaround to this problem was a “tower” that was, in fact, a gable ornament. What might otherwise could be interpreted as a coy but aimless bit of postmodern play was actually a strategic move. Since the gable top was not a traditional enclosed tower (even if it looked like one), Łapiński could not be accused of violating the terms of the construction permit. At the same time, he was able to insert his building and its powerful symbolic elements into the larger townscape. Photographs from 1987 show brick walls and concrete lintels half-finished and walls supported by scaffolding made from tree trunks and planks nailed together [Figures 3.4–3.7]. The symbolic kamień węgielny (cornerstone) was laid in 1988 by Primate Józef Glemp, Wyszyński’s successor, in a ceremony under the still-roofless portal wall.22 (This again confirms the close connection Łapiński maintained to high-level Church officials.) The roof, a steel construction covered with zinc sheeting, was completed in 1990, and the church was finally consecrated in 1993. A plaque adorns the foyer celebrating Łapiński as its founder and commemorating his “great pains.” Łapiński’s journal, covering two decades of building efforts, is among the few such first-hand accounts of bottom-up Polish church construction. Its tone and style suggest that Łapiński wrote it with future publication in mind, possibly in a parish context, and, in fact, the parish did publish it online after his death. Hardly a self-congratulatory narrative, the journal describes its author’s fight for a new church, a process he portrays as non-heroic and often lonely. Łapiński mentions insufficient funding, unreliable builders, and unexpected technological complications. At one point the walls had to be improved because of 21 Ibid., 46. 22 Ibid., 53.

90

9780367860721_text.indb 90

04/11/20 9:19 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.5  Father Ryszard Łapiński at the construction site, c. 1987 (courtesy of St Lucia parish).

shoddy workmanship; teams of workers had to be dismissed repeatedly, in one instance because they “were not sober”; and construction was frequently halted because of supply-chain shortfalls. Only occasionally did Łapiński receive unexpected support, as in 1987, when “a certain engineer got in touch and revealed Figure 3.6  Father Ryszard Łapiński at the construction site, c. 1987. The Sacred Heart of Jesus statue was later installed on the tower (courtesy of St Lucia parish).

91

9780367860721_text.indb 91

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.7  Father Ryszard Łapiński with the tower under construction, c. 1989 (courtesy of St Lucia parish).

that he was a Catholic and would build the church.”23 Łapiński’s notes reiterate how much his eventual success relied on powerful allies: Primate Wyszyński, his successor Józef Glemp, and émigré sponsors, including the proverbial uncle from America.24 23 Ibid., 41. 24 Mentioned by name are Łapiński’s uncle, Father Stanisław Łapiński of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Father Edward Bujarski of Green Bay Wisconsin, and Stanisława Trojanowska-Ciska of London. Ibid., 53.

92

9780367860721_text.indb 92

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

There is little mention in the journal of stylistic deliberations, and Łapiński— despite being initiator, organiser, and client—takes no credit for the building’s unusual appearance. This suggests that he simply took certain traditional elements for granted: a basilical building with a nave, a bell tower, stained-glass windows, and ample ornamentation. Yet St Lucia’s neo-historicism was undoubtedly based on choices, rather than its founder’s lack of architectural knowledge. Łapiński was familiar with the sacred architecture of Warsaw, where he had spent much of his life. There he might have seen stylistic experiments at many authorised churches, such as the late-modern St Andrew Bobola Church in Warsaw-Mokotów (Hanna Madejowska, Bogdan Madejowski, 1980–91) and the widely published postmodern Ascension Church.25 Also Feliks Dzierżanowski, St Lucia’s designer, was well-versed in both historical architecture and the latest trends, including modern and postmodern styles. He was a local architect and conservationist employed with the Pracownie Konserwacji Zabytków (PKZ Historic Conservation Studios) and a member of the Primate’s Council for Church Construction, the Church committee that oversaw sacred construction in Warsaw. Previously he had worked on the fourteenth-century castle in Płock and the war-damaged, early-twentieth-century Teatr Polski (Polish Theatre) in Warsaw. While designing St Lucia he was working on the reconstruction of the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, an esteemed historicist building from the late nineteenth century bearing neo-classical and baroque elements. Through his employer PKZ Dzierżanowski was connected to the tradition of Polish post-war conservation discussed in Chapter 1. Against this background Dzierżanowski’s neo-historical St Lucia Church had probably fewer implications of dishonesty or an illicit pretension of historicity than it would have had in a Western European or North American context. As was previously mentioned, the traditional, directional basilica type, which St Lucia shared with the great majority of unauthorised churches at the time, aimed at legibility and a visible presence in the public space. Such a design was also comparatively easy to build with the materials available in crisis-ridden Poland and the skills of retired joiners and bricklayers trained in the pre-war period. These included traditional Góral (Highlander) joiners from the South Polish mountains, who contributed to Łapiński’s church in the same way as with many other postmodern buildings.26 Most likely, the design also responded to the conservative taste of local residents, upon whose support Łapiński relied [Figure 3.8]. In this sense St Lucia’s apparent postmodern historicism responded to Robert Venturi’s famous rhetorical question: “Is not Main Street almost all right?” by both embracing popular culture and maintaining a certain distance.27 Venturi’s “almost,” by which he distinguished soulless historicism from a conscious 25 Konrad Kucza-Kuczyn ́ski, Widzialne niewidzialnego – nowe kościoły warszawskie (Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Warszawskiej, 2015), 74–75 and 88–89. 26 Ryszard Łapiński, Księga Pamiątkowa, p. 41. 27 Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture [1966] second edition (London: Architectural Press, 1977), 30.

93

9780367860721_text.indb 93

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.8  St Lucia in WarsawRembertów, tower-like gable ornament (author).

sensitivity to context, was a given in Poland, where compromises in materials, skills, and regulations almost invariably had to be made. Whatever knowledge or intent architects and patrons brought to bear upon a given project, these compromises alone ensured that contemporary historicist buildings in Poland would never be mere copies; they would always be sui generis. St Lucia’s postmodern neo-traditionalism, though resonant with currents from abroad, was inextricably born of its particular time and place.

94

9780367860721_text.indb 94

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

ST MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL IN KAMION: NEO-HISTORICISM AS CRIMINAL OFFENCE St. Michael in Kamion—officially, the Church of St Michael the Archangel and St Anna—is another example of a neo-historical building that emerged in response to the socio-political context [Figure 3.9]. Neither the village nor the church are extraordinary. Kamion is situated on the River Vistula about 70 kilometres northeast of Warsaw and is part of the township of Młodzieszyn. It is a sleepy place surrounded by forests and cornfields, too distant and too badly connected to the capital to be a commuter suburb. In the 1970s it consisted of single-family houses for about 600 families, a few shops, a school, and a fire station. The most extraordinary structure was a wooden church. Previous churches on the site dated back to the fifteenth century and were connected to the legend of Saint Jacek Odrowąż miraculously crossing the Vistula on his coat-turned-raft. These buildings were repeatedly destroyed: the last one burned down during the First World War and was subsequently rebuilt in 1918. By the 1970s it was in a poor state, its wood damaged, its walls leaning and structurally unsound.

Figure 3.9  St Michael the Archangel in Kamion, township of Młodzieszyn, Central Poland, built 1978–1990s by parish priest Paweł Flaszczyński (author).

95

9780367860721_text.indb 95

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

As with St Lucia, the ensuing illegal reconstruction involved dedicated parishioners and a committed priest, Father Paweł Flaszczyński (1937–2018). He had served in different Warsaw parishes before becoming parish priest in Kamion in 1972, where he stayed for 14 years. Somewhat unusually, state repression tactics this time included not only intimidation and clandestine action by the Security Service but also legal prosecution and a trial that ended in a suspended sentence for Flaszczyński.28 Courts in socialist Poland were, of course, not independent institutions but subject to party rule. And yet they chose an unexpected legal process: Flaszczyński was not sentenced for violating construction legislation and building a new church where he should not have done, but for tearing down the dilapidating existing one, breaching historic conservation laws, and thus disrespecting national heritage.29 In line with the rhetoric of the “national communists” mentioned in Chapter 1, the socialist authorities thus implicitly fashioned themselves as protectors of Polish national culture against a perceived onslaught of the “internationalist” Catholic Church. This was one of the rare cases in recent history where the Church was implicated for being insufficiently conservative—by a socialist government of all things. But it also exemplifies the power of nationalist rhetoric in Poland, which was and still is used with zeal by very different political factions, including both Socialist Party functionaries and Church officials. As in Rembertów, construction of the new church in Kamion was in effect both legal and illegal. When in 1977 Flaszczyński started planning his new church, his requests for construction permits were repeatedly rejected. But he had received permission from the Warsaw Curia to undertake a “thorough renovation” of the old wooden church of 1918. Weighing the costs for refurbishment against those for new construction, he opted for the latter, reasoning that in any case the old church was too small for his growing congregation.30 Among those involved in the preparations was Feliks Dzierżanowski, the Warsaw architect and conservationist who would later design St Lucia in Rembertów.31 In 1977 Flaszczyński asked him for an evaluation of the old wooden church. Dzierżanowski confirmed the building’s poor state and proposed dismantling and rebuilding it elsewhere in the context of an open-air-museum. Records 28 See the court documents at Wojewódzki Urząd Spraw Wewnętrznych w Skierniewicach 1983–1990, File “Akta kontrolne śledztwa przeciwko: Flaszczyński Paweł” Institute of National Remembrance Warsaw, call number Ld PF65/2/J. 29 Prosecution was started for “suspicion of unauthorised demolition of the listed church in the village of Kamion” on 26 June 1978, and crimes against the “Law on the Protection of Cultural Goods and Museums of 15 February 1962.” Wojewódzki Urząd Spraw Wewnętrznych w Skierniewicach 1983–90, File “Akta kontrolne śledztwa przeciwko: Flaszczyński Paweł” Institute of National Remembrance Warsaw, call number Ld PF65/2/J. 30 Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań,” call number 108/16, 141–65. 31 Wojewódzki Urząd Spraw Wewnętrznych w Skierniewicach 1983-1990, File “Akta kontrolne śledztwa przeciwko: Flaszczyński Paweł” Institute of National Remembrance Warsaw, call number Ld PF65/2/J, 32–39.

96

9780367860721_text.indb 96

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

suggest that Flaszczyński might have considered Dzierżanowski as the architect for a new building, but it is unclear if he had any input on the final design. The construction process was carefully planned.32 The concrete foundations were secretly laid in October 1977, with the old wooden church still in place. They were officially presented as a technical element related to the improvement of the old building. The work was carried out on a Saturday, with the help of about 30 local volunteers. The second stage did not occur until 8 April 1978, when Flaszczyński and some 130 parishioners built a 5.40-metre-high wall around the old church from breeze blocks, bricks, and concrete. Over the next month about 40 people poured the floor slab under the choir. On 1 May, 120 volunteers took down the old church. The next day 70 volunteers built the right nave, and a week later, the left nave. Throughout the construction process, Flaszczyński was the driving force and chief organiser. He received technical assistance from the engineer Tadeusz Bronowski, a local resident employed by the township administration. Flaszczyński and Bronowski wanted their new church design to bear a historic aspect, but they eschewed the aesthetics of the old church—a dark-brown, barn-like timber structure with a pitched roof. Instead, they turned to baroque design, models for which could be found in many churches in the wider region, most famously in central Warsaw’s St Jacek Church (Giovanni Trevano, 1603–39), which was destroyed by the German invaders in 1944 and rebuilt in 1947–59 as part of the city’s Old Town reconstruction [Figure 3.10]. Flaszczyński and Bronowski’s new building was a beige, neo-baroque structure built on a rectangular plan with three naves: 26 metres long, 11 metres wide, and 10 metres high33 [Figure 3.11]. The choir, atypically, was situated on the western end of the building, as this was the side farthest from the street. The building was topped by a square steeple with a bell, the steeple being small yet tall enough to convey the visual impression of a traditional church. Conspicuously neo-historical, the new church nonetheless contrasted with the only truly historic building on the site—a small, shingle-covered wooden tower, most likely a remnant of the old church, now used for storage [Figure 3.12]. The entrance façade on the building’s east side has wing-like parapet walls crowned by small turrets, a stylish arched window at first-floor level, and a circular window atop. The side naves are lit through round-arch windows, while the clerestory features small stained-glass openings that look like simplified rose windows. On the wooden doors are baroque-style carved images of St Michael the Archangel and St Anna. The wing-like parapet walls on the entrance façade

32 Statement by Paweł Flaszczyński, ibid., 32–39; Decision by Regional Court in Sochaczew against Pawel Flaszczyński, 20 December 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań,” 108/16, 142; and Mieczysław Wiśniewski, resident and construction volunteer, conversation with the author, Kamion, 23 August 2018. 33 Voivodeship Inspector B. Okuniewski, “Notatka służbowa” dated 24 November 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań,” 108/16, p. 146.

97

9780367860721_text.indb 97

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.10  St Jacek Church on Freta Street, central Warsaw, built 1603–39 after a design by Giovanni Trevano, destroyed in 1944, and rebuilt in 1947– 59 as part of the Warsaw Old Town reconstruction (Wikimedia commons).

Figure 3.11  St Michael the Archangel in Kamion, east façade (author).

98

9780367860721_text.indb 98

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.12  St Michael the Archangel in Kamion, wooden tower next to the church, most likely a remainder of the old church building from 1918 that was demolished in 1978 (author).

are faintly reminiscent of the Ascension Church in Warsaw-Ursynów, built at the same time. The modestly postmodern forms of the church built in Kamion reflect specific regional socio-economic conditions, as was the case in Rembertów. Traditional shapes and materials lent themselves better to improvised construction, unreliable

99

9780367860721_text.indb 99

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

supply chains, and volunteer labour than a modernist concrete frame structure would have done. Baroque forms also conformed to local popular taste, while construction by the local community helped build a powerful narrative: a strong village collective defying material scarcity and intrusive state authorities, practicing solidarity in labour and celebration, ending hard days of bricklaying with common meals and festivities, and eventually enjoying a conspicuous edifice as a source of group identification.34 Similarly important were the associations of historic design elements with the pre-war, pre-socialist period and with the nationalist narrative of Polish resistance, struggle, and perseverance. This is evident, for instance, in popular tales that link St Michael to the built icons of Polish national heroism, such as St Augustine Church on Nowolipka Street in Warsaw, which is also a neo-historical building but in fact looks very different.35 While construction was straightforward, the wider context was more complex. Flaszczyński’s superiors manoeuvred in ways similar to those of Father Łapiński at St Lucia. His plans were known to and supported by the Church hierarchy, including Bishop Modzelewski, who perfunctorily repeated the mantra that national laws had to be respected and construction needed to be authorised.36 But the socialist authorities’ reaction was also contradictory. Charges against Flaszczyński were brought forward by the socialist authorities in June 1978.37 Six months later, in December 1978, he was handed a suspended sentenced of 10 months in prison and a fine.38 He retained his liberty and his post, however, and it appears that the lawsuit only strengthened his standing in the village community. Construction carried on and the authorities neither intruded on nor requested the dismantling of the building. On the contrary, the regional (voivodeship) building inspectors urged technical improvements—such as the use of better-quality concrete and steel—to the new building rather than demolition, but there is no evidence that their recommendations were followed.39 During the 1990s a portico was added, enhancing the building’s neo-baroque aspect. 34 This is how former volunteer Mieczysław Wiśniewski remembers the construction, conversation with the author, Kamion, 23 August 2018. 35 This was mentioned by local resident Mieczysław Wiśniewski, conversation with the author, 23 August 2018. St Augustine is a neo-Romanesque building situated in the area of the former Jewish Ghetto. Connected with anti-German resistance during the Second World War, it was one of the few structures in Warsaw’s city centre to survive the war. 36 Letter by the chancellor of the Warsaw Curia, F. Olszewski to the Voivodeship administration in Skierniewice, 19 August 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań,” 108/16, 145 37 Wojewódzki Urząd Spraw Wewnętrznych w Skierniewicach 1983–90, Akta kontrolne śledztwa przeciwko: Flaszczyński Paweł. Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance Warsaw, IPN Ld PF65/2/J 38 Decision by Regional Court in Sochaczew against Paweł Flaszczyński, 20 December 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań,” 108/16, 142 39 Voivodeship Inspector B. Okuniewski, “Notatka służbowa” 24 November 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań,” 108/16, 146.

100

9780367860721_text.indb 100

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

The wavering between tolerance and authoritarianism seen at St Michael in Kamion was symptomatic of the era’s unsettled political climate. There appears to have been no consistent state policy. In 1978, for example, the same voivodeship administration that had been lenient with Flaszczyński’s building called on the Warsaw Curia to remove a vicar in the village of Biała Rawska, 50 kilometres south of Kamion, for tearing down and rebuilding a historic chapel.40 Yet outright repression remained limited, and the majority of unauthorised churches provoked only mild protests by the authorities. A prominent character in this context was Ignacy Tokarczuk (1918–2012), the rebellious bishop of Przemyśl, on the border with Soviet Ukraine. In the 1970s and 1980s, he supported the construction of over 50 unauthorised churches and chapels in his diocese. This made him a hero for Catholic believers and an insurgent in the eyes of the state. His structures were nicknamed nocne kościoły (“night churches”), as they were frequently built in three nights from Friday to Monday.41 Bishop Tokarczuk was harassed by the Security Service and subjected to xenophobic abuse by socialist party officials for allegedly being Ukrainian rather than a “true Pole.” For example Stanisław Kania, the Politburo member who replaced Gierek as party leader in 1980, in 1973 stated that Tokarczuk was a “real Ukrainian” and behaved “like a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (which in Poland is mostly remembered for war crimes against Poles during the Second World War)—an example of the traitor-to-the-fatherland trope used by both socialists and right-wing opposition members for their respective opponents.42 Still, Tokarczuk remained in his post, and his churches still stand.

ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI IN MIERZOWICE: A NEO-MEDIEVAL “DECORATED SHED” The church of St Francis of Assisi in Mierzowice, a village of about 350 inhabitants, was also built without official permission and initiated by a combative parish priest [Figure 3.13]. Mierzowice is situated in Lower Silesia, 60 kilometres west of Wrocław, and thus close to the previously mentioned postmodern Holy Spirit Church (Waldemar Wawrzyniak, 1973–81). There is little written documentation Anecdotal evidence suggests there were no further improvements. Mieczysław Wiśniewski, conversation with the author, 23 August 2018. 40 The chapel had been located in Grzymkowice. Lech Wiśniewski, Director of the Department of Religious Affairs of the Voivodeship administration in Skierniewice, letter to the Warsaw Curia, 27 May 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań,” 108/16, 159–60. 41 Józef Bar, Nowe kościoły diecezji przemyskiej w jej dawnych granicach powstałe w latach 1966–92 (Przemyśl: Kollegium Wydawnicze Adam Szal, 1993), 10; Archiwum Akt Nowych, Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyzań” 125/186 k. 13 (1971). See also Antoni Dudek and Ryszard Gryz, Komuniści i Kościół w Polsce (1945–89) (Krakow: Znak, 2006), 313–14. 42 Stanisław Kania, quoted in Antoni Dudek and Ryszard Gryz, Komuniści i Kościół w Polsce (1945–1989) (Krakow: Znak, 2006), 313–14.

101

9780367860721_text.indb 101

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.13  St Francis of Assisi in Mierzowice, Lower Silesia (1977–c. 1990), south façade (author).

of the construction of St Francis of Assisi, but much can be deduced from historic images and the existing building. Pre-war postcards show that the village, which like the whole region had belonged to Germany until 1945, once boasted a half-timbered, seventeenth-century Protestant church. This was destroyed during the Second World War. In 1978, the voivodeship administration complained that the parish priest, Father Franciszek Rozwód (1911–2016), had illegally refurbished a ruin—possibly that of the destroyed pre-war church—into a “grotto-like,” half-open structure suitable for celebrating Mass.43 The new building was erected by local residents, presumably as a matter of convenience, as the parish church in Prochowice was five kilometres away and car ownership rare. It was built from breeze blocks, with a corrugated 43 Mieczyslaw Przenzak, director of the Legnica Voivodeship’s Department of Religious Affairs, memorandum, 16 August 1978, Archiwum Akt Nowych Inventory “Urząd do Spraw Wyznań,” 108/16, 174.

102

9780367860721_text.indb 102

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches Figure 3.14  Father Franciszek Rozwód, parish priest of St Francis of Assisi in Mierzowice, in his improvised church building, c. 1982 (Robert Białowolski).

cement-asbestos roof. Authorities were concerned with both the illegal construction activity and the conspicuous celebration of public religiosity. The voivodeship administration called for the priest’s punishment and the dismantling of his refurbished ruin.44 Following this, Rozwód presumably defied the authorities much as his colleagues did in Rembertów and Kamion, and eventually received the much-coveted construction permit or simply avoided retribution after proceeding without authorisation. A photograph, possibly taken in 1982, shows Rozwód in front of an improvised altar in front of what appears to be the unfinished walls of the new building, which suggests that the construction of the church proper was started during the 1980s [Figure 3.14]. The building is emblazoned with numbers and symbols commemorating the 600th anniversary, celebrated in 1982, of the acquisition of the famous Black Madonna painting by the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa. Our Lady of Częstochowa in the seventeenth century was declared “Queen of Poland” and divine protector against the Swedish invaders and other enemies. Publicly commemorating the Madonna one year after the declaration of martial law was an unsubtle message to the rulers. The imputation of being foreign or endangering Polish culture, of which “national communists” had previously accused Catholic Church officials such as Father Flaszczyński and Bishop Tokarczuk, was now reversed and directed against the communists themselves. The church is situated on the village’s main street, surrounded by a disused cemetery. It bears no visual relationship to the town’s former pre-war Protestant church. Rather, the new building has one nave lit by round-arched, 44 Ibid.

103

9780367860721_text.indb 103

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

stained-glass windows on both sides and on the altar or eastern wall; there are also round openings on the altar wall and above the pointed-arch portico on the other side of the building. Under this portico is a wooden door providing entry. On the nave’s south side stands a bulky quadrangular tower with a helm roof and a slightly larger second entrance beneath a parabolic arch. The church was built from bricks, with stone cladding on the south and west walls. A few richly ornamented seventeenth-century epitaphs were integrated into the façade. Modern elements include the pitched roof made of corrugated sheet metal, the geometrical forms in the stained-glass windows, and bright orange brick-face ornamentation on the tower and portico façade. The building bears resemblance to the fortress-like Gothic fieldstone churches typical of Polish, German, and Scandinavian villages from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Quite deliberately, as one might assume, there was no relation to the pre-war church that had stood in Mierzowice when it was still the German village of Merschwitz. This church’s most conspicuously postmodern aspect is the inscription indicating its official foundation, 1980, written out in Roman numerals on the tower (“MCMLXXX”). The numbers were set in orange brick-facing that contrasts with the grey stone cladding. Robert Venturi’s “decorated shed” type, discussed by him and his co-authors in Learning from Las Vegas (1972), was probably not on the builders’ minds, but might well occur to informed contemporary viewers.45 Like Venturi, Rozwód aimed for an inconspicuous building that spoke through its form and decoration, as in the contrast between the medieval building type and the bright orange signage touting twentieth-century origins. The Gothic reference seems serious and playful at the same time—not fake historicity, but rather, part of a framework of cultural references. Neither the client nor the designers and builders of this church were likely during its construction to have debated issues of postmodernism. Rozwód, a parish priest since 1964, had no architectural training and was already in his late sixties when construction began. Born in 1911 and 14 years older than postmodern proselytisers Robert Venturi and Charles Moore, it is unlikely that he had studied their work, although his experiences of historical rupture went well beyond theirs. During his lifetime—he died in 2015 at 104 years of age— Rozwód had lived under six different political regimes. He was born in a village near the city of Lwów (Lviv) in present-day Ukraine, where he was ordinated to the priesthood in 1937.46 At the time of his birth Lwów was part of the AustroHungarian Empire, in the interwar years of the Second Polish Republic, from 1939 of the Soviet Union, from 1941 of the territory occupied by Nazi Germany, 45 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1972), 88–103. 46 Franciszek Rozwód, obituary by the Wrocław Archdiocese, 2016, online at www. archidiecezja.wroc.pl (accessed April 2019).

104

9780367860721_text.indb 104

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

and from 1945 again of the Soviet Union. Forced to leave after the end of the Second World War along with the region’s other ethnic Poles, he found a new home in the formerly German Silesia that the Allies had assigned to the recently established People’s Republic of Poland and served as a priest in the Wrocław archdiocese until his death. Given his experiences, one must assume that Rozwód had no illusions about the continuity of people and buildings in the modern era, and it is doubtful that he would have attempted to trick his parishioners into believing that they were using a genuine medieval fieldstone church. Nor is it likely that he intended his neo-historicist design to be ironic or critical of the architectural discipline. Rather, the probable explanation for the church’s appearance is that he used eclectic historicist form to reconcile diverse and contradictory messages: a desire for connection to history and tradition in a village whose inhabitants had all been refugees from elsewhere, a longing for the stability and continuity embodied by the Catholic Church, and the celebration of local religiousness in spite of socialism. The significance of his church’s historicism is thus similar to that behind the churches at Rembertów and Kamion: born of a desire for historical continuity in light of political upheavals and responding to the necessity for improvised construction and popular support. At all these levels the church’s postmodern historicist style met Rozwód’s expectations. It fulfilled the villagers’ desire for a traditional church without claiming false lineage. It fit into the typological context of the wider region. Most importantly, it could be construed as both historical and modern and as celebrating both the traditions connected with the Catholic Church and the merits of dissidence under an officially atheistic government. CHURCH BUILDING AND DISOBEDIENCE Unauthorised village church construction in late-socialist Poland was a courageous act of disobedience against an oppressive regime. At the same time, also in rural areas the Catholic Church was not a disinterested advocate of the downtrodden, but a powerful institution with its own agenda. The Church’s high level of support among the population was due in part to its opposition to socialism, but just as much to its long-lived socio-economic dominance over many centuries, little of which had been lost in four decades of socialist rule. Particularly in rural settings, the Church remained the main organiser of social life. Even under socialism, Polish villagers’ spare-time activities tended to centre on charity events, choir rehearsals, Sunday school, confirmation classes, pre-marriage classes, or Bible study groups. Many villagers also paid the Church rent for the lease of land or buildings, as well as varying fees for indispensable rituals such as christenings, weddings, and burials. The Church was also a significant provider of social welfare where state-operated support systems were absent or insufficient.

105

9780367860721_text.indb 105

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

From the very beginning this influence was a thorn in the side of the authorities, who were eager to win what they saw as a struggle between socialist progress and Catholic reaction. Unauthorised church construction was an obvious battleground. This is exemplified by the titles of numerous diploma theses written by aspiring Security Service officers at the Military Academy in Legionowo near Warsaw during the 1970s. Titles include “Illegal Church Construction as a Threat to Public Order…” and “Prevention of Conflict Situations against the Background of Unauthorised Church Construction….”47 In their dissertations students eagerly reproduced their supervisors’ analyses and strategies. They paint the Catholic Church as an enemy organisation undermining socialist order, employing, among others, “events called ‘miracles’ [which] are among the most dangerous forms of threat,” and best fought not in open battle but in covert operations.48 These were specified, for example, in a 1976 speech given by General Konrad Straszewski, the director of the Security Service’s Department IV in charge of Church affairs.49 Secret collaborators in the church hierarchy should sow disagreement between the different tiers of the Church and undermine solidarity among Church officials. Suspicious activities, such as the collection of money designated for church building or the assembly of construction materials by priests, should be immediately reported. The goal was nonetheless to act strategically and avoid escalation and violence whenever possible. But even Security Service officers were mindful of their limited powers before a population rife with religiosity and disobedience. This explains their proceeding cautiously in the cases of St Lucia, St Michael, and other churches and their eventual acceptance of the unauthorised buildings. Given the number of party officials who remained practicing Catholics, the long-standing cultural influence of Catholicism on all aspects of social life in Poland, and the mutual dependencies of Church and state apparatuses, the two were not entirely independent forces anyway. But it would be slightly oversimplified to identify unauthorised village churches as an architecture of “the people.” They were evidence 47 Zygmunt Majka, “Nielegalne budownictwo sakralne i kościelne zagrożeniem ładu i porządku publicznego (na terenie miasta i województwa Krakowskiego), diploma thesis, 1975; Aleksander Kwaśniewski, “Zapobieganie sytuacjom konfliktowym na tle samowolnego budownictwa sakralnego na podstawie praktyki Wydziału IV w Tarnowie w latach 1975–78, diploma thesis, 1979; Institute of National Remembrance Warsaw, call numbers BU 001834/73 and BU 1509/1035. There are many more examples. 48 Colonel M. Sałkowski “Problematyka nielegalnego budownictwa sakralnego i ‘cudów’ oraz metod przeciwdziałania zagrożeniom występującym na tym tle w świetle Zarządzenia Ministra Spraw Wewnętrznych nr 0077/70 z dnia 30-07-1970” lecture given to police officers in Olsztyn, 1970, Insitute of National Remembrance Warsaw BU 01522/449, p. 68. 49 Konrad Straszewski, Instruction no. 001/76 “w sprawie kierunków i taktyki działań operacyjnych na odcinku zwalczania samowoli w budownictwie sakralnym i kościelnym”, dated 26 October 1976, Institute of National Remembrance Warsaw, BU 00735/1651 t. 21, pp. 1–3

106

9780367860721_text.indb 106

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

of the Church’s increasing influence on a nominally socialist society, and at the same time evolved under conditions shaped by the socialist government and obtained their particular significance within that political context. TRADITIONAL AND FORWARD-LOOKING The Polish village churches discussed here exemplify postmodernism on the fringes, in a socialist country riddled by economic crisis and political upheavals, removed from the international centres of architectural and professional debate. Yet however remote, these buildings evolved within a global framework. They were financed partially through donations from the West, and they often evinced a clear desire to supersede modernist architecture then widespread in many countries, including Poland. These churches align with canonical postmodern themes, most pointedly, the return of architectural meaning and communication through “speaking architecture” and the use of an eclectic historicist vocabulary. However, in Poland these themes did not develop from the direct influence of Western European or North American theorists, but largely from domestic discourses, including historic conservation debates and the specific political and economic contexts of late socialist party rule. At St Lucia, the church tower’s playful pastiche derived from the necessity to circumvent government regulations while effectively communicating the Catholic Church’s presence and influence. At St Michael, the architectural message evolved within a framework of references to village life and the pre-socialist past. Finally, at St Francis, the building “spoke” through its form (the medieval village church as a symbol of long-standing continuity and social cohesion) and content (the “sign” on the wall touting architectural novelty and religious power despite economic crisis and socialism). Historic references, no matter how generic, proved to be powerful in a setting where “Polish national tradition” possessed unambiguously positive connotations while deficient patriotism or dubious foreign associations were attributed to the enemy—whether that enemy was the Church in the rhetoric of state officials or the socialist regime for practicing Catholics. The postmodern neo-traditional style of these churches was directly related to local realities. Priests in small towns had limited materials and relied on volunteer labour; hence they favoured low-tech, traditional technologies— bricks and mortar over reinforced concrete. They relied on retired joiners and bricklayers, men trained in the pre-war period and well-versed in traditional construction techniques. They were dependent on their parishioners’ support, hence the penchant for pop-cultural references and traditional forms and symbols. These churches reflect the struggle between Church and state authorities over the symbolic occupation of space, in which the Church was gaining ground against a socialist regime on the brink of ideological and economic collapse.

107

9780367860721_text.indb 107

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Bottom-Up Village Churches

Poland’s postmodern neo-historicist village churches were thus an appropriate response to the challenges of their socio-political context. Viewable as either traditional or forward-looking, they bridged contradictory desires. They referred to both an idealised national past and a possible non-socialist future. They embodied both historical continuity and transformative momentum. They remain vivid examples of architecture’s adaptive power and reconciliatory potential.

108

9780367860721_text.indb 108

04/11/20 9:20 PM

4 Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

CHAPTER SUMMARY In the 1970s and 1980s architects and planners increasingly attempted to defy the inflexible structure of the state-operated construction industry and modify the by-now ubiquitous panel-built mass housing blocks. These efforts generated housing complexes that took up postmodern principles: visually harmonic, legible, and at the same time meaningful urban spaces modelled after historical typologies. The chapter will focus on Radogoszcz-East in Łódź (1979–89, Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, and Andrzej Owczarek) and Różany Potok in Poznań (1978–2010s, designed by Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski). It will also briefly look at the Na Skarpie Estate in Kraków-Nowa Huta (1987–95, Romuald Loegler, Wojciech Dobrzański, Ewa Fitzke, and Michał Szymanowski), which was completed after the end of the socialist regime, and at the terraced houses in the Rojna development in Łódź (1983–87, Andrzej Owczarek), which were custom-made from pre-fabricated panels. The chapter will show that these buildings first evolved from late modernist ideas, in particular structuralist currents, and only at a later stage absorbed postmodern theory from both domestic and international sources. It will also point to individual architects and planners as the driving forces in the struggle between artistic innovation and systemic inertia, who were able to take advantage of unexpected latitude within the declining socialist regime to carry out their proposals.1 HUMANISING THE HOUSING COMPLEX In the 1970s, in Poland, as elsewhere in the Eastern bloc, the contradiction between the increasing criticism of both system-built housing complexes and the inflexible structure of the centralised, state-directed construction industry that hardly allowed for any other types of building led to a deadlock. Few prospects of change were 1 This chapter is derived in part from the author’s article “Postmodernism and Socialist Mass Housing in Poland” Planning Perspectives 35 n. 1 (2020), 27–60.

109

9780367860721_text.indb 109

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

available. Yet postmodernism with its typological concerns and anti-functionalist architectural and planning propositions promised a solution: legible, meaningful, and functionally mixed urban spaces inspired by historical precedents that were equally compatible with modern production methods. Nonetheless, the translation from theory to practice was anything but straightforward. This chapter will trace the history of these ideas and the genesis of the few projects in which they were applied. The attempts to design “postmodern mass housing complexes” were first influenced by late modernist thinking, in particular by structuralism exemplified in the work of Aldo van Eyck, Piet Blom, or Candilis/ Josic/Woods, as well as by the ideas of Oskar Hansen and his followers. Only at a later stage did they absorb postmodern theory from both domestic and international sources. The story of Poland’s postmodern housing complexes was thus one of modernist architecture’s gradual modification and adaptation. In contrast to most mass housing in Poland, postmodern complexes were “architect-built.” They resulted from the efforts of particular designers who asserted themselves against the socialist technocracy and realised innovative forms within a system established to yield mass-produced, de-individualised forms. As such they were an outcome of inventive individuals who took advantage of the leeway that the declining socialist regime, at least in certain cases, gave to individual creativity. Recent publications have given glimpses at the complex history of postmodern panel buildings.2 Against this background this chapter will lay out the framework of domestic and international influences in which the short-lived encounter between postmodernism and socialist mass housing evolved. The three developments Radogoszcz-East in Łódź (1979–89, designed by Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, and Andrzej Owczarek), Różany Potok in Poznań (1978–2010s, designed by Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski) and the Na Skarpie Estate in Kraków-Nowa Huta (1987–95, designed by Romuald Loegler, Wojciech Dobrzański, Ewa Fitzke, and Michał Szymanowski) were united by a common approach. They were planned as dense urban environments in which a fixed street pattern provided the opportunity for changeable buildings with diversified design and mixed use. At the same time all of them, like their predecessors in the 1960s, were greenfield developments located on the urban periphery. While all three were planned within the institutions of the centralised construction industry, only one of them, Radogoszcz-East, was built as a mass housing complex from pre-fabricated panels, featuring repetitive, five- to ten-storey blocks. The Na Skarpie Scheme was eventually carried out as a block development form with both pre-fabricated and customised elements. Różany Potok, which was part of the university campus in 2 Błażej Ciarkowski, “Postmodernizm a prefabrykacja– wielka płyta w zabytkowym centrum Łodzi,” in Lidia Klein, ed., Postmodernizm Polski. Architektura i urbanistyka. Antologia tekstów (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 375–98 and the insightful book by Błażej Ciarkowski, Miastoprojektanci. Łódzcy architekci w czasach PRL-u (Łódź: Księży Młyn, 2018), particularly the chapter on Pracownia no. 3, pp. 127–52. On Na Skarpie see also Dorota Jędruch, “Osiedle Centrum E – czyli piknik nad wiszącą skarpą” in Jarosław Klaś, ed., Nowa Huta—architektoniczny portret miasta drugiej połowy XX wieku (Kraków: Ośrodek Kultury im. Cypriana Norwida, 2018), 96–103.

110

9780367860721_text.indb 110

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

Poznań-Morasko, was repeatedly re-planned and mostly built after the end of the socialist regime and came to be realised as a heterogeneous development of typologically diverse three- to five-storey perimeter block buildings. Out of the discussions surrounding Radogoszcz-East grew the small complex of terraced houses in the Rojna-South development in Łódź (1983–87, Andrzej Owczarek), in which individual single-family homes were built from pre-fabricated panels. The principal architects Jakub Wujek (1937–2014), Marian Fikus (b. 1938), Jerzy Gurawski (b. 1935), and Romuald Loegler (b. 1940) had a long track record of functionalist design before committing to postmodern forms. None of them at that time was an outspoken modernist renegade. Instead, they belonged to the generation educated in the spirit of progress and modernisation that had been trained to produce Soviet-style neighbourhood units that combined system-built residential blocks with schools, shops, and leisure facilities. There is little evidence of strong intellectual or artistic breaks in their careers and much more of incremental change and of gradual modifications in their outlooks. All of them at some point took up basic postmodern principles, such as ornamentation and historic references, as well as the creation of corridor streets and squares formed by perimeter block buildings. All projects evolved over a long time and were built differently from what was proposed in the first plans. All three projects were manifestations of the great endeavour that had first instigated modernist mass housing estates: the fight against the exacerbating housing shortage. The large-scale production of flats was a constant priority among the party leaders. They were produced in what was colloquially referred to as fabryki domów (“house factories”), large state-operated enterprises first set up in the late 1950s, which produced system-built concrete panels that subsequently were assembled into standardised blocks. The first were “closed systems” that could be put together to form one particular type of block. “Open systems” of pre-fabrication, such as the Szczecin System or WB 70, were introduced in the 1970s. Various housing types could be produced from the same panels. However, there was little overall aesthetic variation. At a time when similar pre-fabrication programmes were mostly phased out in Western Europe, panel construction rose to unprecedented levels in Poland, and by the early 1980s it accounted for 70 per cent of newly produced dwelling units.3 There is strong evidence that this situation resulted from the industry’s dependency upon a limited supply chain rather than on the popularity of the built results and that the socialist rulers were unable to substantially reform the pre-fabrication industry without damaging the entire state-directed construction system. At that time criticism of pre-fabricated panel construction was just as widespread in Poland as it was in other socialist countries and in Western Europe, and calls to “humanise” the unloved blocks were becoming louder.4 In spite of 3 Andrzej Basista, Betonowe Dziedzictwo – Architektura w Polsce czasów komunizmu (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2001), 78–79; see also Edmund Sergot, “‘Fabryki domów’ a architektura mieszkaniowa,” Architektura n. 2 (March 1985), 34–36. 4 For a discussion of the Party position in the 1980s see Błażej Ciarkowski, Odcienie szarości. Architekci i polityka w PRL-u (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2017), 83 and 127–39.

111

9780367860721_text.indb 111

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

censorship the official journal Architektura in 1985 openly suggested “Responding to the question: how to modify the ‘house factories’ in order to raise the level of residential architecture? The basic conclusion is: the organizational structure of the panel factories must change.”5 Such change never came. In socialist Poland there was no comprehensive reversal of the tower-in-the-park paradigm. Neither was there a resolution like that of the East German Politburo, which in 1982 mandated future housing developments to be carried out preferentially on gap sites between historical four-storey tenements in the city centre,6 or a tradition of designing panel blocks in regional variations, as in the Soviet Union.7 In light of political and economic difficulties, the party approach to matters of construction became patchy and makeshift. The socialist rulers continuously supported panel construction, but at the same time encouraged any alternative approach that promised to increase the output of housing units or diminish criticism against the monotonous panel blocks. The story of Poland’s postmodern blocks is therefore one of an uneven and, in terms of the goal of “humanising” the mass housing districts, unsuccessful struggle. The few realised projects nonetheless stoked an evolving discourse on postmodern architecture and urbanism and channelled forces of innovation that would gain significance in the years to come. ŁÓDŹ-RADOGOSZCZ-EAST AND THE SPIRIT OF STRUCTURALISM Radogoszcz-East, located on the northern periphery of Łódź (built 1979–89 and designed by Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, and Andrzej Owczarek), was one of the most prominent Polish attempts to give socialist mass housing a human face. It aimed, as appropriately summarised in the obituary of the lead architect Jakub Wujek, an “inhabitant-friendly city from blocks.”8 As such, it was part of a project to convert Łódź, at the time Poland’s second largest city (now third largest), into a booming modern metropolis. The city, which in the nineteenth century had been known as “the Polish Manchester,” at the time sought to shed its association with smoke-belching textile mills, whilst simultaneously reconnecting with its past grandeur. The scheme boasted ornamented façades, a legible arrangement of buildings, a prominent central square (Plac Słoneczny, “Sunny Square”) [Figure 4.1], and mixed-use zones featuring shops on ground floors which reproduced many urbanistic principles of central Łódź or similar nineteenth-century cities. Corners 5 Edmund Sergot, “‘Fabryki domów’ a architektura mieszkaniowa,” Architektura 37 n. 2 (March 1985), 36. 6 Grundsätze für die sozialistische Entwicklung von Städtebau und Architektur in der DDR Minutes of the Politburo meeting on 18 May 1982, final version, Federal Archive Berlin DY 30/J IV 2/2 1947: 238; see also Florian Urban, The New Tenement (London: Routledge, 2018), 76–78. 7 Philipp Meuser and Dimitrij Zadorin, Towards a Typology of Mass Housing – Prefabrication in the USSR 1955–91 (Berlin: Dom Publishers, 2015). 8 Wiol [author abbreviation] “Pogrzeb prof. Wujka, projektanta wielu łódzkich budynków” Gazeta Wyborcza [Łódź edition] 21 February 2014.

112

9780367860721_text.indb 112

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

Figure 4.1  Plac Słoneczny (“Sunny square”) in the Radogoszcz-East estate in Łódź (1979–89, Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, Andrzej Owczarek) (author).

and passageways between the blocks were modelled after the small streets and alleys of a pre-modernist town and equipped with benches and lawns. Public, semi-public, and private areas were clearly demarcated. The small semi-public spaces next to the buildings, referred to as kameralne (“chamber-like”), were a counter-proposition to the wind-swept voids in other mass housing estates and a victory against one-size-fits-all regulations that mandated wide distances between buildings.9 Plac Słoneczny was laid out like a baroque city square, surrounded by representative perimeter block buildings and provided stately views along radial axes. The façades of other blocks in the area displayed colourful ornaments, which as “identity devices” were aimed at legibility and distinction [Figure 4.2].10 At the same time the project was also based on functionalist principles. Like most new neighbourhoods in Poland and elsewhere in the Eastern bloc, Radogoszcz-East also was designed as a mikrorayon (micro-district), the Soviet version of the self-sufficient residential quarter theorised by Le Corbusier, Clarence Perry, Leonid Sabsovich, and others in the early twentieth century. It was a greenfield development on the periphery and sheltered from through traffic. The programme was based on scientific calculations regarding the inhabitants’ needs, which included a predicted number of shops, schools, and recreational facilities, but no offices or industry, as inhabitants were expected to work elsewhere in the city. Radogoszcz-East thus upheld some aspects of modernist urban design while breaking away from others. The planning and design process was similar to that of other Polish mass housing estates. Like most residential schemes at the time, Radogoszcz-East was commissioned by a large housing cooperative, the “Workers’ Housing Cooperative Lokator,” which to date administers the complex under a slightly different organisational structure. Under socialism it was a Łódź-based public institution tightly controlled by nationwide planning institutions, in particular by the Warsaw-based Centralny Związek Spółdzielczości Budownictwa Mieszkaniowego (CZSM—Central 9 See the complaints in Zdzisław Lipski and Jakub Wujek, “Doświadczenia z projektowania i realizacji dużych zespołów mieszkaniowych na terenie Łodzi,” Architektura 38 n. 1 (January 1986), 25. 10 Andrzej Owczarek, conversation with the author, Łódź, 14 August 2018.

113

9780367860721_text.indb 113

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.2  Radogoszcz-East, courtyard view of the building on Pstrągowa 25, built 1985, looking northeast. The buildings were executed in the Szczecin construction system. The entrances are all from the courtyard side, requiring a walk from public spaces (streets) to semi-private spaces (courtyard) to private spaces (house) (author).

Organization for Cooperative Housing Construction).11 The cooperative determined the number of flats and social facilities such as schools and culture houses, but was bound by the regulatory framework of planning provisions, building standards, and available materials (mostly pre-fabricated parts). Hence, despite the client’s local base and nominal independence, the leeway for individual design was very limited. Like mass housing estates in all socialist countries, Radogoszcz-East was designed by architects employed with large, state-operated design firms. Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, Andrzej Owczarek, and their colleagues worked for the design firm Miastoprojekt Łódź, a local institution subordinated to the Warsaw Ministry of Construction. Once their urban plan was accepted, they were transferred to Inwestprojekt Łódź, the local branch of the nationwide design firm Inwestprojekt. Inwestprojekt Łódź was subordinated to the CZSM. Like the Inwestprojekt branches in other Polish cities, it was the designated architectural office for large housing cooperatives. It was within these positions that the architects managed to secure a comparatively high level of creative freedom. Miastoprojekt Łódź was a technocratic public body and not an independent institution comparable to a capitalist architectural practice. But the fact that it worked for different clients and engaged in organised competitions nonetheless created a certain degree of particular identity and the desire to promote one’s own designers, which Wujek and his team were able to use to their advantage. Miastoprojekt Łódź thus provided them with opportunities to develop their ideas in the context of exhibitions and publications, even though only a few of them were eventually implemented.

11 On control and organisation of the socialist construction companies see Andrzej Basista, Betonowe Dziedzictwo – Architektura w Polsce czasów komunizmu (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2001), 16–17.

114

9780367860721_text.indb 114

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

Construction of the scheme began in 1979 and was largely completed by the end of the socialist regime in 1989. Many of the social facilities were built, including schools, kindergartens, and shops. Somewhat unexpectedly for a socialist housing complex, a church also was planned. It is first shown on a 1986 plan on Aleja Romantyczna and Sobótki. It was subsequently built in that location in a restrained neo-traditional style as the Holy Sacrament Church (1987–99, Jakub Wujek and Zdzisław Lipski) and exemplifies the architectural vocabulary the lead designers were ready to use when they were not restricted by the state-led pre-fabrication industry.12 Much evidence suggests that it was the architects, rather than the client or the local party leaders, who were the driving forces in the scheme’s unusual design. This aligns with the observation that in Poland, in contrast to other socialist countries, party influence on the architectural profession was limited. An architect’s career usually did not rely on party membership, and even voivodeship chief architects or designers of government buildings were sometimes not party members.13 The Łódź Party committee, like its counterparts all over the country at the time, was rather indifferent about specific architectural design and ready to support any measure that promised to provide housing and calm down popular protest.14 There is also no evidence of a stylistic influence of the leading local party functionary, Mayor Józef Niewiadomski (in office 1978–85), despite the fact that he was heavily involved in local building activities and later became the Polish minister of construction.15 The architects, on the other hand, vocalised their ideas. When he received the commission, lead architect Jakub Wujek was already in his forties. He was a strong-minded, well-established designer experienced in difficult negotiations. As one of a few Polish architects, he had also worked abroad. After graduating from Gdańsk Politechnika he worked for the office of Osmo-Lappo in Helsinki from 1963 to 1964. In addition to familiarising him with the latest trends in Scandinavian architecture, this taught him management skills he would not have been able to learn in a socialist context.16 From 1967 on he formed a productive collaboration with Zdzisław Lipski. When they were later joined by Andrzej Owczarek, Krystyna Greger, and others, they formed their own design unit, Pracownia 3 (Studio 3), at Miastoprojekt Łódź. Photos from these early years show him as a fashionable young man wearing John Lennon glasses and individualistic, hippie-inspired

12 Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi, collection Urząd Dzielnicowy Łódź-Bałuty, Dokumentacja Architektoniczno-Budowlana 1987–88, call number 6344, p. 2. 13 Błażej Ciarkowski, Odcienie szarości. Architekci i polityka w PRL-u (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2017), 83–87. 14 Materials of the plenary meeting of the Łódź Committee of the PZPR on 23 February 1980, Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi, collection KŁ PZPR, call number 158, p. 13. See also other minutes, call numbers 159–64. 15 Andrzej Owczarek, conversation with the author, Łódź, 13 September 2018. See also Anna Kulik, Józef Niewiadomski – wywiad rzeka z prezydentem Łodzi w latach 1978–85 (Łódź: Księży Młyn, 2015). 16 Andrzej Owczarek, “Jakub Wujek” in Elżbieta Fuchs, ed., Jakub Wujek (Łódź: Miejska Galeria Sztuki, 2016) [exhibition catalogue], 6–15.

115

9780367860721_text.indb 115

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

clothes conspicuously contrasting with the bureaucratic socialist environment.17 In Pracownia 3, Wujek and his colleagues worked on panel-built housing complexes such as Teofilów C (built 1966–69) and at the same time developed experimental projects and ideas for exhibits and publications.18 The most unusual aspect in the design for Radogoszcz-East derived from these ideas: the plan regulacyjny (master plan), which was worked out in 1978 [Figure 4.3].19 For the first time in a socialist estate, urban planning and architecture did not result from an integrated design process, but, like in nineteenth-century neighbourhoods, was carried out in two different phases. The block plan was created first and later completed with buildings. The buildings were supposed to display variations over the common theme laid out in the plan. This was to allow for a better connection of buildings and streets (in contrast to the much-criticised “scattered blocks”) and the genesis of a cohesive urban fabric.20 The process came to be widely used in the “fruit salad estates” in early twenty-first-century Europe in which buildings of different shapes form part of an overall composition synchronised by the plan.21 Examples range from Vienna’s Aspern Lake Town (begun 2007, master plan by Johannes Tovatt, buildings by Einszueins, Scheifinger & Partner, Walter Stelzhammer, and others) to Wrocław’s much-reviewed Nowe Żerniki estate (begun 2014, Piotr Fokczyński, Zbigniew Macków, Anna Misiura, and others), the inheritor of the 1920s German Werkbund schemes in Wrocław. Among the most important influences for Radogoszcz-East were nonetheless not nineteenth- or early twentieth-century urbanism, but rather late modernist theories brought forward in the 1960s and 1970s by the Dutch structuralists, as well as innovative approaches developed at the time in Sweden and West Germany.22 Along these lines the Polish architects aimed not at a wholesale rejection of functionalist modernism, but at its reform and modification. Wujek and Lipski called for residential complexes to emerge from a creative interplay between “continuous” and “changeable” elements, as stated in their sketches for Teofilów C in Łódź (which was eventually built as a rather uninspiring tower block scheme).23 Their colleague Andrzej Owczarek promoted “replaceable” elements, such as portions of flat plans or building sections, which were to be included into the design 17 Elżbieta Fuchs, ed., Jakub Wujek (Łódź: Miejska Galeria Sztuki, 2016) [exhibition catalogue], 105–8. 18 See for example Krystyna Greger, Zdzisław Lipski, Andrzej Owczarek, Jerzy Sadowki, Jakub Wujek, Projekty 1965–72 (Łódź- Miastoprojekt, 1972) [exhibition catalogue]. 19 Zdzisław Lipski and Jakub Wujek, “Doświadczenia z projektowania i realizacji dużych zespołów mieszkaniowych na terenie Łodzi,” Architektura 38 n. 1 (January 1986), 35; Andrzej Owczarek, conversation with the author, Łódź, 14 August 2018. 20 Jakub Wujek, “Moderne und Postmoderne im polnischen Städtebau” Bauwelt (West Berlin) 80 n. 43 (10 November 1989), 1034–35. 21 Florian Urban, The New Tenement (London: Routledge, 2018), 197–256. 22 For an analysis of structuralist influences on this development see also Błażej Ciarkowski, Miastoprojektanci. Łódzcy architekci w czasach PRL-u (Łódź: Księży Młyn, 2018), 136–43 and Andrzej Owczarek, “Jakub Wujek” in Elżbieta Fuchs, ed., Jakub Wujek (Łódź: Miejska Galeria Sztuki, 2016) [exhibition catalogue], 12–13. 23 Krystyna Greger, Zdzisław Lipski, Andrzej Owczarek, Jerzy Sadowki, Jakub Wujek, Projekty 1965-72 (Łódź: Miastoprojekt Łódź, 1972) [exhibition catalogue], 12.

116

9780367860721_text.indb 116

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.3  Radogoszcz-East, plan regulacyjny (master plan), 1978 (archive Andrzej Owczarek).

of entire buildings as adaptable variations over the same theme24 (Figure 4.4). These ideas echo the influence of structuralist thinking, as, for example, realised in Aldo van Eyck’s Amsterdam Orphanage (1958–60) or Piet Blom’s Kasbah Housing in Hengelo (1969–72), as well as famous unrealised city extensions, such as Kenzo Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan (1960) or Jaap Bakema’s Pampus Plan (1964).25 These and similar ideas were widely discussed in Wujek’s circles.26

24 Miastoprojekt Łódź [Andrzej Owczarek and others], Katalog otwarty domów rekreacyjnych dla Województwa Piotrkowskiego – zasady wariantowania i wymienności rozwiązań przestrzenno-technicznych (Łódź: Miastoprojekt Łódź, 1979), [exhibition catalog], p. 1.0. 25 On the international repercussion of structuralist housing schemes see for example C. de Wit, “Geordende Kasbah—stedebouwkundig beeld van een menswaardige habitat in de toekomst?” Bouw 1963, 1474. See also Arnulf Lüchinger, “Strukturalismus— eine neue Strömung in der Architektur” Bauen und Wohnen (Zurich) 30 n. 1 (January 1976), 5–9. 26 Andrzej Owczarek, conversation with the author, Łódź, 13 September 2018.

117

9780367860721_text.indb 117

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.4  Radogoszcz-East, design for replaceability and combination, 1979, published in miastoprojekt Łódź [Andrzej Owczarek and others], katalog otwarty domów rekreacyjnych dla województwa piotrkowskiego – zasady wariantowania i wymienności rozwiązań przestrzenno-technicznych (Łódź: Miastoprojekt Łódź, 1979) [exhibition catalogue], p. 1.0 (archive Andrzej Owczarek).

Another significant influence was Skarpnäck City in Stockholm (1980–90, master plan by Leif Blomquist, buildings by Ralph Erskine, Arken, FFNS Architects, and others). Owczarek gained first-hand experience of the genesis of this dense, block-based development of 3,300 flats during several visits in the 1970s.27 Unlike in the structuralist examples, the harmonic “variation over the same theme” was achieved through different designers: a master planner providing rules regarding street plan, volumes, and façades, and diverse architects developing their ideas on

27 Ibid.; Krystyna Greger, Zdzisław Lipski, Andrzej Owczarek, Jerzy Sadowski, Jakub Wujek, Projekty 1965–72 (Łódź: Miastoprojekt Łódź, 1972).

118

9780367860721_text.indb 118

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.5  Radogoszcz-East, precedents for corner solutions, published in Zdzisław Lipski and Jakub Wujek, “Doświadczenia z projektowania i realizacji dużych zespołow mieszkaniowych na terenie Łodzi” Architektura n. 429 January/February 1986, 32 (archive Andrzej Owczarek).

the basis of these rules—precisely the process Wujek later praised as postmodernism’s key contribution to Polish architecture.28 This process was also a basic principle of the International Building Exhibit (“IBA”) in West Berlin (1979–87), which had a similar influence on Wujek and his colleagues. The IBA’s declared goal was the integration of new architecture into the historical urban fabric. Connected with the IBA were the debates on architectural language and typology, which at the time were also widely discussed in Poland. Wujek and his colleagues specifically developed their design from an “architectural language” composed of typological precedents. Basic volumes and added elements such as accentuated corners result from an analysis of historic models, such as bay windows and sentinel towers from the renaissance era29 [Figures 4.5 and 4.6]. The principle of assembling buildings along a central, traditional square is reminiscent of Rob Krier’s urban design, as can be seen in the drawings that show the squares south of the street Romantyczna realised in 1985 (Figure 4.7).30 28 Jakub Wujek, “Moderne und Postmoderne im polnischen Städtebau” Bauwelt 80 n. 43 (10 November 1989, 1034–35. 29 Zdzisław Lipski and Jakub Wujek, “Doświadczenia z projektowania i realizacji dużych zespołow mieszkaniowych na terenie Łodzi” Architektura 38 n. 1 (January 1986), 32. 30 Ibid., 28-30.

119

9780367860721_text.indb 119

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.6  Radogoszcz-East, elements to be added to the pre-fabricated panels, published in Zdzisław Lipski and Jakub Wujek, “Ulica osiedlowa w osiedlu radogoszczwschód w Łodzi” Komunikat SARP - Zeszyty Architektury Polskiej 1 n. 9-10 (1983), 6–7 (archive Andrzej Owczarek).

How was the unusual design realised within the inflexible structures of the socialist construction industry? Much suggests that individual skills and personal contacts played a crucial role. Even before construction started, the architects had to convince the city administration to relocate a high-voltage power line as well as the thoroughfare Aleje Sikorskiego to correspond with their idea of an integrated urban fabric.31 The director of the Lokator Housing Cooperative had close ties to the 31 Ibid., 22.

120

9780367860721_text.indb 120

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.7  Radogoszcz-East, drawing of an ensemble between Romantyczna and Pstrągowa, now Telmeny 10, 12, 14, 18, c. 1985, published in Zdzisław Lipski, and Jakub Wujek, “Doświadczenia z projektowania i realizacji dużych zespołow mieszkaniowych na terenie Łodzi” Architektura n. 429 January/February 1986, 29 (archive Andrzej Owczarek).

Warsaw-based central organisation of housing cooperatives CZSM, which helped the master plan to be approved.32 Subsequently, the Chief architect of Łódź gave his assent, and eventually the different municipal construction authorities did too. Negotiations with the “house factory,” the producer of pre-fabricated parts, were the most difficult part of the process. Owczarek had closely observed the attempts to build small-scale pedestrian alleys from modified panel buildings in the Warsaw-Ursynów estate, which was begun in 1971. He had met the authors Marek Budzyński and Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski during his studies at Warsaw Politechnika and remembered their negotiations with the “house factories” as a “terrible and exhausting fight.”33 In Radogoszcz-East, he and his colleagues therefore opted for a different strategy. They accepted the standardised building plans and shapes the “house factory” had on offer and instead focused on a different distribution of the buildings and public spaces. Modifications were carried out only in the details, for example, added loggias, balconies, accentuated entrances, and small, individualised pavilions on the corners, as well as parapet walls and other concrete ornaments [Figure 4.8]. In a climate in which system-built, industrialised construction was increasingly criticised and the directors of the panel 32 Andrzej Owczarek, conversation with the author, Łódź, 13 September 2018. 33 Ibid.

121

9780367860721_text.indb 121

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.8  Radogoszcz-East, blocks on Wiankowa 5, built 1983–84 in the W-70 system. In the spirit of Wujek and Lipski, who intended to merely give urban design guidelines taken up by other architects, the corner plot between the two buildings was later built up with flower shop using prefabricated parts to create a postmodern design (author).

factories found themselves on their back foot, they were ready to compromise on standardised volumes and added ornaments.34 In retrospect Wujek praised the modifications as manifestations of his continuous opposition to the socialist regime.35 However, at the time he had become the city’s most influential architect and retained this position under martial law; to do so he must have been sufficiently cautious in voicing oppositional thoughts. His success probably relied on the right mixture between acquiescence and resistance, as well as on his good negotiation skills with both party and non-party actors. Somewhat consistently with this approach the results were characterised by a certain ambiguity: they were firmly rooted in the socialist system of central planning and standardised construction, whilst at the same time they pushed mass housing design to a new level. Wujek and Lipski documented their struggle with the socialist institutions in a surprisingly critical article, which despite some censorship was published in the official journal, Architektura. They openly complained about the “house factory.” It was “one of the ‘toughest’ local firms which dictated conditions that could not be rejected.”36 These conditions were set by the Szczecin System of 34 Ibid. 35 Jakub Wujek, “Rozmowa” in Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska Postmodernizm polski – architektura i urbanistyka. Rozmowy z architektami (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 114–-16. 36 Zdzisław Lipski and Jakub Wujek, “Doświadczenia z projektowania i realizacji dużych zespołów mieszkaniowych na terenie Łodzi” Architektura 38 n. 1 (January 1986), 34.

122

9780367860721_text.indb 122

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.9  Radogoszcz East, buildings completed or under construction in 1985, published in Zdzisław Lipski and Jakub Wujek, “Doświadczenia z projektowania i realizacji dużych zespołow mieszkaniowych na terenie Łodzi” Architektura n. 429 January/February 1986, 35 (archive Andrzej Owczarek).

pre-fabrication, developed in the early 1970s in the city of Szczecin. Given that it was a “closed” panel system, the concrete panels could only be assembled in specific ways to form particular building types. The Szczecin System was used for the first group of buildings (the school buildings north of Syrenki Street, built from 1979 to 1980). The attempts to use an “open system” such as W-70, in which panels could be assembled in many ways, only marginally improved the aesthetic quality, as the outcomes were still rather monotonous blocks. W-70 was used for the second group of buildings (south and west of the school buildings, built between 1980 and 1981)37 (Figure 4.9). 37 Ibid. 34–35. In the publication the plans seem to be mismatched to the year dates, as the year dates are out of order, and in addition do not correspond to the construction phases visible in the plans and the adjacent texts. My interpretation is based on a corrected attribution, that is, I re-ordered the plans and re-attributed the year dates and matched them with the different construction phases.

123

9780367860721_text.indb 123

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

Only from the third group of buildings onwards did the architects manage to (or "the architects managed to", whatever sounds better) fully realise the clear division of public and private space foreseen in the master plan. In the third group, situated around the intersection of Wiankowa and Wodnika, as well as in other subsequent portions, this was achieved through little walls, gardens, and small doors. The fourth group, situated south of Romantyczna, which was designed between 1980 and 1982 and built from 1984 onwards, was the most important realisation of the “square model.” In the seven groups of buildings that were built in the Szczecin System, all entrances lead to slightly oblong central squares. In addition, the division between public (street), semi-private (square/courtyard), and private (building) is clearly legible. The architects worked out clear guidelines on access roads, greenery, and street furniture. The central square, Plac Słoneczny, originally called Plac na Glinkach, was part of the fifth phase and built from 1985 [Figure 4.10]. It is arguably the most convincing portion of the scheme with regard to the goal of creating meaningful urban space from W-70 panels. Plac Słoneczny reproduced important aspects of a traditional square: a contained public space limited by shop fronts and a series of representative façades achieved by sparsely used ornamentation and vertical structuring elements such as balconies and loggias. This urban ensemble is believed to derive from variations over a common theme similar to a nineteenth-century street. At the time the reception of the Radogoszcz-East scheme was largely positive, and existing evidence suggests that the architects perceived their approach as a nationwide solution for improving the unloved panel block districts. In 1985 they prepared a similar proposal for the Janów district in eastern Łódź.38 Given the progressive erosion of the centrally planned economy, however, the proposal remained unrealised. The positive reception of this “postmodern panel block scheme” also has to be seen in the context of state control and enforced conformity, against which any attempt at diversity could be seen as liberating. As Wujek put it 30 years later, “building a little different was already very much, and this was postmodernism.”39 Non-conformism lay at the bottom of his gentle anti-modernist criticism. In 1980, at the peak of anti-government protests in Poland, he called for a “return to decorum” against the monopolised, state-organised architecture that “favoured only claritas.”40 In 1983, in his opus magnum “Myths and Utopias of TwentiethCentury Architecture,” he accepted the modernist canon as such, but criticised the “myths” and “barriers” of modern architecture, in particular techno-fetishism and the belief in design as a source of happiness.41 And in 1986 he compared late 38 Zdzisław Lipski and Jakub Wujek, “Doświadczenia z projektowania i realizacji dużych zespołow mieszkaniowych na terenie Łodzi” Architektura 38 n. 1 (January 1986), 38-40. 39 Jakub Wujek, “Rozmowa” in Klein, Lidia and Alicja Gzowska Postmodernizm polski – architektura i urbanistyka. Rozmowy z architektami (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 116. 40 Jakub Wujek, “Pięćdziesiąt lat później” Architektura 32 n. 3 (May 1980), 22. 41 Jakub Wujek, Mity i utopie architektury XX wieku (Warsaw: Arkady, 1986), in particular pp. 7–8. The book was first published in chapters in Architektura n. 1–4 (1983).

124

9780367860721_text.indb 124

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.10  Radogoszcz-East, Plac Słoneczny (begun in 1985) with balconies and roof ornaments (author).

twentieth-century attacks on modern architecture to the architectural sea change around 1800 that accompanied the transition from feudal to bourgeois rule.42 42 Jakub Wujek, “Neoromantyczne fascynacje w architekturze” in Architektura Powszednia, Architektura Uboga—Materialy z VII Ogólnopolskiego Konwersatorium Polskiej Architektury Współcześnej 4-5 November 1986 (Kraków: Polska Akademia Nauk, 1988), 5.

125

9780367860721_text.indb 125

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.11  Single-family houses for ownership on Geodezyjna Street in the Rojna-South development, Łódź (1983– 87, Andrzej Owczarek). Houses were built from pre-fabricated panels; clients could decide on plans and façade ornaments (author).

It would be too one-dimensional to interpret Radogoszcz-East as an expression of anti-socialist resistance. After all, as was mentioned earlier, the design evolved within the socialist planning apparatus and was firmly rooted in some of its most basic principles, including the fostering of urban cohesion. But much suggests that positive perception of the scheme, as well as of the underlying postmodern currents in general, relied on its association with the values of diversity and flexibility that would eventually transcend the socialist regime. ŁÓDŹ-ROJNA AND THE CUSTOMISED PANEL HOUSE “At first glance it might be seen as an intelligent, twisted joke”—this is how the architect Andrzej Owczarek, Wujek’s and Lipski’s collaborator on the RadogoszczEast design, described the first visualisation of his design for a complex of 24 terraced houses in the Rojna-South development in Łódź (1983–87) [Figure 4.11]. It is “a typical housing block glued together from scores of summer house elevations, designed and built by the owners.”43 The unusual ensemble of custom-built single-family homes from pre-fabricated panels evolved while Radogoszcz-East was still under construction. With respect to variation and inhabitant orientation, it was the more successful project. But obviously, in contrast to Radogoszcz-East, the Rojna houses an outcome of the fledgling market economy and not the system of state-operated housing provision, and it was built for moderately well-off private clients. The scheme was nothing less than an attempt to reverse the core criticism against modernist industrialised architecture, monotony, and top-down decision, 43 Andrzej Owczarek, “Odkrywanie Wspo ł́ mieszkan ́co w ́ ” Architektura 36 n. 6 (November 1984), 49.

126

9780367860721_text.indb 126

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

while upholding its key values, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Clients were given a set of possible plans and façades from which they could choose, thus composing individual houses according to their needs and preferences. At the same time height, size, and block plan were determined by the architect as well as the municipal authorities. The houses in Rojna-South emerged as a simple realisation of postmodern planning principles: dense perimeter-block construction and limited façade variation over a common theme along the lines of nineteenth-century neighbourhoods. Like in historic tenements, each building was custom-made and expressed a certain degree of variation with regard to façade ornaments and floor plan. Also economically the houses derived from post-socialist principles: they were owner-occupied and financed through the beginning market economy. At the same time the houses were built from pre-fabricated panels produced in socialist “house factories”; they made use of a mixed vocabulary combining an austere modernism with select historically inspired ornaments, and they aimed at the standard nuclear family working away from the home. The 24 terraced houses with small backyards were laid out in two rows along Geodezyjna and Fizyczna streets. Each had two storeys, with the standard set-up consisting of a garage, storage rooms on the ground floor, kitchen and living room on the first floor, three bedrooms on the second floor, and an attic. Size and number of rooms and garage were nonetheless flexible. Likewise, all façades had two rows of windows and a central gabled attic window. The gable could be rounded or triangular, and there were several possible variations of pediments and façade ornaments. The variations were sufficient to avoid monotony and at the same similar enough to give the neighbourhood a distinct aspect and feel of harmony. POZNAŃ-RÓŻANY POTOK AND THE REVISED MODERNIST CITY EXTENSION A similar attempt to diversify the housing complex can be seen in the Różany Potok scheme in Poland’s fifth largest city of Poznań (begun in 1978 and mostly finished in the 2010s, designed by Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski). Różany Potok was part of the new university campus in the northern Morasko district, which developed over three decades and evidences the incremental change of design principles. Like Radogoszcz-East, the scheme received important input from structuralist thinking and eventually became a prime example of postmodern architecture and planning. As with the designers of Radogoszcz-East, the architects of Różany Potok are not easy to characterise in relation to modernism and postmodernism. Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski, who were already mentioned in Chapter 2 as the designers of Our Lady Queen of Poland Church in Głogów, met while working for the municipality of Opole in southwest Poland and formed a team when they were both in their mid-twenties. Gurawski had studied at Kraków Politechnika and originally worked as a theatre set designer, developing his ideas of space as a set of relations rather than a fixed entity. Fikus had graduated from Wrocław

127

9780367860721_text.indb 127

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

Politechnika. In 1976 they both moved to Poznań, when after winning the competition for the Morasko campus, the Chief architect of Poznań, Jerzy Buszkiewicz, offered them a job at the municipal design firm, Miastoprojekt Poznań. At the time they had established a reputation not with built projects but with a series of prize-winning competition entries for the re-planning of small towns such as Kędzierzyn and Głogów in Silesia or Włocławek in central Poland. These were committed to the CIAM debates over the “heart of the city”—block-like public buildings that are carefully assembled around pedestrianised decks and squares and serviced by car parks and motorways—a rather abstracted form of the traditional market square and not one that was particularly sensitive to the historic urban fabric. The task in Poznań was to build a new campus for the prestigious Adam Mickiewicz University comprising infrastructure and buildings on approximately 300 hectares, which were to accommodate about 30,000 students and 4,000 employees.44 The Morasko campus was in fact an entire new district on the northern periphery in a largely unbuilt area of pine forests, lakes, and streams—the largest was the Różany Potok (Rose Burn) that eventually gave its name to the residential area. The university served as the client. The brief was firmly rooted in the principles of functionalist planning: separation of traffic—the university was to be served by both a motorway and a new tramway line—and creation of two self-contained areas: a university area with buildings for teaching and administration and a residential district for teachers and employees that was administered by the university housing cooperative. The latter was the future Różany Potok scheme.45 The high prestige of the project from the very beginning opened up possibilities unavailable for other new districts. Design was based on a closed competition organised in 1974 by the architects association SARP, to which Fikus and Gurawski were invited for their reputation as visionary urban designers. The project received high public attention, and the organisers from the beginning were open to innovative solutions. Fikus and Gurawski’s prize-winning plan of 1974 was inspired by the most famous university campuses in Western Europe at the time [Figure 4.12]. Models included the influential structuralist Free University in West Berlin (1967–72, Georges Candilis, Alexis Josic, Shadrach Woods) and particularly the Ruhr University in Bochum (1964–74, Helmut Hentrich, Hubert Petschnigg), which they had visited in the early 1970s.46 Accordingly, Fikus and Gurawski’s plan was a sequence of connected low-rise buildings intersected by pedestrian paths and surrounded by motorways and cloverleaf junctions as well as park spaces and greenery. The northern area featured student residences, which were clustered together in a half-hexagon form. The southern area was reserved for university buildings which, like in Bochum, were assembled around a polygonal square and serviced by a grid 44 Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski, Projekt nowego uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 1978); Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski, “Przestrzenno-funkcjonalny element integrujący” Architektura 28 n. 6 (December 1976) 32–36. 45 Ibid. 46 Marian Fikus, conversation with the author, Poznań, 24 September 2018.

128

9780367860721_text.indb 128

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.12  Marian Fikus/Jerzy Gurawski, competition entry for the university campus in PoznańMorasko, 1974 (archive Marian Fikus).

of orthogonal footpaths. Like many mega-structural plans at the time, the square was designed as a deck at first-floor level and reserved for pedestrians; the lower storey at street level featured the tramway link. Towards the east the square was connected to a pedestrian street in the east–west direction, which served as the university area’s spine. In retrospect, Fikus called this “integrative esplanade” the central meeting place and the most important aspect of the proposal.47 The site of this esplanade is still an unbuilt strip of woodlands bordering the campus’s northern fringe; the connecting central street was eventually built about 200 metres farther south and is now largely a car park. The structuralist influences are just as obvious as in the early drawings of the Radogoszcz-East designers, although a little less prominent. Fikus and Gurawski’s plan evolved around a central network of infrastructure, which was potentially expandable and adaptable. The buildings could be changed without affecting the structure. At the same time, the sequential interior courtyards and the central position of the square already pointed to a line of thinking leading into postmodern urbanism. Following a structuralist logic they could be developed into typological “variations over the same theme,” including historically inspired perimeter-block buildings like those that were eventually built. There is also a noticeable influence from Oskar Hansen’s theories about “open form.”48 Hansen (1922–2005), who in the post-war decades was arguably 47 Ibid. 48 Oskar Hansen, “Forma otwarta w architekturze. Sztuka wielkiej liczby” [1960], reprinted in Marcin Lachowski, Magdalena Linkowska, Zbigniew Sobczuk, eds., Wobec Formy Otwartej Oskara Hansena. Idea – utopia – reinterpretacja (Lublin: Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski, 2009), 14; Oskar Hansen, Ku formie otwartej [edited by Jola Gola] (Warsaw: Fundacja Galeria Foksal, 2005).

129

9780367860721_text.indb 129

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.13  Marian Fikus/Jerzy Gurawski, revised second plan for the university campus in PoznańMorasko, 1976 (archive Marian Fikus).

Poland’s most influential urban theorist, developed his ideas about open, modular forms that evolve around connective public spaces. One of his best-known projects, the Przyczółek Grochowski complex in Warsaw (1969–74, Oskar Hansen, Zofia Hansen), shares with Fikus and Gurawski’s plan the public courtyards created by orthogonal buildings with “internal” and “external” faces, as well as the modular structure that is potentially expandable along a linear direction. These themes were developed in subsequent proposals. The second plan from 1976, which was worked out after Fikus and Gurawski had won the competition, already had a different feel [Figure 4.13]. The two districts were expanded. The “integrative esplanade” in the university district became more prominent. At the same time, the residential district now had aspects of a traditional street pattern. The decks were still part of the proposal, but the conspicuous motorways became downscaled. Both decks and motorways disappeared in subsequent plans. The division between a fixed network of streets and infrastructure, on the one hand, and potentially changeable elements that were connected to them, on the other, was still the guiding design principle. The cornerstone of the new campus was laid in 1978, but due to the mounting economic crisis and the political upheavals connected with the Solidarity protests, construction soon stalled. After four years the architects publicly spoke of their frustration in light of “wasted hours, days, months and years.”49 In the following they nonetheless developed further specifications. Construction continued at a slow pace, and the first university buildings went up in the 1980s. One 49 Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski, “Przestrzenno-funkcjonalny element integrujący” Architektura 28 n. 6 (December 1976), 34.

130

9780367860721_text.indb 130

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.14  Department of Physics of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (1978–94, modified in 1999, Marian Fikus/Jerzy Gurawski) (author).

of the earliest was Fikus and Gurawski’s design for the Physics, Acoustics and Mathematics Building (built 1978–94, modified in 1999), by now an icon of postmodern architecture [Figure 4.14]. The first drawings from 1976 show a late modernist four-storey structure on a grid around repeating quadrangular courtyards similar to those of Candilis/Josic/Woods’s Free University in West Berlin. When the first portion was finished in 1991, the building had become significantly more postmodern thanks to features such as brick-faced arches, circular windows, and pyramid-shaped glass roofs.50 In its current state it is dominated by a glazed green entrance built around a steel tube scaffolding; the building consists of different geometric volumes that are visually separated through brick facing and glazing. Conspicuous round and half-round windows structure the façade; there are ornamental brick parapet walls and different roof shapes. There are similarities to the industrial aesthetics of James Stirling’s Faculty of History Building at Cambridge University (1968) as well as Aldo Rossi’s historical typologies. The first plans from 1974 and 1976 gave no specific information on residential buildings. The drawings nonetheless suggest that they were to be system-built structures from pre-fabricated panels. Buildings were first specified in a 1980 plan for the block on Umultowska 100-100D that was published in Architektura [Figure 4.15].51 The block is situated a few hundred metres northeast of the Physics, Acoustics and Mathematics Building. It was completed in a different form two decades later and, next to residences and ground floor commercial premises, also houses Marian Fikus’s office [see Figure 4.19]. The 1980 plan shows connected four-storey walk-ups from concrete segments that are assembled around a central courtyard. They contain a total of 87 small, mostly two-bedroom flats accessible through galleries on the courtyard side and a common staircase. 50 Marian Fikus, Przestrzeń w zapisach architekta (Poznań: Wydział Architektury i Planowania Przestrzennego Politechniki Poznańskiej, 1999), 128–34. 51 Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski, ”Budynki mieszkalne w Poznaniu-Morasku” Architektura 33 n. 4 (July 1980), 62–65.

131

9780367860721_text.indb 131

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

The construction from large concrete segments notwithstanding, the project includes numerous neo-traditional elements. The small scale and the arrangement around the courtyard recalled traditional nineteenth-century blocks. Variations in height and roof structure as well as the brick face ornaments remind one of individually constructed buildings on a historical street. The whole ensemble had traditional pitched roofs “that recall the features of buildings in the Morasko area.”52 Such postmodern aspects increased in subsequent versions of the plans that were developed over the course of the 1980s. It seems that the changes were not the outcome of external pressure, but rather reflected the architects’ changing preferences. In retrospect, both architects stressed their continuous concern with communicative urban spaces throughout their careers.53 While modifying the Poznań University plan, they also designed one of the icons of Polish postmodern architecture, the previously mentioned Our Lady Queen of Poland Church in Głogów (built 1985–89). The building allowed the architects to develop themes that would progressively also become important in the Różany Potok scheme: a concern with small scale, meeting spaces, and place-specific identity. In 1984 the architects worked out the plan realizacyjny (implementation plan) that specified the residential area, and which at the time was first referred to as the “Różany Potok scheme.” It covered approximately 16 hectares of the 300-hectare plan [Figure 4.16]. Northeast of the Różany Potok scheme proper there was also a small portion carried out by the housing cooperative Uniwer, which was built between 1985 and 1990. From the 2000s onwards, the wider neighbourhood also included developer-built housing. In the area covered by the “implementation plan,” buildings were now ordered in a traditional, orthogonal block scheme with tree-lined streets and block perimeter buildings. Two types dominated: directional buildings with façades towards the street and backsides with gardens towards the alley and open courtyard buildings erected around a landscaped inner part of the block. At the centre of the residential portion, where the 1976 plan had still shown a sports stadium, there was now a quadrangular square referred to as rynek (“market square”), which was intersected by two orthogonal streets and surrounded by symmetrical blocks. Its southern side opened to a wedge-shaped park with a vista towards the brook.

Figure 4.15  Marian Fikus/Jerzy Gurawski, 1980 plan for the block between the streets Umultowska, Zygmunta Lisowskiego, and Jarosława Maciejewskiego, west elevation (now Umultowska 100-100D), published in Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski, “Budynki mieszkalne w Poznaniu - Morasku” Architektura 33 n. 4, May–June 1980, 63). The project was later realised with a different design, see Figures 4.17–4.19 (archive Marian Fikus).

52 Ibid., 62. 53 Jerzy Gurawski, “Rozmowa” in Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska Postmodernizm polski – architektura i urbanistyka. Rozmowy z architektami (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 254–60; Marian Fikus, conversation with the author, Poznań, 24 September 2018.

132

9780367860721_text.indb 132

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.16  Morasko Campus/ Różany Potok scheme, implementation plan (1984, Marian Fikus/Jerzy Gurawski) (archive Marian Fikus).

The first building types were also developed in the late 1980s. As the Uniwersytecka Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa Różany Potok (Różany Potok University Housing Cooperative) opened to the general public, the residential portions were no longer designed exclusively as staff housing, although there was still a significant share of university employees among the future inhabitants.54 54 Marian Fikus, conversation with the author, Poznań, 24 September 2018.

133

9780367860721_text.indb 133

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.17  Różany Potok scheme, “double terraces,” sectional drawing from 1988 (archive Marian Fikus).

At the time the architects were already able to take advantage of the new materials that the fledgling market economy offered to Polish builders, and unlike the designers of Radogoszcz-East, no longer had to rely exclusively on pre-fabricated panels. As a result, the design became significantly more varied than that of Radogoszcz-East. There were clear influences from the international currents at the time, particularly the West Berlin IBA. Next to four-storey walk-ups with historically inspired façades, loggia balconies, and ornamental columns on the ground floor, there were what the architects in a 1988 plan referred to as szeregowce zdwojone (“double terraces”) [Figure 4.17]. These were three-storey terraced houses with two interlocking self-contained flats on the ground floor/ first floor and on the first/second floor, which can be accessed through separate entrances [Figure 4.18]. With their representative, historically inspired façades they were an urban version of the suburban terraced house. These and other buildings were completed after the end of the socialist regime, now mostly by Fikus’s office and without Gurawski’s participation. In the late 2010s Różany Potok presents itself as a quiet, mixed neighbourhood, which despite its peripheral location has an urban rather than suburban feel. This is due to its relative density and perimeter block buildings, despite the fact that some of its key locations still remained unfinished, including the “market square” or the wedge-shaped park. On the other hand, the mixed-use four-storey walk-ups were largely completed— today one houses Fikus’s office [Figure 4.19]. Together with the ornamented rows of two- and three-storey residences they form a harmonic entirety [Figure 4.20]. The convoluted design history shows that the postmodernism of the Różany Potok scheme originated from concerns with structure and community. The latter was integral to the late modernist debates on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The project exemplified how structuralist and mega-structural influences over the

134

9780367860721_text.indb 134

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.18  Różany Potok scheme, “double terraces” on Umultowska 100 D-G, designed by Studio Fikus, 1988–91 (author).

course of three decades were modified into a development based on postmodern planning principles such as perimeter block construction, historically inspired typology, and functional mixture. KRAKÓW-NA SKARPIE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT The third example is the Centrum E scheme in Kraków-Nowa Huta (1987–95, Romuald Loegler, Wojciech Dobrzański, Ewa Fitzke, Michał Szymanowski), usually referred to as Osiedle Na Skarpie (“complex on the escarpment”). Designed Figure 4.19  Różany Potok scheme, walk-ups on Umultowska 100-100 A-C, designed by Studio Fikus, c. 1990 (author).

135

9780367860721_text.indb 135

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.20  Różany Potok scheme, buildings on Romana Drewsa, looking southeast (author).

a decade after Radogoszcz-East, the set-up was already different and reflected the economic reforms carried out in the 1980s.55 The client was the large housing cooperative Budostal, associated with the Lenin Steelworks around which Nowa Huta was built. However, the designer was not a big municipal office, as in Radogoszcz-East or in the early phase of the Morasko campus/Różany Potok scheme. Rather, the Pracownia Uslug Architektonicznych (Studio for Architectural Services), which was run by the Kraków branch of the architects’ association SARP, operated with a higher degree of independence and was, for example, allowed to draw up contracts with private architectural firms.56 The lead architect Romuald Loegler, who was mentioned in Chapter 2 as the designer of the St Jadwiga Church, was one of the most innovative designers of his time, organiser of the first Biennale of Architecture in Kraków in 1985, and one of the few Polish architects who took part in the West Berlin IBA. Along with his team partners Wojciech Dobrzański, Jacek Czekaj, and several others he was invited in 1986 to take part in a workshop, which eventually led to the design of the multi-family building on Dessauer Straße 34-35 in Berlin (built 1991–93). The original programme for the Na Skarpie Estate showed little difference from that of a typical socialist mass housing estate.57 The stated goal was to build about twenty 4- to 6-storey residential buildings and facilities for commerce and services, including a housing cooperative office, a clothing store, a photo studio, a watchmaker’s workshop, a hairdresser, a Pewex imported goods shop, a Cepelia folk art shop, and a café. The buildings were to be erected from Żerań large 55 Dariusz Grala, Reformy gospodarcze w PRL (1982–89). Próba uratowania socjalizmu (Warsaw: Trio, 2005), 125–83. 56 Romuald Loegler, conversation with the author, Kraków, 1 September 2018. 57 Romuald Loegler, “Na Skarpie – Zespół Mieszkaniowy” 1983–85 in Archiwum Urzędu Miasta Krakowa, Binder Budownictwa i Architektury BA, p. 7.

136

9780367860721_text.indb 136

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes Figure 4.21  “Urban Villa” in the Na Skarpie Scheme in Kraków-Nowa Huta (1987–95, designed by R. Loegler, W. Dobrzański, E. Fitzke, and M. Szymanowski), plan dated 1989, Romuald Loegler, Urban Villa in Archiwum Urzędu Miasta Kraków, binder “Budownictwo i Architektura BA, ‘Na skarpie – willa miejska’”, 1989 (Archiwum Urzędu Miasta Kraków).

blocks, a pre-fabrication system developed in the 1960s. And yet the result was surprisingly different. The Na Skarpie scheme came to be a colourful ensemble of unexpected typological variety. Buildings were loosely modelled after historical urban blocks and often displayed classically structured façades with decorative details such as loggias, rounded balconies, and ornamentation. The impact from the West Berlin discourse is also evident in Loegler’s project for a Willa Miejska (“Urban Villa”), a term widely used in the context of the IBA58 [Figure 4.21]. The four-storey building on an L-shaped plan was eventually built on the southeast corner of the development (address: Osiedle Centrum E no. 3), featuring a façade symmetrically structured by bay windows and balconies on both sides of a conspicuous glazed stairwell with a blue steel frame. POSTMODERN MASS HOUSING The short-lived encounter between postmodernism and socialist mass housing yielded a number of noteworthy projects that were reflective of the conditions in late socialist Poland and the limited possibilities of modifying industrialised construction and functionalist urbanism. At the time, designers all over the Eastern bloc aimed at modification of standardised blocks and design elements in order to consider cultural or climatic differences. Examples range from the flamboyantly ornamented blocks in Soviet Central Asia, to the historicising panel blocks in Hungary or the pre-fab tenements in the German Democratic Republic. The Polish case was unusual only insofar as it developed against the background of a progressive decline of the centralised construction industry, as well as the gradual establishment of market elements and localised decision-making. These promoted 58 Romuald Loegler, 1989, plans “Na Skarpie – Willa Miejska,” dated 1989, Archiwum Urzędu Miasta Krakowa, Binder Budownictwa i Architektury BA.

137

9780367860721_text.indb 137

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodern Mass Housing Complexes

the use of non-standardised materials for design proposals oriented towards volumetric design and historical typologies. The relationship between architects’ ideas and socialist realities is particularly obvious in the Radogoszcz-East case, but played out in the Różany Potok and Na Skarpie case studies too. Much suggests that all three projects were subject to similar tensions in the decision-making process. There was an inflexible system of state-operated construction firms, there were large housing cooperatives with a certain degree of leeway, and there were headstrong architects with good negotiation skills and a desire for creative freedom. The studio system within the state-operated construction firms in Poland afforded architects the opportunity for comparatively independent design activities. Professional organisations and forums for exhibition and exchange were less restricted than in other socialist countries, and from as early as the 1970s, architects rarely faced political pressure or censorship of their ideas. All this led to a thriving professional discourse, of which the three cases are material examples. Poland’s “postmodern mass housing” took up influences not only from the obvious postmodern themes of typology and historical quotations, such as those exemplified in the works of Aldo Rossi or Rob Krier. To a similar extent they were generated by late modernist currents, in particular structuralism as promoted by Aldo van Eyck or Piet Blom, as well as the domestic discourse on open form connected with Oskar Hansen and his supporters. The gap between theory and practice was particularly wide given the hardships architects had to face. In conjunction with the chronic shortage of labour and materials and the obstacles posed by inefficient bureaucracy, the boundaries of architectural innovation in mass housing design were set by the inflexibility of comprehensive planning and vertically integrated construction firms. Unlike their colleagues designing for the fledgling private market, mass housing architects had to deal with the declining centralised planning organs. In all the presented cases these constraints led to significant modification of the original ideas; in the case of Różany Potok, where large portions were only completed after the end of the socialist regime, the scheme was eventually realised as a hybrid neighbourhood reflecting both socialist and post-socialist conditions. In this context it was to a large extent personal commitment that generated innovative architecture and planning. The lead architects for the projects in this chapter, Jakub Wujek, Marian Fikus, Jerzy Gurawski, and Romuald Loegler, owed their success not only to their creative energy but just as much to their persistence, negotiation skills, and ability for improvisation and ad-hoc management. Postmodern mass housing blocks stand witness to the leeway that existed under a seemingly inflexible authoritarian regime, as well as to the individuals who managed to use it to their advantage. In this sense they reflected the social and political conditions in the last decade of socialist Poland.

138

9780367860721_text.indb 138

04/11/20 9:20 PM

5 Postmodernism from the Spirit of Historic Conservation The New Old Town of Elbląg

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter will focus on historic conservation as an important source of postmodern design, focusing on the Old Town of Elbląg in northern Poland. The famous historic ensemble was comprehensively destroyed in the Second World War, neglected for several decades thereafter, and eventually rebuilt from scratch in an eclectic style. The 1979 plan by Wiesław Anders, Szczepan Baum and Ryszard Semka was comprehensively revised in 1980-83 under the influence of the local Head Conservationist Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann and eventually carried out as an ensemble of flamboyant, historically inspired houses financed by the fledgling market economy. The rebuilding was influenced by Polish conservationist theory, and at the same time developed against the background of an international trend towards Old Town regeneration. Similar strategies were used in selected parts of Gdańsk and other destroyed Old Towns. The rebuilding of Elbląg’s Old Town shows how postmodern architecture was successfully used to address contemporary challenges and reconcile contradictory desires. These include a contested past in a town that had been German until 1945, a longing for local identity and visible historicity despite historical ruptures, and the establishment of traditional planning principles such as small scale and mixed use in a modern environment. The chapter also shows that the project did not have an unambiguous political significance and in certain ways was associated with both the socialist regime and the opposition.1 A POSTMODERN OLD TOWN The town of Elbląg, situated 60 kilometres east of Gdańsk in northern Poland and currently home to about 120,000 inhabitants, is an unusual example of postmodern architecture. At the end of the Second World War Elbląg’s famous Old Town, 1 This chapter is derived in part from the author’s article “Postmodern Reconciliation – Reinventing the Old Town of Elbląg,” Architectural Histories, published by the European Architectural History Network (EAHN), Autumn 2020.

139

9780367860721_text.indb 139

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

with its over 600 fifteenth- to nineteenth-century houses, was reduced to rubble and left largely ruined for more than three decades.2 In the 1980s it re-emerged and was referred to as retrowersja (“retroversion”): a house-by-house reconstruction on the historical block plan (master plan 1979 by Wiesław Anders, Szczepan Baum, and Ryszard Semka, comprehensively re-worked 1980–83 to allow for individual buildings). This chapter will show that Elbląg’s new Old Town is an example of a postmodern project that grew from different roots than much of postmodern architecture in Western Europe and North America. The rebuilding of Elbląg was connected to the history and specificity of the site. It reconciled contradictory desires for post-functionalist planning principles, visible historicity and local identity despite a contested past. The broad definition of Elbląg’s re-built Old Town as “postmodern” aligns with recent architectural historical scholarship, albeit not necessarily with some of the architects’ self-definitions. The buildings took up eclectic neo-classical and vernacular influences and were based on small scale, mixed use, and pedestrian orientation [Figure 5.1]. They were historically inspired with regard to layout and dimensions, but their block plan and ornamented façades were clearly noticeable as contemporary. The buildings were an architectural counter-proposition to the monotonous tower blocks outside the city centre and to the socialist technocrats that had promoted them. Somewhat more hidden, but still evident, were aspects that were also gaining significance in Western Europe at the time: inner-city regeneration, increasing private investment, municipal image marketing, and an increase of tourism.3 The rebuilding thus paralleled an architectural approach brought forward at the time, for example, by Rob Krier in his attempts to “repair” European cities using historical typologies, or by Aldo Rossi in his promotion of historical buildings (“urban artefacts”) as guidance for contemporary architecture.4 As will be shown in the following, these parallels to international postmodern theory only to a small extent resulted from direct influence and much more from a common concern with the shortcomings of modern architecture that at the time were shared across the Iron Curtain. 2 Of the historic buildings in the Old Town only 20 had little or no damage. For a documentation of pre-war Elbląg see Jolanta Barton, “Dokumentacja Historyczno – urbanistyczna,” dated 1974–75, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/6207-6210 (four tomes). See also the habilitation thesis Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, Elbląg Stare Miasto (Elbląg: Państwowa Służba Ochrony Zabytków w Elblągu, 1998) [simultaneously published in German by the same publisher under the title Die Altstadt von Elbing] and the article by art historian Agnieszka Skolimowska, “Zapełnianie Pustki—Odbudowa Starego Miasta w Elblągu” in Lidia Klein, ed., Postmodernizm Polski. Architektura i urbanistyka. Antologia tekstow (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 327–74. 3 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); Nan Ellin, Postmodern Urbanism (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996); Richard Williams, The Anxious City—English Urbanism in the Late 20th Century (London: Routledge, 2004). 4 Rob Krier, Urban Space (London: Academy Editions, 1979); Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City [1966] (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), 28–61.

140

9780367860721_text.indb 140

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.1  Elbląg’s Old Town from the tower of the cathedral, looking northeast. The street running diagonally from top left to bottom right is Stary Rynek (Old Market), with the Brama Targowa (Market Gate) on the top left. On the left side one can see one of the few blocks that have not yet been rebuilt, with the cellars of the pre-war buildings excavated as part of the archaeological programme of 1979–83 (author, 2018).

The new Old Town of Elbląg was also a means to reconcile contradictory desires for historical continuity and creative innovation. This was particularly significant in light of a traumatic past: Elbląg had been part of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire from the late eighteenth century until 1945. At the end of the Second World War the German inhabitants were expelled and the town was subsequently re-populated by Poles who were often refugees themselves, originating from the regions that Poland was forced to cede to the Soviet Union. Also in previous epochs the town had never been unambiguously Polish: it was founded by Germans in the thirteenth century and subordinate to the Polish Crown from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, while being mostly German-speaking and possessing a high degree of political autonomy under a German-speaking elite. Against this background the unspecific historicity of the rebuilt town responded to the perplexity to construct an all-encompassing image of Elbląg’s past. Elbląg is also an example of unexpected opportunities in the last decade of socialism. It is the story of a committed woman who seized the moment: Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, who was head conservationist of Elbląg Voivodeship from 1975 to 1999 and became the driving force in the promotion of a house-by-house approach, rather than the “neo-historical panel plan” with system-built houses that had been decided by the local authority in 1979. It similarly shows the opportunities of increasing civic participation: from 1983 the local Jaszczur Association challenged the principles of the socialist economy and coordinated private individuals who were to become small-scale investors into owner-occupied houses.5

5 The Towarzystwo Przyjaciól Ziemi Elbląskiej “Jaszczur” (“Lizard” Society of Friends of the Elbląg Land) was founded in 1981 by Włodzimierz Mielnicki, Henryk Bagiński, Maurycy Fedyk, and others. The name refers to a medieval association of knights and noblemen.

141

9780367860721_text.indb 141

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

These activities show that in Elbląg, as in many other postmodern projects in Poland, the lines between regime and opposition are blurred. Lubocka-Hoffmann was a party member, and so were many of her supporters in Elbląg and in the central government in Warsaw who eventually approved the rebuilding. But their approach was neither typical nor characteristic of the party’s ideology and, particularly in the beginning, met with strong resistance from the party establishment. While the project was obviously influenced by the general spirit of hope and renewal connected with the Solidarity Trade Union movement—Gdańsk, the centre of Solidarity protests, was only 60 kilometres away—Lubocka-Hoffmann and the other supporters of the rebuilding were not political activists. Likewise, the project was only indirectly affected by political events. It started several years before the foundation of Solidarity in 1980 and gained momentum even after the protests were violently crushed with the declaration of martial law in 1981. Elbląg exemplifies several local specificities that played out in the Polish variant of postmodernism. One was the agency of certain portions of the state apparatus—in this case the conservation authority and the local planning department. Another was the influence of the previously mentioned Polish school of historic conservation and the traditionally high esteem it carried in the Polish context compared to other socialist countries. The latter is particularly noteworthy, as the postmodern “reinvention of the small town” in Elbląg and other Polish cities extended far beyond the traditional domains of protection of monuments and harnessed new concepts such as atmosphere, ambience, and immaterial heritage. And finally, the influx of private funds generated by a fledgling market economy guaranteed the viability of a long-term construction project in light of a slumping socialist economy.

REBUILDING THROUGH THE BACKDOOR The unusual design of Elbląg Old Town appeared somewhat “through the backdoor”—not through a single decree, but through a series of decisions taken over the course of more than a decade. Throughout the post-war period Elbląg saw proposals similar to those made in war-destroyed cities all over Europe at the time. These were based on modern architecture, functional separation, primacy of automotive traffic, and little sensitivity towards historic layouts and structures. Proposals for functionalist redesign included, for example, the two “Sketches for a Conception of a Detail Plan for the Old Town of Elbląg” (1958, Wiesław Anders, Szczepan Baum, and others for Miastoprojekt Gdańsk), which foresaw four 11-storey buildings next to the Gothic Katedra Świętego Mikołaja (St Nicholas Cathedral), or the “First Stage of a Detail Plan for the Old Town of Elbląg” (1962, Szczepan Baum), which proposed the construction of two department stores around the Stary Rynek (Old Market) and repetitive five-storey blocks around them. At the time when these plans were prepared, the remaining ruins of the historic houses were removed and the cellars filled in. Also the “General Plan

142

9780367860721_text.indb 142

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.2  The same view in 1975. The Brama Targowa (Market Gate) is visible in the top left corner (Jolanta Barton, “Dokumentacja nistoryczno – urbanistyczna” dated 1974–75, archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/6207-6210, photograph no. 111 by A. Wołosewicz).

of Elbląg Town” (1966–67, worked out by the Voivodeship Planning Office) and the “Detail Plan for the Spatial Use of the City Centre and Old Town of Elbląg” (1967, worked out by the municipal Elbląg Planning Office) would have entailed the eradication of the historic street plan and a rebuilding with repetitive modernist blocks containing municipal offices, as well as with sports facilities, parking, and greenery.6 The plans were nonetheless never implemented [Figure 5.2]. Likewise, there was no reconstruction. With the exception of the cathedral and a few houses on Wigilijna/ Świętego Ducha Street, which were rebuilt in the 1950s to 1970s in their prewar shape, Elbląg’s Old Town remained a large void. Evidence suggests that the decades-long neglect was not only grounded in bureaucratic inefficiency and a weak socialist economy but also in a lack of what Lubocka-Hoffmann called “emotional incentive.”7 In contrast to the Old Towns of Poznań or Warsaw that had already been part of Poland before the war, the formerly German Elbląg was seen as belonging to a foreign culture, one to which the current inhabitants did not feel personal attachment and which they had little motivation to recover. But also in the following decades the character of the Elbląg rebuilding remained ambiguous between recovery and reinvention. Likewise, some of the 6 Ibid., 15–16. 7 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, Elbląg Stare Miasto (Elbląg: Państwowa Służba Ochrony Zabytków w Elblągu, 1998), 17.

143

9780367860721_text.indb 143

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

architects who had promoted pre-fabricated blocks and functionalist urbanism in the 1960s and 1970s eventually developed postmodern designs and mixed use in the 1980s. These include the master planners Wiesław Anders and Ryszard Semka. Anders was a professor at Gdańsk Politechnika and the dean of the architecture department from 1971 to 1978. His colleague Semka (1925–2016) and the third master planner, Szczepan Baum (1931–2014), were also affiliated with this university. As part of their appointment they carried out design work in the university-based architecture office ZAPA (Zespół Autorskich Pracowni Architektonicznych, later organised as a cooperative), and as such enjoyed a high degree of creative freedom. When starting in 1983 the plan was changed to allow for house-by-house construction Anders was no longer part of the team. Both Anders and Baum had worked on functionalist tabula rasa plans for Elbląg. In addition, Baum had in the 1960s designed the controversial plan for Malbork near Gdańsk (begun 1969), where a medieval Old Town destroyed in the Second World War was rebuilt as a sequence of repetitive low-rise slabs. He later designed the Gdańsk-Niedźwiednik estate (1979–83), consisting of tower blocks with postmodern elements. To understand the apparently paradoxical situation that a group of functionalist architects ended up spearheading postmodern neo-historicism, one has to take a closer look at both the socio-political context and the nature of the postmodern architecture that they designed. Already their functionalist proposals for Elbląg had shown little of the heroism found elsewhere in war-destroyed Europe. In Elbląg modernist architecture was not presented as superior to the historical houses that it was meant to replace. There was no debate about visionary design or innovative planning. Rather, the repetitive slab block plans appear to have resulted from pragmatism and a sore awareness of the technological constraints and limited resources under the socialist economy. Even the architects, it seemed, had no long-term determination to defend them or resist their gradual modification. At the same time the tabula rasa plans from the very beginning contained at least some elements that suggested historical awareness. The 1958 plan by Baum, Semka, and others included the historical reconstruction of the aforementioned houses around Wigilijna/Świetego Ducha Street that were later rebuilt Figure 5.3). Also the construction of school buildings on the ruins of the late medieval castle in the southern portion of the Old Town was dropped in the late 1960s for conservationist reasons.8 Against this background, it eventually became possible to “squeeze postmodernism out of architect” such as Baum and Semka, as Head Conservationist Lubocka-Hoffmann in retrospect described her influence.9 In her language postmodernism meant neither false nor tawdry, but rather honest and more sensitive to the surroundings than the “dreary” and “embarrassing” functionalist plans.10 8 Ibid., 16. 9 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 11 September 2018. 10 Ibid.

144

9780367860721_text.indb 144

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.3  From left: the buildings on Świętego Ducha 21, 20 and 19, rebuilt in the 1980s, with the entrance of the Ścieżka Kościelna (Church Lane). The cathedral is in the background (2018, author).

This points to an inclusive potential of postmodern design, which in the context of the Elbląg rebuilding became particularly significant. THE UNREALISED NEO-HISTORICAL PANEL PLAN The turning point towards historically inspired architecture was the “Project for the Construction of the Old Town of Elblag,” which in the following is referred to as the “neo-historical panel plan” 11 [Figure 5.4]. Strictly speaking it was a series 11 Wiesław Anders, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka, “Projekt Zabudowy Starego Miasta w Elblągu”, dated “August 1976-October 1978” Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803. The plan was published in “Elbląg – Stare Miasto” Architektura 32 n. 3 (May 1980), 66.

145

9780367860721_text.indb 145

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.4  The 1978 “neo-historical panel plan” by Wiesław Anders, Szczepan Baum, and Ryszard Semka, archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/1246, plan 1.

of plans for street layout, design of some buildings, zoning, and traffic planning. The project was passed by the city administration in 1978. The national journal Architektura reported on the preparations in 1976 and published a good portion of the plans in 1980.12 Work on the “neo-historical panel plan” started in the mid-1970s, when Anders, about 15 years after his tower block proposal, first started to stress significance of the “historical development… of urban ensembles and architectural form.”13 In the beginning the expressed commitment to historical form was largely rhetorical, as the design to which they were applied was still based on serial construction methods and simplified plans. But in the long run the plan proved to be influential, as repeated modifications would eventually lead to an abandonment of industrialised panel construction. Already the first drafts of the “neo-historical 12 Wiesław Anders, “Koncepcje zabudowy Starego Miasta w Elblągu – zagadnienia rewaloryzacji i modernizacji starych zespołów mieszkaniowych na przykładzie miast Polski północnej” Architektura 28 n. 6 (November 1976), 61–116; Wiesław Anders, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka, “Elbląg – Stare Miasto” Architektura 32 n. 3 (May 1980), 43. 13 Wiesław Anders, “Tezy do ukształtowania Starego Miasta Elbląga jako element śródmieścia Elbląga” in Wiesław Anders et al., Program i wytyczne przestrzennego ukształtowania zabudowy [typed documentation of the workshop], 1974–75, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1245, p. 8.

146

9780367860721_text.indb 146

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

panel plan” were based on ground floor commercial use, and thus on a new principle of mixed-use development different from the strictly functionally separated modernist housing complexes. The new stage of design started out with a preparation seminar in 1974–75 at Gdańsk Politechnika, in which about 15 architects and engineers participated under Anders’s direction. The “spatial planning team” included Baum and Semka; among the three representatives of the Elbląg municipality was the director of the Municipal Office for Spatial Planning, Jacek Bocheński, who ten years later would supervise the house-by-house reconstruction.14 The team’s “basic theses” on the reconstruction point to the future, stressing “contemporary technological possibilities” and “contemporary use” but at the same time “historic development” and “humane residences.”15 A series of plans that took up the results of this seminar was commissioned by the Elbląg municipality in 1975.16 Over the following years Anders, Baum, Semka, and others worked out specifications for design, programme, development, conservationist principles, and infrastructure. The resulting plan was Anders, Baum, and Semka’s “neo-historical panel plan.”17 The “neo-historical panel plan” was somewhat indebted to the destroyed pre-war town, but based on pre-fabrication and serial elements. It foresaw the reconstruction of a sample of about 25 (mostly corner) buildings according to their historical shape. These historical copies focused on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Elbląg was a wealthy merchant city subordinate to the Polish Crown, a member of the Hanseatic League, and a serious competitor of nearby Gdańsk. The other structures were to be carried out in large panel technology, “harmonising” with the reconstructed ones with regard to roofline and building dimensions [Figure 5.5]. The original grid plan laid out when the town was founded in the thirteenth century was to reappear again, and buildings were designed for mixed use. The historical block structure was nonetheless only to be partially rebuilt. Unlike the closed blocks that were characteristic for the town from its medieval origins until 1945, most blocks were now open on one side, and the continuous street front was 14 Wiesław Anders et al., “Program i wytyczne przestrzennego ukształtowania zabudowy” [typed documentation of the workshop], 1974–75, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1245. 15 Wiesław Anders, “Tezy do ukszałtowania Starego Miasta jako element śródmieścia Elbląga” in Program i wytyczne przestrzennego ukształtowania zabudowy, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1245, p. 8. 16 Wiesław Anders, “Program i wytyczne przestrzennego ukształtowania zabudowy” 1975, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1245; Wiesław Anders, “Koncepcje zabudowy Starego Miasta w Elblągu – zagadnienia rewaloryzacji i modernizacji starych zespołów mieszkaniowych na przykładzie miast Polski północnej” Architektura 28 n. 6 (November 1976), 61–116. See also Janusz Korzeń, “Elbląg, miasto od nowa” Architektura 43 n. 3 (May 1989), 20. 17 Wiesław Anders, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka, “Projekt Zabudowy Starego Miasta w Elblągu”, dated August 1976-October 1978, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803.

147

9780367860721_text.indb 147

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.5  Façades on Stary Rynek, west side, as planned in the 1978 “neo-historical panel plan” (file “Program i wytyczne przestrzennego ukształtowania zabudowy, rysunki + plany” 1978, archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/1246).

interrupted. The pre-war town’s consistent distinction between streets and block interiors was thus blurred—an aspect that ended up being implemented, as the blocks that were eventually built, with a few exceptions, were also partially open. Another intrusion into the historical plan were the structures planned on Wodna Street, where L-shaped buildings were to span across the street, connecting a row of houses on the riverfront with another one on the next block. The panel buildings were mostly four-storey houses with pitched roofs. Their protruding and receding façades would have only loosely reproduced the spaces of the historical corridor streets. Flats were to be built according to repetitive patterns and tended to be small. For example, the two-bedroom flats designed according to the “north-south system” were approximately 60 square metres in size [Figure 5.6].18 The zoning of the “neo-historical panel plan” aligned with the principles of inner-city regeneration found in Western Europe at the time. It foresaw about 600 flats, as well as specialised shops, services, and tradesmen’s workshops, as well as cultural functions and a tourist infrastructure. Other uses included a culture house, a youth culture house, a cinema, and a technology house.19 In September 1978 the “neo-historical panel plan” was passed by the Elbląg Voivodeship Party Committee.20 Half a year later, in spring of 1979, it was signed off on by Mayor Zdzisław Wąs.21 The project was even awarded a prize by the 18 Ibid. 19 Wiesław Anders, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka, Miejscowy Plan Szczególny, date 1978, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1246. 20 Jacek Bocheński, Director of the Voivodeship Office of Spatial Planning, expertise on the “Projekt Zabudowy Starego Miasta w Elblągu” [1976–78] dated 1979, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803 21 Directive no. 7/79, dated 16 March 1979, signed by Mayor Zdzisław Wąs, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803, p. 9. Andrzej Groth nonetheless claims that the approval was given a year earlier, in spring 1978. Andrzej Groth, ed., Historia Elbląga, supplement to vol. 5 (Gdańsk: Marpress, 2005), 44.

148

9780367860721_text.indb 148

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.6  Repetitive flat plans foreseen in the context of the “neo-historical panel plan” (Anders, Baum, Semka, “Projekt zabudowy starego miasta w Elblagu, dated August 1976-October 1978” archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call no. E/1803).

Polish Ministry of Administration, Spatial Planning and Environmental Protection, which suggests that at a national level it was deemed largely uncontroversial, or at least appropriate for the historical context. Construction nonetheless did not start. Some sources attribute this to the hesitance of Head Conservationist Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann in giving the panel buildings the conservationist approval necessary for any project in the historic city centre.22 Others see the economic crisis as similarly influential, as the town was hard-pressed to come up with the resources for such an ambitious project.23 Lubocka-Hoffmann, in retrospect, described her influence as “expressing some objections” to the municipal administration in spring of 1979 regarding the relationship between old and new architecture and the construction of two car parks.24 She also pointed out that resistance developed gradually after 1980.25 It is likely that also her own objections only developed progressively, as in 1979, compared to the previous tabula rasa plans, she had still assessed the panel plan as being “extraordinary from a conservationist and urbanistic point of view.”26 Likewise, Jacek Bocheński, the director of the Voivodeship Office of Spatial Planning, first commended the “neo-historical panel plan” and later supported

22 Andrzej Groth, ed., Historia Elbląga, supplement to vol. 5 (Gdańsk: Marpress, 2005), 44. 23 Janusz Korzeń, “Elbląg, miasto od nowa” Architektura 43 n. 3 (May 1989), 23. 24 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, Elbląg Stare Miasto (Elbląg: Państwowa Służba Ochrony Zabytków w Elblągu, 1998), 21. 25 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, “Bez precedensu” (interview), Architektura 43 n. 3 (May 1989), 34. 26 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, “Opinia”, dated 1979, in “Materiały na posiedzenie komisji ds. rewaloryzacj miast i zespołów staromiejskich—projekt zabudowy” June 1979, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803, p. 4.

149

9780367860721_text.indb 149

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

the individualised buildings.27 Very few people in the late 1970s, it seems, could imagine that further concessions towards a historically inspired reconstruction would ever be feasible. Over the following years, Lubocka-Hoffmann would nonetheless become one of the “neo-historical panel plan’s” most vociferous critics and a driving force in the individually built house-by-house reconstruction that was eventually carried out. ELBLĄG OLD TOWN AND THE NIKOLAIVIERTEL IN EAST BERLIN The rebuilding of Elbląg had had numerous similarities to the old-town historicism in other socialist countries. There is no evidence of any direct influence, and the resemblances are likely to be grounded in the socio-political conditions under late socialism. The comparison nonetheless gives insights into the influence of local factors. One of the best-known examples is the “fake old town” Nikolaiviertel (Nikolai/St Nicholas Quarter) in East Berlin (1979–87, designed by Günter Stahn and others), in which large panel construction was also modified to give the impression of a small-scale historic environment and which was based on comparable architectural principles as Elbląg’s “neo-historical panel plan” [Figure 5.7].28 Some commonalities were purely accidental. Both Berlin and Elbląg were founded around a thirteenth-century church dedicated to St Nicholas; both were first mentioned in the same year, 1237; both city centres were subject to wide-ranging modifications over the centuries before being comprehensively destroyed in the Second World War; and both celebrated the reinvention of their respective Old Towns in the context of their 750th city anniversary in 1987—the Elbląg municipality with the exhibit Elbląg Stare Miasto, Przeszłość–Przyszłość (Elbląg Old Town, Past–Future) in the rebuilt Elbląg Museum, and the East Berlin authority with the exhibit Mittelalterliche Handelsstadt Berlin/Cölln (Medieval Merchant Town Berlin/ Cölln) in the rebuilt St Nicholas Church. Other parallels were more specific, as the “retroversion” of Elbląg Old Town and the interpretative reconstruction of the Nikolaiviertel derived from similar processes. In both cases the rebuilding was related to a disappointment with functionalist planning and a rising popular interest in historic urban environments. In both countries the top leaders, Edward Gierek and Erich Honecker, respectively, as well as the inner circle of party leaders, remained comparatively disinterested. While they eventually approved both projects, they could hardly be credited with the initial impulse, as in both cases the first initiatives originated from lower tiers of the hierarchy and met with considerable resistance. In addition, in both cases the earliest plans were promoted not by the party apparatuses, but by the significantly 27 Jacek Bocheński, Director of the Voivodeship Office of Spatial Planning, expertise on the “Projekt Zabudowy Starego Miasta w Elblągu” [1976–78] dated 1979, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803 28 Florian Urban, Neo-historical East Berlin (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 99–142; Florian Urban, “Designing the Past in East Berlin Before and After the German Reunification” Progress in Planning 68 n. 1 (January 2008), 1–55, DOI: 10.1016/j. progress.2007.07.001

150

9780367860721_text.indb 150

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.7  Nikolaiviertel in East Berlin (1979–87, Günter Stahn and others). In the background the rebuilt St Nicholas Church from the thirteenth century; in the foreground neo-historical façades from prefabricated elements (author 2008).

less powerful civic administrations: in Elbląg by the municipal and historic conservation authorities (supported by the architects’ association SARP), and in East Berlin by the municipal Bezirksbaudirektion (District Direction of Construction).29 In both cases planning for small scale and mixed use preceded neo-historical architecture. The fine-grained rebuilding of the respective Old Town areas was decided first, and the modification towards a progressively more historically inspired design came at a later stage. And in both cases the historical impression was enhanced over the course of the planning process (approximately 1979–87), yielding more “historical” and fewer “modern” façades than originally planned. Also the number of buildings carried out in traditional brick technology increased. In the East Berlin Nikolaiviertel the first prize-winning proposal from 1979 contained numerous modernist elements that over the following years were gradually “historicised.”30 This was not mandated by the party leaders, but developed in the Bureau of Urban Design subordinated to the District Direction of Construction, with some input from the conservation authority.31 In Elbląg, the “neo-historical panel plan” over the years was modified towards a house-by-house reconstruction that was more strongly indebted to the historical models. 29 The East Berlin Politburo only decided on the neo-historical rebuilding of the Nikolaiviertel in 1980 when design proposals had already been worked out. See Minutes of the Politburo Meeting on 4 October 1980, final version, Berlin Federal Archive DY 30/J IV 2/2 1861; see also Florian Urban, Neo-historical East Berlin (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 109. 30 See photographs of the Nikolaiviertel models of 1979, 1981, and 1983 at the Archive of the Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning in Erkner near Berlin. 31 Florian Urban, Neo-historical East Berlin (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 106–10.

151

9780367860721_text.indb 151

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

The course of both projects nonetheless diverged around 1980. The Nikolaiviertel was eventually built according to a neo-historical panel plan similar to that that remained unrealised in Elbląg, with a few historically reconstructed structures using traditional construction methods and the majority of the ensemble evolving from steel frame technology with pre-fabricated concrete elements. At the same time, given its prominent location in the centre of the East German capital city, the Nikolaiviertel became part of the party leaders’ image-marketing strategies towards both their own citizens and their capitalist neighbours in West Germany and was featured prominently as a backdrop for political celebrations. The Old Town of Elbląg, in contrast, only came to national prominence gradually, and image marketing was less significant. Given the weaker economy of Poland at the time, implementation took longer. Both factors proved to be advantageous in the long run, as it allowed the project to develop beyond the neo-historical panel plan stage that was carried out in the Nikolaiviertel. But most importantly, the project was influenced by specific factors that would gain importance during the 1980s: on the one hand, a fledgling market economy that was nonetheless still regulated within the framework of socialist state power, and on the other hand, an approach to historic conservation that had little in common with the traditional remits of the discipline. POSTMODERNISM FROM THE SPIRIT OF HISTORIC CONSERVATION Elbląg’s postmodern “retroversion” received significant input from the expanded definition of historic conservation discussed in Chapter 1. Particularly influential was a move by Lubocka-Hoffmann that in the long run would break the gridlock of insufficient resources and growing objections to the “neo-historical panel plan”: the beginning of archaeological research in the Old Town. Arguing from a strictly conservationist viewpoint Lubocka-Hoffmann focused on protecting what were effectively the only historical remains: the cellars of the old houses, which often dated back to the Middle Ages. They had been filled with rubble in the 1950s, but were otherwise well preserved. In 1979 Lubocka-Hoffmann invited well-known researchers under archaeologist Tadeusz Nawrolski (1945–94), who in the years following until 1983 converted the cellars of Old Town Elbląg into the country’s largest medieval archaeological site [Figure 5.8]. The fact that the houses were extraordinarily well documented—including the medieval inhabitants’ professions, social status, and sometimes even names—gave the project further prominence.32 In the following years interest in the city’s history increased and spawned a variety of events and publications. These included the International Archaeological Conference “Elbląg ’86,” which presented results from the excavations, as well as other events in the context of the town’s 750th anniversary celebrations in 1987.33 32 Andrzej Groth, ed., Historia Elbląga, supplement to vol. 5 (Gdańsk: Marpress, 2005), 49. 33 Komitet Organizacyjny Obchodów 750lecia Elbląga, Program Obchodów 750lecia Elbląga (Elbląg: Komitet Organizacyjny Obchodów, 1984); Antoni Czachowski and Tadeusz Nawrolski Elbląg—nowe spojrzenie na średniowieczne miasto (Gdańsk, 1993)

152

9780367860721_text.indb 152

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.8  An excavated cellar on Stary Rynek, 1980s (archive of the Urząd Miasta, Elbląg, file I-D Wigilijna 24, 25, 26).

In the long run the most significant outcome of the archaeological research was an increase in the legitimacy of a house-by-house reconstruction. Parallel to the excavations, Lubocka-Hoffmann worked out “conservationist guidelines.” They were passed in 1983, extended beyond the traditional remit of a conservation authority, and in fact amounted to a new plan that superseded the “neo-historical panel plan.”34 The guidelines asked for individual design using “individual, contemporary forms” that did not disturb the historic scale and the “atmosphere of the old Elbląg.” A “historical repertoire” of architectural forms was specifically allowed, but there should be no illusion of historical reconstruction. At the same time the guidelines mandated traditional, high-quality materials such as brick, wood, and plaster. Building heights were to be individual, following historical typologies, and the plans were to include one-storey rear buildings and the historical przedproża (stoops). Elements such as windows could be serially produced, but there should be variations that relate to the variety found in historic buildings. Next to these new buildings the approximately 30 historically rebuilt houses already mentioned in the “neo-historical panel plan” were kept. They were samples from every stylistic epoch between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Most reconstructed buildings were sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Mannerist designs dating from the town’s economic heydays, like the building on Mostowa 17 [Figure 5.9], which originally dates from 1620 and was rebuilt in the late 1980s [proceedings of the conference Elbląg ’86]; Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka et al., Elbląg. Dzieje i architektura (Elbląg: Urząd Miasta w Elblągu, 1992). 34 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, Elbląg Stare Miasto (Elbląg: Państwowa Służba Ochrony Zabytków w Elblągu, 1998), 24; Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, “Bez precedensu” (interview), Architektura 43 n. 3 (May 1989), 34.

153

9780367860721_text.indb 153

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.9  Mostowa/Brückstraße 17 (left), built c. 1620, and adjacent buildings Mostowa 16-12, view around 1930 (Jolanta Barton, “Dokumentacja historyczno – urbanistyczna” dated 1974–75, archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/6207-6210, photograph no. 177).

[Figure 5.10 and Figure 5.14], or the building on Mostowa 4, originally from 1595, which served as an inspiration for the adjacent postmodern buildings designed in the 1980s [Figure 5.11–5.13]. As a result of the conservationist guidelines, the “neo-historical panel plan” eventually morphed into a new project—the postmodern reconstruction of individual buildings. Lubocka-Hoffmann had no illusions about the authenticity of the new buildings that would derive from her guidelines. She was well aware that her plan would

154

9780367860721_text.indb 154

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.10  The same view in 2018. Only the building Mostowa 17 (left), as well as the adjacent buildings Mostowa 18 and 19 (not visible on the picture; see Figure 5.14) were rebuilt according to the historical model (author).

155

9780367860721_text.indb 155

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.11  Drawings for façades on Mostowa 13-19 (Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka, 1986) (file “Koncepja zabudowy Ul. Zamkowa, Ul. Mostowa” archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/6742).

Figure 5.12  Façades of the buildings Mostowa 4-11, December 1983 (archive of the Urząd Miasta, Elbląg, folder “Projekt realizacyjny Stare Miasto” Baum/Semka, file “Elbląg Stare Miasto”).

Figure 5.13  Façades of the buildings Mostowa 4-11 (Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka, 1986) (file “Koncepja zabudowy Ul. Zamkowa, Ul. Mostowa”, archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/6742).

not have been approved by any of the classical conservation theorists in whose spirit she was educated, from John Ruskin’s principle of non-interference to Georg Dehio’s motto “conserve, don’t rebuild.”35 She argued with the 1964 Venice Charter but at the same time it was clear that, strictly speaking, there was no longer an “urban ensemble” that could be conserved along the lines of the Venice Charter. Neither could she mention memory and personal attachment, as none of Elbląg’s current Polish residents had recollections of the German pre-war era.36 She could only argue for reconstruction along the lines of Jan Zachwatowicz’s dictum not to accept the wilful destruction of cultural values. Her merit was that 35 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 11 September 2018. 36 This point shows up repeatedly in the literature, see for example Agnieszka Skolimowska, “Zapełnianie Pustki—Odbudowa Starego Miasta w Elblągu” in Lidia Klein, ed., Postmodernizm Polski. Architektura i urbanistyka. Antologia tekstow (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 332–33.

156

9780367860721_text.indb 156

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.14  Mostowa 4-11, begun 1986 (author).

she took Zachwatowicz’s argument and stripped it of its national/patriotic content. In Elbląg, the goal was not to reinstate cultural heritage as a sign of Polish resistance against Nazi Germany’s wilful destruction, as it had been in Warsaw Old Town. Rather, visual historicity was set as a guideline for urban development. Yet Lubocka-Hoffmann was able to defend the postmodern rebuilding through a strictly conservationist argumentation: the centuries-old cellars were significant monuments, and an effective way to preserve them was to build up each of them with an individual building of the size and shape of the destroyed structure.37 This approach aligned with the Dresden Declaration “On the Reconstruction of Monuments Destroyed by War,” which was signed at the 1982 ICOMOS meeting and sanctioned full-scale reconstruction whenever it was justified by “social development.”38 Lubocka-Hoffmann and her supporters thus used conservation in the service of the future. Thus, although paralleling the ideas of contemporary architects such as Aldo Rossi or Rob Krier, postmodern Elbląg grew from the buried remains of the past. In contrast to the previously mentioned examples of built historiography in Warsaw, Poznań, or Gdańsk, the postmodern rebuilding of Elbląg promised a new liberty. The reconstruction of some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century façades notwithstanding, the town was neither architecturally “polonised,” nor was the German past prominently stressed. Rather, the rebuilding allowed for a historical experience based on the genius loci without the details of an uncomfortable past. 37 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 11 September 2018. 38 Declaration of Dresden (1982), online at www.icomos.org (accessed November 2018). Polish representatives included the head of the Wrocław Museum of Architecture, Olgierd Czerner, and the general conservator of Poland Bohdan Rymaszewski. See “Kolokwium Icomos na temat odbudowy zabytków Zniszczonych w czasie ostatniej wojny” Ochrona Zabytków 36 n. 3–4 (1983), 300–02.

157

9780367860721_text.indb 157

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

None of those involved in the rebuilding referenced the political context, and most likely they did not intend to make a political statement. But the design happened at a time in which designers no longer saw the need to consciously reject connections with the German period. In the decades following the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw, in which West Germany officially renounced claims to Germany’s pre-war eastern territories that included Elbląg (East Germany had already made a similar declaration in 1950), the attitude of Elbląg’s residents towards their town’s German history also gradually changed. The official rhetoric that Elbląg had been Polish in a distant past and was only “regained” in 1945 became less and less prominent. At the same time, an entire generation of Poles born and raised in Elbląg had come to be completely at ease with their town’s Polishness and had no reservations in showing an interest in its German history. Also, contacts between former German and current Polish inhabitants of Elbląg increased after tourist visa requirements were liberalised for West Germans and eliminated for East Germans in the 1970s. The protagonists of the rebuilding were also aware that their work was observed by West German associations of former Elbląg residents, and many felt an implicit obligation to show them that they were doing a good job despite not having any memories of the pre-war city.39 In this context, postmodern architecture, which could be seen as both historical and non-historical, was particularly convenient, as it helped to no longer perceive the city’s traumatic past as a liability for contemporary designers. Elbląg’s postmodernism from the spirit of historic conservation thus relied on a number of favourable factors. First, there was a political system in place in which, unlike in some other socialist countries, the head conservationist’s right to approve or reject construction plans in the Old Town was not challenged or overruled by party officials. Under this system Lubocka-Hoffmann’s conservation authority had a sizeable budget that she could use as seed money to make the house-by-house reconstruction financially attractive, as she was able to pay for the foundations. Second, there was a changing zeitgeist: a new enthusiasm for historical environments increasing criticism of industrialised construction, both of which gained further prominence during the political protests. And last but not least, Lubocka-Hoffmann, in her thirties at the time and the only woman in her position, was a strong personality with the skills to effectively negotiate with architects and politicians superior to her in rank and age, and thus to eventually supersede the “neo-historical panel plan.” MOMENTUM AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL Next to Lubocka-Hoffmann’s influence, momentum was also created through decisions taken at the national level. In 1979 the Międzyresortowa Komisja do Spraw Rewaloryzacji Miast i Zespolów Staromiejskich (Interdepartmental Commission on Revalorisation of Cities and Old-Town Ensembles) met in Elbląg.40 Often referred to as the “Zin Commission,” it was chaired by the well-known art history professor Wiktor Zin (1925–2007) who was general conservator of Poland from 1977 to 39 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 11 September 2018. 40 Andrzej Groth, ed., Historia Elbląga, supplement to vol. 5(Gdańsk: Marpress, 2005), 49.

158

9780367860721_text.indb 158

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

1981 and thus one of Zachwatowicz’s successors, as well as the host of a popular TV show on historical architecture. The Zin Commission awarded Elbląg the status of one among 15 Polish cities that qualified for rewaloryzacja (“revalorisation”), which could mean any type of physical or social regeneration measures. The commission had been set up in July 1978 by the Rada Ministrów (Council of Ministers, the pro-forma government of socialist Poland) in reaction to the catastrophic neglect of most historic city centres. The idea was to make conservation and Old Town regeneration a priority across different areas of competency. Next to the Ministry of Culture the Ministries of Spatial Planning and Construction were also represented in the commission. The Zin Commission furnished opinions and sponsored several regeneration plans; the promotion of tourism was one of its goals.41 The Zin Commission favourably reviewed the Elbląg neo-historical panel plan on various occasions. In January 1979 commission member Zdzisław Dziedziński called it “one of the most interesting regeneration projects in the country.”42 It was also the subject of a meeting of the Zin Commission in June 1979.43 Official approval followed shortly after.44 Given economic shortages and paralysing bureaucracy the Zin Commission’s influence was obviously limited, but it helped to give the Elbląg case nation-wide prominence. In any case the commission’s set-up under the tutelage of a prominent art historian shows that at least a portion of the party establishment was sympathetic towards a more historically sensitive approach to Old Town conservation and that this approach could include, as it did in Elbląg, large-scale reconstruction. This does not mean that the party was generally supportive. On the contrary, the influential First Party Secretary of the Elbląg Voivodeship, Antoni Połowniak, at some point accused Lubocka-Hoffmann of promoting “bourgeois houses with English bulldogs at the door,” as individually owned buildings obviously contradicted the principles of socialist urban development.45 He could only be convinced of the project after Lubocka-Hoffmann was able to secure support by the party’s Central Committee in Warsaw.46 Along similar lines, Wąs’s 41 Janusz Stępkowski, “Działalność Międzyresortowej Komisji do Spraw Rewaloryzacji Miasti i Zespołów Staromiejskich,” Ochrona Zabytków 36 n. 3–4 (1983), 298–300. 42 Minutes of a consultative meeting at Elbląg Town Hall on 30 January 1979, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803. 43 “Materiały na posiedzenie komisji ds. rewaloryzacji miast i zespołów staromiejskich— projekt zabudowy” June 1979, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803; Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, Elbląg Stare Miasto (Elbląg: Państwowa Służba Ochrony Zabytków w Elblągu, 1998), 20. 44 Jacek Bocheński, Director of the Voivodeship Office of Spatial Planning, expertise on the “Projekt Zabudowy Starego Miasta w Elblągu” [1976–78] dated 1979, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1803. 45 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 11 September 2018. The anecdote has been repeatedly quoted by Lubocka-Hoffmann’s colleagues. 46 Through her friend Tadeusz Sawic at the Central Committee she managed to invite Kazimierz Barcikowski, vice president of Rada Ministrów, and a delegation of high-ranking party officials to Elbląg. When they came and praised the project, Połowniak obviously had to back down. Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 11 September 2018.

159

9780367860721_text.indb 159

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

successor, Mayor Norbert Berliński, was also at first doubtful of the house-by-house reconstruction but eventually dropped his objections.47 The struggle over Elbląg’s Old Town was thus not a fight between socialists and the opposition, as Lubocka-Hoffmann and many of her supporters, including Mayor Berliński and archaeologist Nawrolski, were party members whereas some of the architects were not. Rather, the fight was between innovators and conformists of different political colours, and the former were eventually able to convince the latter of their cause. FLEDGLING MARKET CAPITALISM Next to conservation theory and certain national initiatives, the foremost influence on the postmodern redesign of Elbląg Old Town was the fledgling market economy. Private clients—mostly owner-occupiers were not on the screen when the house-by-house construction was first discussed in the early 1980s. But over the years they became one of the driving forces. Their actions nonetheless continued to be tightly regulated by the municipality and conservation authority. The activities of the Jaszczur Association promoting privately financed construction have been already mentioned, and some scholars went as far as calling the Jaszczur protagonists “the designers” of the Elbląg rebuilding.48 While this estimation may be exaggerated, private small-scale investors were certainly important in promoting a financially viable solution for the house-by-house rebuilding. But just as significant was the lack of alternatives. It soon became clear that Lubocka-Hoffmann’s houseby-house reconstruction plan, which had been accepted by mayor Berliński, could not be carried out by state firms operating with large-panel technology. Neither had the state-operated housing cooperatives the necessary resources to fund such a large construction programme. Hence, upon voivode Zdzisław Olszewski’s request, the Warsaw authorities eventually agreed to carry out the reconstruction through private capital. Poland in the early 1980s was at a precarious stage in both political and economic terms. The protests spearheaded by the Solidarity Trade Union had been crushed in 1981. At the same time the weakness of the socialist rulers became progressively more apparent as their ideological promises had been exhausted and popular support was waning. The economic situation remained dire, as supply with the most basic provisions was no longer guaranteed. In this context state funding for a large-scale construction programme seemed utopian. On the other hand, private investment was not only diametrically opposed to the principles of socialist housing provision but also hard to imagine in a country where the overwhelming majority were employed by state firms and where options for private business were limited. 47 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, Elbląg Stare Miasto (Elbląg: Państwowa Służba Ochrony Zabytków w Elblągu, 1998), 22; Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 11 September 2018. 48 Ewa Węcławowicz-Gyurkovich “Powroty do przeszłości w centrach miast historycznych/Return to the past in centres of historic cities” [in Polish and English], Wiadomości Konserwatorskie- Journal of Heritage Conservation n. 56 (2018), 25–26.

160

9780367860721_text.indb 160

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

Some claim that an April Fools’ Day joke led the way out of the impasse. On 1 April 1983 journalist Andrzej Minkiewicz of the local newspaper Wiadomości Elbląskie summoned to the town hall those “interested in building a private house in the Old Town”—obviously a joke under a regime where capitalism was still officially considered the enemy. The response, however, was overwhelming, and only a few wanted to believe that the offer was not meant seriously.49 Encouraged by the hoax or not, interested private investors met over the following months and eventually made it come true. Among them were the member of the Jaszczur Association.50 They included Henryk Bagiński and Maurycy Fedyk, both local residents; Włodzimierz Mielnicki, a schoolteacher; Henryk Janicki, an employee of the Voivodeship administration; Wojciech Naganowski, the director of the Culture House “Pegaz”; and Grzegorz Baranowski, a journalist.51 Also in 1983 Jacek Bocheński was appointed municipal manager for the rebuilding and contact person for private clients, while his team member Jolanta Wołodźko facilitated communication with the architects, the municipality and the conservation authority..52 There were significant public subsidies, as the municipality and the conservation authority financed pipes and cables, as well as part of the construction costs. 53 While marking a clear break from socialist principles, the economic parameters of the rebuilding would also have been surprising in a capitalist context. The city gave some municipally-owned plots in top locations to groups of future owner-occupiers almost for free. They only had to commit to working a certain number of hours on the reconstruction of the historic cellars and they had to use their private funds for the construction. These were typically small business owners as well as people who temporarily worked in Western countries, and also members of the local intelligentsia. These “investors” were mostly Elbląg residents, but their engagement was often still driven by the prospect of financial revenue and not predominantly by an idealist commitment with the Old Town and its civic or conservationist values. Lubocka-Hoffmann remembers that there were “speculators” who rapidly sold their flats after profiting from subsidies and value increase and never had the intention to become owner-occupiers or participate in any form of community life.54 Nevertheless their activities can hardly be compared to the practice of investment and return in a capitalist country. They had to advance funds for construction materials with no legal guarantee that the plot would eventually be given to them. All they received was a verbal promise from a public servant.55 49 See report by Juliusz Marek of the local TV station Truso.TV “30 marca 1983—żart, który odmienił Elbląg,” dated 31 March 2013, online at https://www.truso.tv/wiadomosci/38267,30-marca-1983-zart-ktory-odmienil-Elbląg (accessed March 2019). 50 Komitet Organizacyjny Obchodów 750lecia Elbląga, Program Obchodów 750lecia Elbląga (Elbląg: Komitet Organizacyjny Obchodów, 1984), online at http://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/Content/60786/program_obchodow_750-lecia_Elbląga.pdf 51 “Miłośnik Elbląga” Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto (Gdańsk) 2 October 1998; Janusz Korzeń, “Elbląg, miasto od nowa” Architektura 43 n. 3 (May 1989), 20–27. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 11 September 2018. 55 Ibid.; Jacek Bocheński, public debate on the 35 anniversary of the retrowersja, Gallery El, Elbląg, 28 November 2018.

161

9780367860721_text.indb 161

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

But also ownership meant something different in late socialist Poland. While the plots were eventually transferred to their name, technically the municipality remained the landowner. The private client was given the rights of an użytkownik wieczysty (“perpetual leaseholder”) for 99 years and had to pay a small yearly fee to the municipality. This situation was similar to that of many flat “owners” in socialist housing blocks. The rights to a particular plot or flat were nonetheless exclusive, and they could be bought, sold, and inherited, and in this sense they were rather similar to ownership. Over the following decades this model was gradually phased out, and most perpetual leaseholders would become owners.56 While starting modestly and informally, the new policy had significant longterm effects. The Old Town was effectively privatised. This happened in parallel with the establishment of a private housing market, which in the following years would gradually replace the socialist system of state housing provision all over Poland. It also favoured the concentration of a new middle class in the city centre, a development which at the time was noticeable as well in capitalist Western Europe.57 In the following years the significance of private investment continuously increased and it became increasingly formal. In 1984 a portion of a block was given to the state firm Zakłady Mechaniczne – Zamech (Mechanical Works), and another plot to the state firm Polcotex.58 Also small housing cooperatives such as `Mała Spółdzielnia Budowlana' (Budowlana Small Cooperative) were active—there influence will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6.59 After the end of socialism privatisation continued, as the municipality sold successive plots, since 1993 also to private developers. At the same time, the design principles laid out in the 1983 guidelines remained in place and continued to generate progressive waves of postmodern architecture. THE REALISED HOUSE-BY-HOUSE DESIGN The new postmodern buildings were designed by Szczepan Baum and Ryszard Semka, as well as by other architects, many of whom belonged to their team. Architects included Romuald Kokoszko, Janusz Różański, and others.60 Only a portion of buildings were completed by 1989 [Figure 5.15]. But many of the original architects continued to design buildings in the Old Town in the following decades.61 There is little evidence that the design process was accompanied by 56 Katarzyna Wiśniewska, Director of the Department of Urbanism and Architecture of the city of Elbląg, conversation with the author, Elbląg, 21 August 2018. 57 This point was made by Agnieszka Skolimowska, “Zapełnianie Pustki—Odbudowa Starego Miasta w Elblągu” in Lidia Klein, ed., Postmodernizm Polski. Architektura i urbanistyka. Antologia tekstów (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 330 and 397. 58 Ibid. 338; Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, Elbląg Stare Miasto (Elbląg: Państwowa Służba Ochrony Zabytków w Elblągu, 1998), 28. 59 For example, the houses on Wigilijna 39-42 (now Świętego Ducha 15-18, begun 1985, design by Bernard Hoffmann), Archive of the Urząd Miasta, Elbląg, File “PP Pracownia Konserwacji Zabytków, Kamieniczki Elbląg, Ul. Wigilijna 39, 40, 41, 42,” no call number 60 See for example Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call numbers E/177 3-8. 61 For example Baum’s and Semka’s studio designed the Town Hall on Stary Rynek (ZAPA Architects, 2009–10).

162

9780367860721_text.indb 162

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.15  The 1989 plan by Szczepan Baum and Ryszard Semka shows the buildings that by the end of the socialist regime were completed or under construction (map “Elblag stare miasto,” March 1989, archive of the Urząd Miasta, Elbląg).

an active discussion of postmodern architecture; rather, the principle of variation over a historical typology was given through the conservation authority’s design guidelines of 1983 and subsequently upheld. The built result, an individualised house-by-house reconstruction, was thus conspicuously different from what had been established in the neo-historical panel plan. The portions completed under the socialist regime were the blocks south of the cathedral and three blocks east of it, at the time referred to as stages 1, 2, and 3. The first stage, started in 1985, comprised the two blocks south of the cathedral between the streets Wigilijna, Zamkowa, and Rzeźnicka (previously Rzeźna), which included the row of houses on Wigilijna that had been rebuilt in the 1960s. The second stage, started in 1986, included the block immediately left of the first stage,

163

9780367860721_text.indb 163

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.16  The buildings on Stary Rynek 35-40 and Świętego Ducha (c. 1985, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka) with the cathedral in the background (author).

situated between Wigilijna (this part of the street was later renamed Świętego Ducha) and Mostowa. The third stage, started in 1988, was the block between Wieżowa (previously Studzienna) and Garbary (previously Linki). Of the 20-odd planned historical reconstructions, only those on Mostowa 4 and Wigilijna 26 were completed by 1989. Two more were under construction, built by private clients.62 The three stages together comprised 113 buildings, of which 61 were single-family houses and the rest multi-family buildings with three to four flats per building. The flats, most of which were maisonettes, were usually between 85 and 110 square metres in area (that is, two- to three-bedroom flats).63 Flat sizes were thus significantly larger than those foreseen in the neo-historical panel plan or normal in most peripheral tower blocks. Furthermore 110 commercial spaces were included: bars and restaurants as well as shops and craftsmen’s workshops. The design of these buildings is exemplified in the block Stary Rynek 35-40 at the corner with Świętego Ducha (part of the first stage, begun c. 1985, design 62 Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, “Bez precedensu” (interview), Architektura 43 n. 3 (May 1989), 34. 63 Janusz Korzeń, “Elbląg, miasto od nowa” Architektura 43 n. 3 (May 1989). 24.

164

9780367860721_text.indb 164

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

Figure 5.17  The house on Stary Rynek 35 (built around 1780) before its destruction. It stood at the corner with Świętego Ducha on the site of the current buildings Stary Rynek 35-40 shown on the previous figure (file “Program i wytyczne przestrzennego ukształtowania zabudowy” 1975, archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/1245).

by Szczepan Baum and Ryszard Semka) [Figure 5.16]. The pre-war buildings, with their late Renaissance façades, for example, in the corner building no. 38 (no. 35 according to pre-war numbering), served as models with regard to volume and typology [Figure 5.17], but were only very distant references in terms of façade and ornamentation. Rather, the new buildings are clearly recognisable as having been designed in the 1980s, with conspicuous flamboyant gables, crossing line ornaments, and unusual white pediments in the third building from the left. The gables in particular show the extent of creative variation over a regional theme and reflect ideas about regionalism that were also discussed in Poland at the time.64 Another example is the set of blocks east of Stary Rynek, part of the third stage for which plans were worked out in 1985 [Figure 5.18]. For these buildings Baum established design principles which, like elsewhere in the Old Town, were aligned with the 1983 conservationist guidelines.65 These included the situation on the block perimeter, the stoops, and the partition into individual buildings. Buildings should “possess contemporary architectural detail, which is to harmonise with the historic character of the whole urban ensemble.” Existing foundations were to be used wherever possible.66 The construction included multi-family and single-family buildings. 64 Wojciech Kosinski “Regionalizm” Architektura 33 n. 1 (January 1981), 88-93; Peter Fauset, “Krytyczny regionalizm Szczepana Bauma” Archivolta n. 2 (1999), 18–19. 65 Szczepan Baum, “Projekt koncepcyjny architektury ulic: Stary Rynek, Studzienna, Garbary, Tkacka, Wałowa, Murarska – III Etap” dated September 1985, Archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, Call number E/1962. 66 Ibid. p. 4–5.

165

9780367860721_text.indb 165

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.18  Plan for the rebuilding of the east side of Stary Rynek by Szczepan Baum, September 1985 (file “Projekt koncepcyjny architektury ulic: St Rynek, Studzienna, Garbary, Tkacka, Wałowa, Murarska – III Etap” archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/19629).

How this looked in practice can be seen on the block between Kowalska and Wieżowa (formerly Studzienna), with the address Stary Rynek 17-22 [Figure 5.19]. In the neo-historic panel plan a department store had still been planned for this area. Later plans from the mid-1980s included the establishment of a skansen archeologiczny (archaeological open-air museum) to exhibit the remains of the

166

9780367860721_text.indb 166

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.19  Stary Rynek no. 17-22, east side between Wieżowa (formerly Studzienna) and Kowalska (1986–90 Szczepan Baum and Ryszard Semka) (author).

medieval cellars.67 Eventually the block was built up by the state firm Zamech in 1986–90. Zamech built 15 flatted tenements, with two shops and the office of the engineers’ association Naczelna Organizacja Techniczna (NOT) on the ground floor. They were perimeter-block buildings on a U-shaped plan, forming an interior square that was open towards the eastern side of the block for a long time (the gap was closed in the 2010s). All buildings were very different from the pre-war houses [Figure 5.20], had five to six storeys, and were contemporary interpretations of the historic gable typology. The middle ones, Stary Rynek no. 19, 20, and 21, had brick-faced and white-plastered façades. The first-floor windows featured brick-faced lintels, those on the second floor, round pediments. Most conspicuous were the white open-work gable imitations. The other buildings on the block had ornamented brick-faced façades. There were various concessions to the demands of modern life. Most importantly there were loggia balconies, which were ingeniously integrated into the historical façade rhythm. There were also small walls that set off the building from the street and gave additional privacy to the ground floor inhabitants. Similar adjustments were made one block farther north. The buildings at Stary Rynek 5-10 [Figure 5.21] on the block between Garbary (formerly Linki) and Sukiennicza (formerly Tkacka) were not modelled on the pre-war houses, but rather on contemporary interpretations of a historical typology. Comparison to the 67 Archive of the Urząd Miasta, Elbląg, File “Elbląg Stare Miasto Blok 111B1,” February 1988, call number 333/88.

167

9780367860721_text.indb 167

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

first drawings [Figure 5.22] shows that they resulted from a creative form-finding process. This is also evidenced by the buildings on Świętego Ducha 26-31, comparing Baum and Semka’s drawings from 1983 [Figure 5.23] with the houses that were built in the late 1980s [Figure 5.24]. From the beginning the reconstruction was seen as an architectural rather than conservationist or planning endeavour. When the neo-historical panel plan

Figure 5.20  The same block Stary Rynek 17-22 in the 1930s, with the pre-war numbers Stary Rynek/Alter Markt 45, 46, and 47. The photograph shows the heterogeneity of pre-war Elblag, where by far not all houses corresponded to the image of a “historic city.” Of the buildings in the picture, only no. 46 was older than 60 years at the time of the destruction. No. 45 and 48 are nineteenth-century buildings, while no. 47 is a 1930s copy of the neighbouring baroque house no. 46. (Jolanta Barton, “Dokumentacja historyczno – urbanistyczna” dated 1974–75, archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/6207-6210, photograph no. 646, see also photograph no. 605 taken two decades earlier).

Figure 5.21  Stary Rynek 5-10, east side between Garbary (formerly Linki) and Sukiennicza (formerly Tkacka) in 2018, with the Brama Targowa (Market Gate) on the left. The picture evidences modifications from the 1985 drawings shown in Figure 5.25, for example, the gable forms and protruding elements in the four buildings on the right (author).

168

9780367860721_text.indb 168

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

Figure 5.22  The same block Stary Rynek 5-10, drawing by Szczepan Baum (“Projekt koncepcyjny architektury ulic: St Rynek, Studzienna, Garbary, Tkacka, Wałowa, Murarska – III Etap” dated September 1985, archive of the Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków Elbląg, call number E/1962).

was published in Architektura in 1980, it was highly commended. According to the journal’s chief editor, Andrzej Bruszewski, the “most essential success of the plan lies in the fact that the historic urban grid was reconstituted but at the same time the principles of contemporary shaping of the city fabric were preserved.”68 Bruszewski concluded that an architectural era has come to a close, as the “rigorous adherence to the modernist ‘free building’ doctrine” was no longer necessary.69 Likewise, early results of the house-by-house reconstruction were presented at the 1985 Architectural Biennale in Kraków.70 When the socialist regime ended in 1989, the course was set and the plan continued in the following decades. By the turn of the twenty-first century about 200 houses, or one-third of the Old Town, had been rebuilt, and by 2020 only three blocks, or less than a quarter, were still awaiting redevelopment. The stylistic differences between buildings erected in the 1980s and the 2000s are visible to an attentive eye. At the same time all of them conspicuously differ from the historic copies that were also carried out. The rebuilding of Elbląg also had an influence on construction projects in the rest of Poland and abroad. It was emblematic of an approach that used municipally sponsored showcased architecture as a means of generating domestic and 68 Andrzej Bruszewski, “Elbląg—Stare Miasto” Architektura 32 n. 3 (May 1980), 44. 69 Ibid. 70 Andrzej Gliński, “I Biennale Architektury Kraków 1985” Architektura 40 n. 2 (March 1986), 67.

169

9780367860721_text.indb 169

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

international recognition, boosting the local economy, and supporting a growing middle class. In this context Elbląg anticipated a wave of “historically conscious” new design in historic Old Towns. These include the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century designs in historic settings in Gdańsk or Głogów, as well as the interpretative rebuilding of long-disappeared historical ensembles in Frankfurt or Berlin. COMPLETING THE OLD TOWN OF GDAŃSK An interpretative postmodern reconstruction was also carried out in the city centre of Gdańsk, although much less noticed. The centuries-old portions of Gdańsk comprise the small Stare Miasto (“Old Town”) and the much larger Główne Miasto (“Main Town”). Both were comprehensively destroyed at the end of the Second World War and most of the inhabitants driven out. In the post-war decades, the most significant monuments were meticulously restored, including St Mary’s Cathedral, the town hall, and many of the lushly decorated historic merchant houses. Given the city’s German past, the reconstruction of Gdańsk was not promoted as a symbol of national resistance like that of Warsaw’s Old Town. The national narrative nonetheless accounted for selective reconstruction guidelines.71 Like Elbląg, Gdańsk also had been a mostly German-speaking city since its foundation in the Middle Ages, subordinate to the Polish Crown with a high degree of autonomy in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries and under Prussian/German rule in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And like Elbląg it became part of the Polish People’s Republic in 1945. In the subsequent reconstruction buildings from the Prussian period took a backseat. In many cases predecessor buildings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were rebuilt

Figure 5.23  Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka, elevations of the buildings Świętego Ducha 26-31 (in the 1980s Wigilijna 48-53; before the war, Świętego Ducha/ Heilig-Geist-Straße 50-56), December 1983 (archive of the Urząd Miasta, Elbląg, folder Projekt Realizacyjny Stare Miasto Baum/Semka, file “Elbląg Stare Miasto”).

71 Jacek Friedrich, Neue Stadt in altem Gewand – der Wiederaufbau Danzigs 1945–60 (Wien: Böhlau, 2010), Polish edition Odbudowa Głównego Miasta w Gdańsku w latach 1945–1960 (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo słowo/obraz terytoria, 2015).

170

9780367860721_text.indb 170

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.24  The same buildings on Świętego Ducha 29-31 in 2018 (author).

in their stead, thus effectively “polonising” the streetscape. Overall, the rebuilding focused on the façades; in ensembles such as the famous Mariacka Street with the characteristic przedpróża, the inner portions of the buildings were not rebuilt. Also the functions were not restored; what was predominantly a residential district in the pre-war period was increasingly tertialised. This much-publicised first phase of reconstruction was largely completed by the 1960s. Particularly significant in the context of this book, however, is the much less known construction thereafter. As the post-war reconstruction had only covered the most prominent portions of the Old Town, many less conspicuous areas had remained unbuilt. In the 1980s these became the subject of neo-historical design that can be classified as postmodern: single four-storey houses on the perimeter block that were loosely modelled after eighteenth-century precedents, but that had no direct correspondence in the pre-war buildings on those sites. They were

171

9780367860721_text.indb 171

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.25  Buildings on Grobla, Gdańsk (1980s, Stanisław Michel) (author).

designed to complete the impression of a “historic old town” and at the same time offered a field of opportunity for postmodern license. The architects remained largely unknown. One of them was Stanisław Michel, designer of over 100 buildings in the city centre. Michel, who called the long-standing depreciation of nineteenth-century architecture “the biggest mistake in art history,” was a prominent proponent of historically accurate reconstruction for art historical reasons.72 As such, he began his work in the team reconstructing the Mariacka Street in the 1960s and became the co-author of the reconstruction plan for the Gdańsk city centre.73 Later, however, he engaged in many designs that were only loosely inspired by the pre-war buildings in the respective locations, and in many respects resemble the eclectic façades in Elbląg. His approach is exemplified in the ensemble on Grobla, which was built in the 1980s [Figure 5.25]. Of the 10 four-storey buildings that make up the street front, only 2 are designed with baroque gables and window openings in a historic manner. The remaining eight buildings are modern designs with historical references. All have pitched roofs and gables towards the street and boast wooden ornamental applications recalling the beams of a half-timbered house. The five buildings on the right side also have painted abstract ornaments in a historicising 72 “Ludzie tacy jak ty: Stanisław Michel” Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto 25 March 2004. 73 Michel, Stanisław, Święto Ulicy Mariackiej – Stanisław Michel i jego wspomnienia [interview with Ewa Kowalska], I-Bedeker 1 September 2011, online at http://ibedeker. pl/u-przyjaciol/osobowosci/swieto-ulicy-mariackiej-stanislaw-michel-i-jego-wspomnienia/ (accessed October 2018).

172

9780367860721_text.indb 172

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

style. The large windows are the most conspicuous concession to the modern period. Cubature, size, ground floor commercial use, and situation on the block perimeter, however, let them blend smoothly into the Old Town neighbourhood. The postmodern portions of Old-Town Gdańsk were partially an outcome of the protagonists of the Elbląg rebuilding. The authors of the Elbląg “neo-historical panel plan,” Ryszard Semka, Szczepan Baum, and Wieslaw Anders, have operated their office ZAPA at Gdańsk Politechnika since 1982, and later, now fully privatised under the name ZAPA Architects, designed several neo-historical projects in Gdańsk. Probably the most famous is the garish Hotel Hanza (1994–99). Its façade consists of a sequence of brick-faced elements with Renaissance and baroquestyle gables, connected with maritime-themed elements such as a sail-like awning and an ornamental crow’s nest [Figure 5.26]. These projects heralded the construction of many other neo-historical ensembles in the post-communist period. These include the Stągiewa Complex with 42 houses on the Wyspa Spichrzów (Warehouse Island) with banks, hotels, restaurants, and offices (1993–98, Stefan Philipp and others, 12 buildings on the southern portion by Stanisław Michel).

POSTMODERN RECONCILIATION In Elbląg’s Old Town, and to a certain extent also in that of Gdańsk, postmodern architecture successfully addressed the challenges of context and reconciliation of contradictory desires. Some of these were shared in many countries, such as the longing for tradition and local identity in light of progressive modernisation and the disappointment with the results of functionalist urbanism whose principles of rationalisation and modernisation otherwise continued to be upheld. Others were particular to Poland and the local context: a contested past in an area that had been German before 1945, an expanded view on historic conservation, and the constraints and opportunities of a socialist government in decline. While eventually being financed by the market economy, the project was initiated by the state planning and conservation authorities. The state apparatus was still the most powerful actor in architecture and urban design, but made increasing concessions to the fledgling market economy and gave growing leeway for individual decision-makers. In this respect Elbląg’s new Old Town was an outcome of the transition period, where comprehensive state regulation had not yet given way to laisser-faire policies, where master planning was not yet affected by the real estate industry’s short-term interests, and Old Town development was not yet influenced by the growing heritage industry. This changed significantly over the following decades. Currently, Elbląg is an increasingly popular centre of both domestic and international tourism (including by the children and grandchildren of former German residents) and the re-built Old Town is its most important attraction. Elbląg Old Town was never intended to be a political project. And yet, in the context of the city's traumatic past a historically inspired postmodernism was

173

9780367860721_text.indb 173

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit Figure 5.26  Hotel Hanza, Gdańsk (1994–99, Ryszard Semka) (author).

a convenient way to have one’s cake and eat it too. On the one hand, the new architecture suggested historical continuity through historical quotations and typological references to the pre-war city. On the other hand, it acknowledged breaks and upheavals in featuring a design that was conspicuously contemporary. It relieved the municipality from rebuilding “German buildings” or engaging in

174

9780367860721_text.indb 174

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Postmodernism from the Spirit

politically motivated historiography. There was no claim of accuracy or authenticity and no nostalgic idealisation of the past. References to the German period or to the merits of the merchant classes, who had historically accounted for Elbląg’s wealth, were neither neglected nor stressed, but blended into a forward-looking approach centred on future development and post-functionalist planning principles such as small scale, mixed use, and multiple actors. To a great extent the rebuilding of Elbląg relied on new currents in historic conservation. These relied both on the Polish conservationist tradition and the wider international field, which is exemplified in the 1982 Declaration of Dresden. Conservation was no longer exclusively tied to artistically valuable historic monuments, but increasingly to immaterial values such as character and atmosphere. Most importantly, it was connected to the demands of the present rather than the preservation of the past. In the context of Elbląg, postmodern design grew from this new spirit, and it gained both legitimacy and momentum from these roots. At the same time, it attests to the power of postmodern architecture to reconcile conflicting needs and mediate the relations of inhabitants with their built environment.

175

9780367860721_text.indb 175

04/11/20 9:20 PM

6 The Urban Context

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter introduces examples of small-scale residential and commercial architecture that are connected to the “return to the inner city” and thus to a trend that at the time was also noticeable in other socialist countries and in the West: a growing focus on the city centre connected to a rising popularity of postmodern planning principles such as historical block structure, density, mixed use, and incremental development. Architectural projects connected to this trend were usually sponsored by new clients with the system of socialist housing provision: small cooperatives operating on private capital generated by the beginning market economy and occasionally private individuals. Examples of such projects include the infill buildings started in Wrocław in the early 1980s under Chief Planner Andrzej Gretschel, as well as inner-city residences in Warsaw, Kraków, and Łódź. These projects relied on the interaction of state regulation and private initiative that was particular to the late socialist period. Like many Western European countries, socialist Poland in the 1980s also saw a “return to the city”—that is, a decreasing popularity of peripheral housing complexes and a developing discourse on inner-city regeneration, which led to a growing attention to the neglected historical city centres and the construction of infill buildings on gap sites. This chapter will present some of these projects. Most of them were commissioned by small-scale housing cooperatives whose genesis and peculiarities were discussed in Chapter 2. Since these cooperatives were often founded by comparatively privileged groups with good connections to the authorities and the private funds necessary for high down payments, they had a competitive advantage in times of crisis. In some cases such infills were also built by other clients outside the socialist system of housing provision. An example is the St Albert Social Care Centre in

9780367860721_text.indb 176

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

Warsaw, a remarkably designed nursing home that was built in cooperation with the municipality and the Albertine Sisters, a charity organisation of Catholic nuns. This building is another example of the complex relation between the socialist state authorities and the Catholic Church. Related to these decidedly urban designs is socialist Poland’s only new town built on the principles of New Urbanism: Zielone Wzgórza, which was constructed near Poznań in 1982. Although Zielone Wzgórza was the product of the state planning apparatus and, like the large socialist housing complexes in the 1960s, was designed as a residence for the workers of a large factory, it came to be Poland’s equivalent to Poundbury or Seaside: a neo-traditional small town built around a central market square dominated by a historically inspired town hall. Given the desolate economic situation in the 1980s, Polish attempts to restore or rebuild a traditional urban fabric were patchy and often haphazard. They nonetheless evidence the scope of postmodern expressions in urban residential construction, as well as a change in attitude with long-term consequences for the shape of the city. WARSAW INFILLS Among the many examples of such “new middle-class housing” under socialism is the building on Grochowska 244a (1988 Tadeusz Szumielewicz, Marek Martens, Lech Kordowicz) in Warsaw-Praga on the eastern bank of the Vistula, one of the few areas of the city that were not comprehensively destroyed in the Second World War [Figure 6.1]. The client was the Pracownicza Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa Placówka, a housing cooperative for workers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which, among others, employed high-ranking diplomats. Among the architects was Tadeusz Szumielewicz, who was chief architect from 1972 to 1982 and thus one of Warsaw’s highest-ranking civil servants. As was the rule at the time, the housing cooperative was assigned the plot without charge and in addition received municipal support for the construction. A traditional brick-faced tenement with postmodern elements such as an irregular gable and semi-circular bay windows, the building aligns stylistically with inner-city middle-class housing in Western European countries. Another example is the building on Dzielna 6 (1983–87, Tomasz Lechowski, Wojciech Hermanowicz, Marek Żarski) in Warsaw’s Muranów district, which was commissioned by Film-Dacz-Prez, a housing cooperative of film production employees [Figure 6.2]. The four-story walk-up was constructed from traditional ceramic brick on a rectangular plan. It contained approximately 30 small flats and an art gallery on the ground floor (now used as a shop). Construction was executed by the quasi-private firm United States Poland International set up by Polish émigrés returning from the United States. Even though the firm paid its workers in złotys and not dollars, it was able to operate more efficiently than the large state-owned companies.1 1 Tomasz Lechowski and Marek Żarski, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 27 December 2019.

177

9780367860721_text.indb 177

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.1  Infill on Grochowska 244a in Warsaw-Praga (1987, Tadeusz Szumielewicz, Marek Martens, Lech Kordowicz) (Martin Wälli).

Dzielna 6 is a free-standing building and not a traditional tenement on the block perimeter, but nonetheless well integrated into the surrounding urban fabric made up of neo-classical 1950s houses. The design vocabulary is postmodern along the lines of Aldo Rossi and Rob Krier, taking from the volumes of historic typologies and playing with geometrical forms. The architects, who were in their twenties at the time and employed with the municipal design office Warcent, in retrospect recall influences from international postmodernists such as Rossi, Krier, and particularly Charles Jencks, whose book The Language of Postmodern

178

9780367860721_text.indb 178

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.2  Mixed-use building on Dzielna 6 in WarsawMuranów (1983–87, Tomasz Lechowski, Wojciech Hermanowicz, Marek Żarski) (author).

Architecture they remember as their “architectural bible.”2 During their studies at Warsaw Politechnika they had access to international journals such as Baumeister, Architecture d’aujourd’hui, or Architectural Design, and admired the images even if they were unable to understand the foreign-language articles. Similar stylistic influences can be seen in another project by the same architects. The Dom Pomocy Społecznej imienia Świętego Brata Alberta (St Albert Social Care Centre, 1983–89, Tomasz Lechowski, Wojciech Hermanowicz, Marek Żarski) on Kawęczyńska Street 4b in Warsaw-Praga is an unusual building in both formal and procedural terms. The nunnery and women’s nursing home contains residences and common rooms for seven nuns and about 100 elderly inhabitants, as well as facilities for about 80 nurses, cooks and other secular workers, medical and administrative facilities, and a chapel. It is operated by the Catholic charity institute Zgromadzenie Sióstr Albertynek Posługujące Ubogim (Congregation of Albertine Sisters Serving the Poor). The rectangular building is inserted in a block of traditional nineteenth-century tenements, to which it corresponds in height and width [Figure 6.3]. Clad in traditional bricks the building looks like a solid brown block out of which elements of a traditional tenement are carved as negative volumes: semi-circular openings at ground-floor level reveal a bright-beige secondary façade with doors and windows; rectangular openings from the second to fourth floors contain additional 2 Ibid.

179

9780367860721_text.indb 179

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.3  St Albert Social Care Centre on Kawęczyńska 4b in Warsaw-Praga (1983– 89, Tomasz Lechowski, Wojciech Hermanowicz, Marek Żarski) (author).

windows and loggia balconies. The façade appears to be inspired by Wilhelm Holzbauer’s IBA building on Reichenberger Straße 26 in West Berlin (1983–85) or Louis Kahn’s famous Exeter Library of 1972. Additional openings on the top floor at the north corner overlooking the streets are in triangular shape, with a crowstepped long side, forming a Rob Krier–style roof terrace in which ornamental beams complete the outline of the building. The structure is sophistically crafted— also in this building there were contributions of seasonal Góral workers trained in traditional construction methods.3 On the south side facing a back lane there is a protruding keep-like tower, which contains small dining rooms on every floor. It overlooks a small quadrangular courtyard open to the south side, which reminds one of a cloister or a historic pleasure garden. The arched windows and the central Madonna statue reinforce the medieval associations [Figure 6.4]. Other cues appear to be taken from Rossi or Krier: the helm roof that tops the tower, the covered balconies on every floor that connect the dining rooms with the central common areas, or the arched entrance doors from the courtyard. On the northern side towards Kawęczyńska Street there is a chapel occupying the three top floors. Its apse shows behind two rectangular openings in the otherwise nearly windowless northern façade. The chapel is lit through a skylight illuminating the altar space from above. On the western side of the plot, separated from the main building by a small gap, there is a five-storey structure of the same height and colour, which contains residences for the nuns. The building integrates late modernist and postmodern inspirations with references to historical monastery and fortress architecture. Likewise, it gently balances the inward-looking aspects of a monastic building with an exterior 3 Ibid.

180

9780367860721_text.indb 180

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.4  St Albert Social Care Centre, courtyard (author).

that is nonetheless well integrated into the historical urban fabric. The two visual structures—the brown brick-faced cube on the outside and the beige carved-out negative volumes—create a tension that appears like an allegorical statement on modernist design. Just as noteworthy is its construction history. Unexpected under a socialist regime, the building evolved as a collaboration between municipal authorities, who paid for its construction, and the Catholic institute, who provided the plot of land and the labour necessary to run the institution. The Albertine Sisters have been located on the site since 1925, where they operated a shelter for homeless women and later a soup kitchen for schools and citizens in need. After the Second

181

9780367860721_text.indb 181

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

World War the shelter became a nursing home for about 80 inhabitants, now as a zakład społeczny (“societal company,” meaning a non-state institution).4 Like in many similar cases, the socialist authorities chose not to interfere, but rather to quietly profit from the congregation’s activities, as they relieved the overstrained state providers of health care and social services. The soup kitchen resumed in 1983 when food provision in Poland once again was precarious for many. Relations with the state authorities nonetheless stayed tense—for example, in 1964 the sisters were deprived of their membership in the national insurance system ZUS for not being state employees. In 1981 there were 17 sisters living and working on the premise, caring for approximately 40 elderly inhabitants. At the time the building was slated for comprehensive renovation. The decision followed an expertise by the municipal Department of Urbanism and Architecture, which confirmed structural faults. The wooden joists and the truss of the two-storey structure showed signs of progressive dilapidation. Negotiations began between the sisters and the municipal Dyrekcja Budownictwa Ogólnego (Civil Construction Office). The sisters’ interest in fixing and extending their facilities matched the municipality’s goal to increase nursing capacities at no cost for the state hospitals and nursing stations. As such, a deal between the socialist municipality and the congregation was struck: the municipality would pay for a new and bigger building, as well as operating costs; the congregation would hand over the land, an unbuilt plot next to the existing building, and provide the sisters’ free labour. As unexpected as the collaboration between the Church and socialist state might appear from an ideological point of view, it was unproblematic in practice.5 Decisions were taken at a municipal level, and the architects do not recall any difficulties obtaining a construction permit. The building was eventually financed by the municipal Wydział Zdrowia i Opieki Społecznej (Department of Health and Social Care). The old building, which was situated on the western portion of the plot, was taken down and replaced by the aforementioned five-storey structure reserved for the sisters. When Cardinal Józef Glemp laid the symbolic kamień węgielny (cornerstone) in 1986, the first and second floors were finished. The care home was completed in 1989 and operates to date.

THE URSYNÓW ARCADES IN WARSAW Perhaps the most prominent attempt to reinstate a traditional urban fabric beyond Warsaw’s historical core was planned in the Ursynów district [Figure 6.5]. The Pasaż Ursynowski (Ursynów Arcades, built 1995–97, design by Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, Anna Koziołkiewicz, and Piotr Wicha) is a development of five-storey walk-up buildings flanking the square outside Budzyński and Wicha’s 4 Krzysztofa Maria Babraj, Być dobrym jak chleb. Domy zakonne Zgromadzenia Sióstr Albertynek Posługujących Ubogim od 1891 do 2009 roku (Kraków: Zgromadzenie Sióstr Albertinek, 2010), 33–35. 5 Tomasz Lechowski and Marek Żarski, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 27 December 2019.

182

9780367860721_text.indb 182

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.5  Ursynów Arcades, planned since 1981, built 1995–97, design by Marek Budzyński, Anna Koziołkiewicz, and Piotr Wicha (author).

Ascension Church discussed in Chapter 2. The Arcades had a decades-long planning history starting in 1972, when Budzyński and his team began designing what at the time was conceived as a large modernist shopping centre combining the district’s commercial and service functions. The decisive change happened in the early 1980s and was triggered by the economic crisis. At the time it became clear that the state authorities had insufficient resources for a large-scale commercial structure. The team, however, made a virtue of necessity, promoting a downscaled version of a town centre, based on incremental growth, multiple actors, and citizen participation [Figure 6.6]. The first proposals show a historically inspired network of pedestrian alleys on the south side of the six-lane thoroughfare Aleja Komisji Edukacji Narodowej, flanked by individual, three-storey perimeter-block buildings [Figure 6.7 and Figure 6.8]. Architect Piotr Wicha proudly presented them as “Mariensztat inserted into Ursynów”—the former is a quaint eighteenth-century neighbourhood in central Warsaw.6 The project was repeatedly modified—also in relation to the Ascension Church built since 1981—and eventually carried in the 1990s. They eventually contained flats, shops, and a café, as well as Budzyński’s own home and office. Although constructed after the end of the socialist regime the buildings reflect key aspects of post-functionalist planning that were already present in the 1982 regulatory plan.7 The architects aimed at creating “a new neighbourhood formed and functioning in accordance to the model of the traditional city 6 Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, Anna Koziołkiewicz, “Pasaż Ursynowski” [interview with Ewa Przestaszewska-Pore b̨ ska] Architektura 38 n. 1 (January 1984), 31. See also plans and guidelines in the same number, pp. 33–42. 7 Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, Anna Koziołkiewicz, Piotr Wicha, “Plan Koordynacyjny Pasaż Ursynowski” dated December 1982, Archiwum Biura Organizacji Urzędu Miasta, Warsaw (no call number).

183

9780367860721_text.indb 183

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.6  Plan with church and Ursynów Arcades by Marek Budzynski, Piotr Wicha, Jerzy Rotowski/ Miastoprojekt Warszawa, Ursynów Północny, Projekt Centrum, koncepcja, dated June 1981, plan 2A ‘preferred version’ (Archiwum Biura Organizacji Urzędu Miasta, Warsaw).

centre.”8 They also saw the city as characterised by forces that, on the one hand, regulate the “interests of the ‘whole’” and, on the other hand, enable “uncontrolled development.”9 8 Ibid., 1. 9 Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, Anna Koziołkiewicz, Piotr Wicha, “Założenia warunkujące osiągnięcia celu” in booklet “Plan Koordynacyjny Pasaż Ursynowski”

184

9780367860721_text.indb 184

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

Figure 6.7  Marek Budzyński, Anna Koziołkiewicz, and Piotr Wicha, “Pasaż Ursynowski,” sketches for buildings, published in Architektura 36 n. 1 (January 1984), p. 40.

What the architects clad in rather abstract terms was a straightforward criticism of the centrally planned socialist city in favour of a regulated system of multiple actors. There should be “maximum freedom enabling the efficient realization of investment” and a “scale and value of concrete investment many times smaller than that of the projected urban ensemble.” There should also be an “organiser” such as a housing cooperative that owns the land.10 These positions were repeated in the expertise on the project by a municipal planning office. This document praised the architects’ proposal for “multiple-function and multiple-investor elements”; called for a “coordinator” such as the housing cooperative, which should also be financially responsible for the infrastructure; and proposed to legislate a binding master plan to which the different actors would be subjected.11 These principles were comparable to a highly regulated capitalist city composed of independent actors building on individual parcels, who have certain liberties with regard to designing and using their plot, but are nonetheless controlled by a superior institution such as the municipality or the district council. Such quasi-capitalist structures went far beyond what the socialist rulers at an ideological level were ready to concede, and at the same time exceeded the possibilities of Poland’s slumping economy. They nonetheless were not unlike the structures that at the time were established in several Polish cities in response to a weakening central planning apparatus. Examples include the aforementioned parcel-based redevelopment of Old Town Elbląg or the case of Wrocław that will dated December 1982, Archiwum Biura Organizacji Urzędu Miasta, Warsaw (no call number), pp. 2–3. 10 Ibid. 11 Zofia Hamanowa, director of Pracownia Urbanistyczna “Południe,” handwritten expertise on Pasaż Ursynowski, addressed to Urząd Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy, Wydział Urbanistyki, Architektury i Ochrony Środowiska, dated 17 June 1983, in folder “Korespondencja dotycząca Budowy Pasażu Ursynowskiego” 1983–85 Archiwum Biura Organizacji Urzędu Miasta, Warsaw, call number 2276/673,

185

9780367860721_text.indb 185

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.8  Spatial study for the Ursynów Arcades by Marek Budzynski, Piotr Wicha, Jerzy Rotowski/ Miastoprojekt Warszawa, Ursynów Północny, Projekt Centrum, koncepcja, dated June 1981, plan 4 (Archiwum Biura Organizacji Urzędu Miasta, Warsaw).

be discussed later. Here, diverse, quasi-private, and highly regulated institutions developed urban housing under the auspices of a municipal “organiser.” The Ursynów Arcades also adopted particular aspects of anti-functionalist criticism, such as the search for a heterogeneous “spatial grammar” and diverse actors in the planning and construction process. These were related to pattern language approaches based on the work of Christopher Alexander, who

186

9780367860721_text.indb 186

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

had a particular influence on Budzyński.12 Along these lines Budzyński and his team aimed to create small-scale interconnected sequences of space designed to generate cosiness and familiarity. They paralleled the search for “hospitable” architecture theorised at the same time by Dutch structuralists such as Aldo van Eyck or Herman Hertzberger, whose influences on postmodern housing complexes in Poland were discussed in Chapter 4 and whose impact was noticeable in many countries.13 Budzyński and his team had already attempted to apply the postmodern principles of small scale, mixed use, and legibility to the Ursynów scheme as a whole. But they were eventually hampered by shortages and socialist bureaucracy, as already in the mid-1970s Ursynów was no longer being built according to the original plan and evolved not that differently from other functionalist housing complexes.14 Budzyński nonetheless considered these aspects to be the most important elements of his design. The formal references to historical small towns were crucial from the beginning, as he pointed out in January 1981 that “the basic leitmotiv is… the reference to things already existing…, not the search for anything ‘new.’”15 Shortly afterwards he stated that urban aspects were his foremost concern and that Ursynów was “an attempt to connect to the past, to the street, to the square.”16 Even 40 years later he stressed that the complex was based on “the principle of the small street” and that in this sense the surroundings of the church were “a city within the city.”17 Also the Ascension Church, which dominates the pedestrianised square next to the Ursynów Arcades, came to be a conspicuous outcome of this approach. It constitutes the area’s geographical and symbolic centre and thus reproduces the principles of a traditional small-town square. At the same time, like similar sacred buildings of its size, it also is a mixed-use ensemble itself. Next to the church proper there are extensive public or semi-public spaces, such as a spacious crypt, sacristy, presbytery, church hall, parish archive, library, and classrooms for Sunday school, as well as offices for different parish institutions and residences for seven priests and vicars—a total of approximately 4,600 square metres floor space.18 Principles of post-functionalist planning are inherent. Priests and church employ12 Lidia Pańkow, Bloki w słońcu – mała historia Ursynowa Północnego (Sękowa: Czarne, 2016), 52–54 and 66. 13 Florian Urban, The New Tenement (London: Routledge, 2018), 51–54. 14 Marek Budzyński, “Ursynów Północny – uwarunkowania, zasady” Architektura 27 n. 1 (January 1975); Marek Budzyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 August 2018. 15 Marek Budzyński, quoted in Kazimierz Kłos, “Kościół na Ursynowie”, WTK Tygodnik Katolicki (Warsaw) n. 3, 18 January 1981, 1–3; 16 Marek Budzyński, quoted in minutes of the meeting of the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, dated 26 March 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248. Marek Budzyński and Piotr Wicha [interview] “Kościół na Ursynowie Północnym w Warszawie” Architektura 36 n. 1 (May 1982), 66. 17 Marek Budzyński, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 6 August 2018. 18 “Kościół na Ursynowie Północnym w Warszawie” Architektura 36 n. 1 (May 1982), 61; Tadeusz Wojdat, conversation with the author, Warsaw, 16 August 2018.

187

9780367860721_text.indb 187

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

ees enjoy the proximity of living and working spaces with no need for car use. The church draws pedestrian traffic and facilitates social contact, as children use the square for play after Mass or religious education classes and neighbours have a chat on their way to prayer or choir rehearsal. In this respect the ensemble has been thoroughly successful. To some extent these urban qualities were enhanced by the Archdiocese Commission. In March 1981 Budzyński and Wicha deferred to the commission’s wishes and agreed to surround the church with a plain square without any ramps or stairs. Justified by the need to conduct processions, this was a major aspect of the pedestrian-oriented small-town square that was eventually built.19 The architects also decided to change the open-work church tower to the solid medievalist one, supposedly to increase visibility from the big road and to set a visual marker. 20 The request to pay greater attention to the square was repeated in other recommendations made by the commission.21 The plans for the Ursynów Arcades and the other spaces that surround the Ascension Church, as well as the infills in Warsaw’s city centre, demonstrate the direction of urban design under late socialism. They show that postmodern principles—small scale, historic references, and traditional block structures—were connected to the post-functionalist vision of a functionally mixed, pedestrian-oriented city created by multiple actors within a tight regulatory framework. SOCIALIST GENTRIFICATION IN WROCŁAW Similar principles dominated in the regeneration of the city centre of Wrocław. In the 1980s under Chief Planner Andrzej Gretschel (1937–94) the Silesian metropolis became Poland’s capital of infill construction, and at the same time of a form of socialist gentrification. Before the Second World War the city had been German Breslau, Prussia’s second largest urban agglomeration after Berlin, with over 600,000 inhabitants, who were driven out in 1945 and replaced by a new Polish population. Like Berlin, the city was to a large extent composed of characteristic four-storey tenement neighbourhoods from the nineteenth century. Despite significant wartime damages, large portions of the urban fabric had remained intact, offering numerous options for infill buildings following traditional typologies. After the war Wrocław soon became a centre of architectural innovation centred on famous teachers and practitioners such as Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak or Stefan Müller and boasting well-known postmodern churches such as the previously mentioned Holy Spirit (1973–81, Waldemar Wawrzyniak, Jerzy Wojnarowicz, Tadeusz Zipser) and Our Lady Queen of Peace (1980–95, Wojciech Jarząbek). Gretschel was born in Poznań and graduated as an architect from Wrocław Politechnika. Next to heading the Voivodeship Planning Office, he was also the 19 Minutes of the meeting of the Komisja Artystyczna i Architektoniczna Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, dated 26 March 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248. 20 Ibid. 21 Opinia Sesji Kurii Metropolitalnej, dated 23 September 1981, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warsaw, PR 248.

188

9780367860721_text.indb 188

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

president of the Wrocław chapter of the architects association SARP from 1976 to 1984 and one of the city’s best-known urbanists. He laid out his regeneration strategy in an article in the journal Miasto. Gretschel harshly criticised the centralised system of housing construction and the inflexible large cooperatives who merely follow “the dictate of the builder” and “the fetish of fulfilling the plan.” 22 At the same time he celebrated the new opportunities that the authorities had created in the 1980s, enabling the creation of small housing cooperatives. As discussed in Chapter 1, most of those cooperatives evolved from desperate individual initiatives in light of ineffective state policies. In Wrocław they came to be particularly effective drivers of inner-city regeneration. In 1982 Gretschel and his team at the Wrocław Voivodeship Office of Spatial Planning worked out a development plan that was meant to be an “offer” to small cooperatives.23 The plan, which was officially passed by the city council in 1987, designated gap sites in the inner city for redevelopment. Gretschel and his team identified over 280 such sites. They were to be built up with residential infills, many of them with commercial ground-floor use and thus facilitating a mixed-use urban fabric similar to that of the nineteenth-century city. Allocating 18 square metres per inhabitant, the buildings were meant to house about 37,000 inhabitants. Like in Elbląg, Warsaw, and elsewhere, the plots were given to the housing cooperatives for free. Gretschel’s strategy was referred to as rewaloryzacja (revalorization), a term that was also used by the Zin Commission for inner-city regeneration mentioned in Chapter 5.24 Given that the plots were mostly situated between historicist nineteenthcentury tenements and that the conservation and renovation of these buildings was part of Gretschel’s project, a postmodern design with historical references was often considered the most appropriate response to the context. A good example is the building on Bolesława Prusa 16 (1987, Stanisław Lose, Zenon Marciniak, Jerzy Chmura) [Figure 6.9]. Lose was a teacher at Wrocław Politechnika and well known as both an architect and a concert organiser. Together with his students Zenon Marciniak and Jerzy Chmura he developed a composition that appears to be inspired by Rossi and Krier. The building is divided into a receding right portion and a left portion situated on the block perimeter. The resulting corner is accentuated by triangular balconies. Further balconies are added on the left and right ends of the building. The six-storey structure fits the dimensions of the historical four-storey tenements, thus accommodating extra dwelling space at the expense of lower ceilings. Ground floors are designed for commercial use. Another set of examples is situated in the Huby district south of the city centre. Although it was not part of Gretschel’s 1982 plan, it was regenerated according to the same principles. The area was heavily damaged during the Second World War 22 Andrzej Gretschel, “Powrót do śródmieścia”, Miasto (Warszawa) n. 10 (December 1987), 1–7. 23 Andrzej Gretschel, K. Turowicz, J. Jagodzińska, K. Prastowska, B. Ogińska, B. Hycki, “Operacyjny Plan Szczegółowy Śródmieścia Wrocławia” reprinted in Andrzej Gretschel, “Powrót do śródmieścia”, Miasto (Warszawa) n. 10 (December 1987), 1. 24 Ibid., 6.

189

9780367860721_text.indb 189

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.9  Infill on Bolesława Prusa 16 in Wrocław (1987, Stanisław Lose, Zenon Marciniak, Jerzy Chmura) (author).

and partially rebuilt with large functionalist blocks in the 1960s. Small-scale construction began with a 1983 competition for a rebuilding plan that was won by Wacław Kamocki.25 Here, postmodern infills appeared between pre-war tenements that had originally been slated for demolition and sometimes stood in close proximity to the large modernist blocks. The building Przestrzenna 19-19A/Łódzka 33A (1986, Anna 25 Łukasz Medeksza, “Wrocławskie plomby jako strategia polityczna,“ Pamiec ̨ ́ i Przyszłos ´ć 10 n. 37–38 (2017), 19.

190

9780367860721_text.indb 190

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.10  Infill on Przestrzenna 19-19A/Łódzka 33A in Wrocław (1986, Anna Bożek-Nowicka) (author).

Bożek-Nowicka) is situated on a conspicuous corner [Figure 6.10]. Among other historically inspired details it features a nineteenth-century-style mansard roof with half-rounded ornamental gables above the staircases, which have bull’s-eye windows towards the street. Concessions to the contemporary requirements include balconies and lower ceilings which, like in the previously mentioned tenement on Bolesława Prusa 16, allow for six instead of four stories. The attic flats feature large dormers. Originally white, the building was later repainted with yellow, brown, and red ornaments, thus further accentuating the postmodern aspect. A slightly more suburban version of such buildings was developed outside Gretschel’s plan in the Stanów Zjednoczonych Street development in Wrocław (begun 1984, Wojciech Jarząbek) [Figure 6.11]. It consists of 16 terraced two-storey single-family houses in the peripheral Muchobór neighbourhood. They show a sophisticated play with the typological expectations of traditional architecture. The houses feature apparently traditional pitched-roof gables. But the party walls that separate the buildings are situated in the middle of each gable, dividing it between two neighbouring houses and often giving it two different colours. Hence the façade of every house consists of two half-gables that frame a protruding roof over the entrance in the middle. Dividing walls between the front yards, which feature crow-steps that one would expect on top of a historic gable rather than in front of them, add to the illusion. The unusual buildings were a result of the beginning mixed economy, in which a housing association associated with the large company was promoting owner-occupied single-family homes.26 26 The houses were built for the Młodzieżowe Spółdzielcze Zrzeszenie Pomocy w Budownictwie Jednorodzinnowym (Youth Cooperative Association for Help in the Single-family Construction) of the state-owned factory Fabryka Automatów Tokarskich. Wojciech Jarząbek, “Geometria Expresji” Architektura n. 6 (November 1984), 35–37.

191

9780367860721_text.indb 191

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.11  Single-family houses on Stanów Zjednoczonych in Wrocław (begun 1984, Wojciech Jarząbek), built for the Młodzieżowe Spółdzielcze Zrzeszenie Pomocy w Budownictwie Jednorodzinnowym (Youth Cooperative Association for Help in the Singlefamily Construction) of the state-owned factory Fabryka Automatów Tokarskich (Wojciech Jarząbek, “Geometria expresji” Architektura 36 n. 6 (November 1984), 35) and Olga Pawłowicz.

In particular, the infills erected as part of Gretschel’s plan in the city centre at first glance, look like those in a gentrified neighbourhood in capitalist Western Europe. And in fact, Wrocław’s “return to the inner city” shared with similar movements in Western Europe an increasing popularity of the historic centre and the renaissance of the dense, functionally mixed neighbourhood. Likewise, similar to Britain or France, those who managed to secure a flat in these areas (and as cooperative members acquired a status akin to ownership) a decade later were able to reap considerable profits from the rise in real estate value. Yet the parameters for this “socialist gentrification” were still different. The small, inhabitant-led housing cooperatives that commissioned these buildings were bottom-up initiatives growing out of necessity. They were also a visible protest against the inefficiency of the centralised construction apparatus. There was no impact on the rent level in the wider area or driving out of less wealthy inhabitants, and the new residents could not foresee the rise of house prices after the end of the regime. Accordingly, Polish scholars and journalists in retrospect mostly praised Gretschel’s efforts and did not, as frequently was the case in Western Europe, condemn the transfer of public resources to private individuals. They commended that the small cooperatives were able to break the monopoly of the large housing providers and that “deregulation and decentralization turned out to be much better

192

9780367860721_text.indb 192

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

methods than big plans of huge inertia.”27 They also saw the measures as an effective way to raise the aesthetic quality of architecture, increase the production of dwelling space, mend the war-damaged urban fabric, and inspire the city centre with new life. “TOOTH FILLINGS” IN ŁÓDŹ Like elsewhere in Europe, postmodern construction in the inner city was accompanied by a narrative of “mending the city” and fixing an urban environment that had been damaged by wartime destruction and post-war neglect. Next to war-ravaged Wrocław, this also applied to Łódź, where most of the nineteenth-century urban fabric had survived the Second World War but in the 1980s was increasingly complemented by infills. The common Polish term for such an infill building is plomba, literally “tooth filling.” The medical analogy provoked numerous tongue-in-cheek assessments of infill construction as plastic surgery to restore the beauty of a city’s smile. Bolesław Kardaszewski, for example, a prominent architect and leading designer at the municipal design office Miastoprojekt Łódź, jokingly called himself the dentist of Łódź’s main boulevard Piotrkowska,28 and journalist T.H. Orlowski describes the “dentistry” carried out by architects in the city centre.29 The ironic term also points to the afterlife of modernist ideology in postmodern contextualism. The metaphor of the city as an ailing body and of the architect/ planner as the scientist-physician who cures it was a powerful image throughout the twentieth century. It was used, for example, to justify the demolition of “sick” neighbourhoods. “Tooth filling,” at the surface, fits this image, while at the same time promoting planning principles that are diametrically opposed to modernism’s grand schemes. The architect is still the scientifically educated specialist; his operations, however, are now sensitive to the context, operating at a small scale, and carried out by a helpful neighbour rather than a demiurge in a white lab coat. Kardaszewski, against this background, made an important contribution.30 His multifamily building Bolek (1978–84, Bolesław Kardaszewski, Joanna Matuszewska) at the northwest corner of Piotrkowska and Zamenhofa in Łódź, was erected on a gap site left by demolished nineteenth-century buildings [Figure 6.12].31 The 27 Michał Duda, Patchwork – The Architecture of Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak (Wrocław: Museum of Architecture in Wrocław), 127. See also Lidia Klein, “Europa   an der S´widnicka” Bauwelt 107 n. 38, 58–61, and Łukasz Medeksza, “Wrocławskie plomby jako strategia polityczna,” Pamięć i Przyszłos ´ć n. 37–38 (2017), 23–41. 28 Bolesław Kardaszewski, “Od ‘stomatologa’ Piotrkowskiej” Odgłosy n. 10 (1981), 8. 29 T. H. Orlowski, “Piotrkowska i jej stomatolodzy” Odgłosy n. 8 (1982), 9. 30 On Kardaszewski’s work see Bolesław Kardaszewski, Architektura 1955–85 (Łódź: Muzeum Historii Miasta Łodzi, 1985) [catalogue]; Bolesław Kardaszewski, “Postmodernizm w architekturze jako sztuka niekoniecznie eklektyczna” in J. Szewczyk, Eklektyzm i eklektyzmy (Łódź: Muzeum Historii Miasta Łodzi, 1993); and particularly Błażej Ciarkowski, Bolesław Kardaszewski: architektura i polityka (Kraków: Universitas, 2016). 31 The nickname Bolek, a diminutive of the architect’s forename Bolesław as well as of a popular cartoon character, derived from a competition by the newspaper Dziennik Łódzki. Ibid., 126.

193

9780367860721_text.indb 193

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.12  Multifamily building “Bolek” on Piotrkowska and Zamenhofa in Łódź (1978–84, Bolesław Kardaszewski, Joanna Matuszewska) (author).

development was an innovative attempt to reproduce the logic of the historical city in a postmodern guise. The six-storey building with partially wooden façades, mansard roofs, and conspicuous round windows on the top floor is built on the block perimeter and features commercial premises on the ground floor. It was carried out using standardised construction of the panel system Wk-70. In this sense it continued the architect’s earlier “panel infills,” such as the modernist five-storey

194

9780367860721_text.indb 194

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

building on Piotrkowska 193 at the intersection with Żwirki (1976–81, Bolesław Kardaszewski, Mirosław Wiśniewski) Like the infills in Wrocław, Bolek was not a dissident project but reflected long-term policies that were developed by committed public servants. These include the architect himself. Kardaszewski was a party member and poised to work within the system of centralised construction. He also upheld several principles of modern architecture—for example, he stressed the importance of “truthful” visibility of structure and materials.32 At the same time he was a pioneer in promoting the new principle of construction in the inner city. There is evidence of influence from East Germany, where “new tenements” in the inner city were built from prefabricated panels since the late 1970s. Mirosław Wiśniewski, Kardaszewski’s collaborator on the Piotrkowska 193 project and Polish delegate at a 1979 international architects’ meeting in Rostock/East Germany, praised the East German attempts to adapt panel construction for infill buildings in the cities of Greifswald and Stralsund.33 Later such techniques were also prominently used in Rostock, Halle, and East Berlin.34 In this sense, the Łódź infills were connected to a trend towards adapting panel technology for small-scale architecture in the inner city, which was noticeable in many countries of the Eastern bloc. HISTORICAL PASTICHE IN KRAKÓW Also Kraków with its well-preserved historic core became subject to increased infill construction in the 1980s. Like in Warsaw and Wrocław, the clients were mostly small housing cooperatives. A few of these buildings stand out for their extraordinary design and were carried out by renowned postmodern architects such as Romuald Loegler or Wojciech Obtułowicz. The building on Cekiery 2 (now Legionów Józefa Piłsudskiego 2) in Kraków’s Podgórze area (1985–89, Wojciech Obtułowicz, Danuta Olędzka-Baran) is a good example [Figure 6.13]. The five-storey residence was commissioned by the small housing cooperative Krakowska Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa. Obtułowicz, who after the end of the socialist regime became Kraków’s chief architect, at the time was employed with the municipal design office Miastoprojekt Kraków. He nonetheless carried out the project in the context of the architects association SARP, whose Pracownia Usług Architektonicznych (Architectural Services Studio) was allowed to take on private commissions. His design received a prize at the 1985 Architecture Biennale in Kraków. The building was constructed from brick with reinforced concrete ceilings and contains 14 flats and commercial premises on the ground floor.35 It abounds 32 Ibid., 124–25; Bolesław Kardaszewski, “Łódź – dopełnienie zabudowy kwartalu” Architektura 31 n. 3 (July 1979), 67–70. 33 The Seventh International Project Seminar on Monument Preservation in Rostock was organized in 1979 by ICOMOS in collaboration with the Architects Association of the GDR and the East German Building Academy. Mirosław Wiśniewski, “Przebudowa stref starej zabudowy w centrach miejskich,” Komunikat SARP 3 (1980), 23–27. 34 Florian Urban, The New Tenement (London: Routledge, 2018) 76–79. 35 Wojciech Obtułowicz, plan realizacyjny ul. Cekiery 2, dated May 1987, Archiwum Urzedu Miasta Krakowa, Binder BA, “Ul. Cekiery 2”, 1987,

195

9780367860721_text.indb 195

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.13  Infill on Cekiery 2 (now Legionów Józefa Piłsudskiego 2) in KrakówPodgórze (1985–89, Wojciech Obtułowicz and Danuta Olędzka-Baran) (author).

with postmodern elements, including a central triangular gable, loggia balconies with ornamented banisters, horizontal rustication modelled after the adjacent nineteenth-century tenements, and a roof terrace with Krier-style ornamental beams completing the outline of the building. The entrance from the eastern side is further accentuated through a semi-circular protrusion that contains a row of loggia balconies. The municipal authorities approved the design with the reference that it fits the historic neighbourhood with regard to façade, cubature, and front line.36 Obtułowicz specifically stressed the historicising aesthetic, pointing out his “search for beauty” associated with historic cityscapes, and proudly presenting his design as a “‘pastiche” of historic buildings in a contemporary language.”37 Along similar lines, he celebrated his “illusion of historical continuity” in the context of the adjacent nineteenth-century buildings.38 36 Wojciech Obtułowicz, plan realizacyjny ul. Cekiery 2, dated May 1987, p. 8 Archiwum Urzedu Miasta Krakowa, Binder Budownictwa i Architektury BA, “Ul. Cekiery 2, 1987” 37 Ibid. 38 Wojciech Obtułowicz, “Dom przy ulicy Cekiery” Architektura 36 n. 2 (March 1984), 9.

196

9780367860721_text.indb 196

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.14  Infill on Nowowiejska and Kazimierza Wielkiego in Kraków (begun 1981, Loegler, Dobrzański, Fitzke, Szymanowski) (Mateusz Świderski).

A similar approach can be seen in the building on Traugutta 26/ Dąbrowskiego (1987–89, Romuald Loegler, Wojciech Dobrzański, Ewa Fitzke, Michał Szymanowski) in the same Podgórze area. The four-storey building on the block perimeter appears to take its cues from the West Berlin IBA, to which Loegler and some of his team contributed. The stripped neo-classical façade with protruding volumetric parts and ornamented banisters is a play on historic typologies. It resembles a similar design by the same architects for a housing block on the corner of the streets Nowowiejska and Kazimierza Wielkiego in Kraków (begun 1981) [Figure 6.14]. Here the architects intended to design an entire mixed-use area, which combined four-storey walk-ups with a shopping arcade. Although only a portion of the original project was realised, it shows a new interpretation of the traditional nineteenth-century street.39 Three adjacent “urban villas” were built on the block perimeter, with ground-floor commercial space and pedestrian alleys between them. The stripped classical façade is historically inspired with regard to its horizontal rustication and stepped terraces with ornamental “Krier beams” that on the façade towards Nowowiejska visually complete a pitched-roof outline. MEDIEVAL GABLES IN UPPER SILESIA A series of particularly noteworthy attempts to establish an urban setting based on historical precedents was carried out by the architect Stanisław Niemczyk (1943– 2019). He was born in the Upper Silesian small town of Czechowice-Dziedzice near Katowice and designed his most important projects in his native region. He studied at Kraków Politechnika under Włodzimierz Gruszczyński and subsequently 39 Krystyna Styrna-Bartkowicz, Loegler. Synopsis (Kraków: Wydawnictwo RAM, 2015), 86–87.

197

9780367860721_text.indb 197

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

converted his fascination with medieval architecture into a particular idiom. From 1968 to 1983 he was employed by Miastoprojekt Tychy in the same region. At the same time he carried out well-known examples of postmodern sacred architecture, such as the Kościół Ducha Świętego in Tychy (Church of the Holy Spirit, 1978–83), with a steeple reminiscent of medieval fortifications and the low roof and simple layout reminding one of historic farmsteads. In 1984 he founded a private architectural firm together with Marek Kuszewski. He continued to practise after the end of the socialist regime, carrying out well-known postmodern designs such as the Kościół Bożego Miłosierdzia in Kraków (God’s Mercy Church 1991– 93, Stanisław Niemczyk, Marek Kuszewski), or the Kościół Świętego Franciszka z Asyżu i Świętej Klary in Tychy (St Francis of Assisi and St Clara Church, 2000-20), whose imposing towers remind the medieval residences of San Gimigniano. Art historian Anna Cymer referred to Niemczyk as a “medieval postmodern40 ist.” As a matter of fact, his creative individualism and ostentatiously historicising vocabulary are very different from what one would expect in a socialist context and exemplify the scope of possibilities some Polish architects were able to find for their work. He worked in comparative isolation, and there is no evidence of strong connections with the domestic and international architectural scene. Much suggests that his success of implementing unusual design relied first and foremost on his strong personality. Already during the socialist period he enjoyed a reputation of being “a legend for many, a nuisance for others, living and working in a way that no one knows what he does or what his firm is called,” as the journal Architektura put it in 1989.41 Next to his oddball character, a decisive factor was the comparative wealth of his native Upper Silesia, a heavily industrialised area. He carried out his most famous projects while being employed with Miastoprojekt Tychy and therefore must have received approval by municipal bureaucrats to spend extra resources on traditional construction materials and ornamentation. Tychy was the centre of the Polish car industry and, with respect to the expansion since 1952 by the architects Kazimierz Wejchert and Hanna AdamczewskaWejchert, a model project for modernist city planning. As a thriving industrial hub Tychy and the surrounding area had been able to secure prestigious investments, in particular under party leader Edward Gierek, who, like Niemczyk, was a Silesian native. In economic terms, hence, Niemczyk’s “postmodern medievalism” was the product of the industrial rather than the pre-industrial or post-industrial-age. The Glinka complex in Tychy (originally referred to as “H-7 Estate”), begun in 1978, communicates an alternative vision to modern industrialism and a longing 40 Anna Cymer, “Stanisław Niemczyk – postmodernista średniowieczny” in Lidia Klein, ed., Postmodernizm Polski. Architektura i urbanistyka. Antologia tekstow (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo 40000 Malarzy, 2013), 268–327; on Niemczyk’s ideas see also Anna Cymer, Architektura w Polsce 1945–89 (Warszawa: Centrum Architektury and Narodowy Instytut Architektury i Urbanistyki, 2018), 367–368; Stanisław Niemczyk, “Krajobraz pierwotny” (interview with Stanisław Niemczyk, conducted by Paweł Boguszewicz, Andrzej Jabłoński, and Andrzej Mikulski), Architektura i Biznes n. 12 (2002), 26. 41 Maciej Borsa, “Zespół mieszkaniowy H-7 w Tychach” Architektura 43 n. 1 (January 1989), 12.

198

9780367860721_text.indb 198

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.15  Glinka housing in Tychy (begun 1978, Stanisław Niemczyk) (author).

for a future inspired by a pre-socialist past [Figure 6.15]. Five elongated four-storey walk-up buildings are assembled in a circle around a green space. The ensemble features 126 flats designed for approximately 560 inhabitants on a two-hectare plot. The project derived from the usual processes of the socialist administration. It was sponsored by the state-operated transport company Transprzęt Tychy to house their workers and carried out by the municipal design office Miastoprojekt Tychy at which Niemczyk was employed. Like the large estates, the complex used pre-fabricated panel construction. Niemczyk nonetheless managed to successfully negotiate a rather unusual design, integrating numerous details from historical typologies into modern construction—and, if we believe his assessment ten years later in hindsight, found his client Transprzęt supportive of his vision.42 The buildings are individually designed, combining single-family houses with flatted buildings. The setbacks between the different portions recall the variability of a historical block with houses of different sizes. Mansard roofs stretch over two storeys; attic flats are lit by irregularly spread dormers of different sizes that nonetheless harmonise with the overall composition. The complex is small by socialist standards. Vestibules at every building and a connecting pedestrian path between buildings and greenery reinforce the staggering of private, semi-private, and public spaces, and thus a set-up comparable to rural ensembles. Garages are relegated to the outer portions of the ensemble, whose centre remains car-free. Also the circular plan and central greenery are inspired by a village commons rather than a functionalist estate. An early reviewer praised that Niemczyk skilfully combined the architectural logic of the city with

42 Stanisław Niemczyk, quoted in Maciej Borsa, “Zespół mieszkaniowy H-7 w Tychach” Architektura 43 n. 1 (January 1989), 13.

199

9780367860721_text.indb 199

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.16  Nad Jamną housing in Mikołów near Tychy (1983–86 Stanisław Niemczyk).

that of the village, thus anticipating ideas from Christopher Alexander’s book A Pattern Language two years before its publication.43 Niemczyk further developed his historicising design vocabulary in the complex Nad Jamną (“on the River Jamna”) in the small town of Mikołów five kilometres west of Tychy, which was built 1983–86 [Figure 6.16]. Like the Glinka Complex, the Nad Jamną Complex also was constructed from pre-fabricated panels and is possibly the most unusual design in this technology in Poland. The scheme takes cues from both medieval typologies and seventeenth-century design—a Golden Age in Polish collective imagination. The Nad Jamną Complex was composed of approximately 40 two-storey pitched-roof houses, of which 4 to 6 are attached to form a larger structure. They abound with historicising details, such as Renaissance 43 Ibid. 13.

200

9780367860721_text.indb 200

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

gables, oriel balconies, and ornamented façades. The structures are assembled around a half-open courtyard, making skilful use of the hilly riverside terrain , and reinforcing the impression of a rural idyll. At the same time, the complex also conspicuously brings forward postmodern urban planning principles: smallscale public spaces, pedestrian orientation, and harmonic layout. In this sense, the Nad Jamną Complex was the most comprehensive expression of Niemczyk’s ideas about a rural tradition “closer to the people” and the sense of belonging afforded by multiple sensations of a small-town landscape. NEW URBANISM IN ZIELONE WZGÓRZA NEAR POZNAŃ The most comprehensive experiment to build a pre-modernist small town from scratch is Zielone Wzgórza near Poznań (“Green Hills,” begun 1982, Jerzy Buszkiewicz, Tomasz Durniewicz, Stanisław Sipiński, Eugeniusz Skrzypczak). The 5,000-people ensemble is situated 20 kilometres north of Poznań’s city centre in the municipality of Murowana Goślina, which through the construction has doubled in size. Zielone Wzgórza was the Polish answer to Seaside and Poundbury. It evolved as a neo-historical small town based on a traditional street plan around a market square with medium-rise walk-ups, traditional blocks, streets, and alleys. The architectural vocabulary ranges from modern façades, to sparsely ornamented contemporary design, to straightforward historicism with turrets and pediments. The postcard image is the eclectic Culture House on the Rynek (Market Square) [Figure 6.17]. The brick-faced four-storey building looks like a sixteenth-century town hall topped with a baroque onion dome. The construction on top of an arched gate spanning one of the access streets to the square reflects historical precedents. The building also features a helm-covered clock tower, irregularly distributed bay windows, and a historicist façade. It includes a red halfround pediment marking the entrance, transomed windows with protruding sills, and cornices at the second- and third-floor levels. The conspicuous tower and clock notwithstanding, the building does not convey any pretensions to be genuinely historical. Rather, historical elements are used to form a contemporary vision of what an attractive small town may be. Although Zielone Wzgórza was completed in the post-socialist era, the idea goes back to the socialist period [Figure 6.18]. In its origins the development was a socialist new town not unlike Tolyatti, Eisenhüttenstadt, Dunaújváros, or Nowa Huta. It was a comprehensively planned ensemble for industrial workers and driven by a single employer: a branch of the Poznań-based state firm Cegielski Metal Industry Works, which was situated in the town of Bolesławowo only two kilometres away. Company director Jerzy Leniartowski was a driving force in the realisation of what from the beginning was referred to as a “small town” (miasteczko) rather than a housing complex and was supposed to combine flats with single-family houses.44 The client was the housing cooperative 44 Witold Molicki, Miasteczko Zielone Wzgórza według idei Jerzego Buszkiewicza (Wrocław: Typoscript, 2002), 5.

201

9780367860721_text.indb 201

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context Figure 6.17  Market Square in Zielone Wzgórza near Poznań (begun 1982, Jerzy Buszkiewicz, Tomasz Durniewicz, Stanisław Sipiński, Eugeniusz Skrzypczak) (author).

Figure 6.18  Residences west of Market Square in Zielone Wzgórza near Poznań (begun 1982, Teresa Mycko-Golec) (author).

Pracownicza Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa Zielone Wzgórza (founded 1983), apparently supporting the unusual design against the future inhabitants, who were only later convinced by the small-town idea.45 Like in similar housing cooperatives 45 Jerzy Buszkiewicz, Interview with Witold Molicki (1992), reprinted ibid., 96.

202

The Urban Context

elsewhere, the future inhabitants contributed to the construction cost. Zielone Wzgórza was designed in 1982, construction started in 1984, and the first flats were completed in 1986. The main architect Jerzy Buszkiewicz (1930–2000), was briefly mentioned in Chapter 1 as a contributor to the postmodern discourse, and in Chapter 4 as the organiser of the Poznań University extension and Różany Potok development designed by Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski. Buszkiewicz was an unlikely candidate for a neo-historical development. Born in Poznań to a Polish father and a Flemish mother, he was educated in the spirit of modernism at Poznań Politechnika. He was also a party member. In the 1960s and 1970s he made a name for himself as the designer of prize-winning modernist office blocks, of the high-rise “Hotel Poznań” and collaborator on the panel-built housing complex Winogrady.46 At the same time, unlike most of his peers, he also had international work experience. He won a grant that allowed him to work as an intern at the London County Council from 1963 to 1965, contributing to the satellite town Haverhill 70 kilometres north of London. Subsequently he was one of the most prominent figures in the local architectural scene. He became chief architect, first of the city of Poznań in 1973, and two years later of the Voivodeship. He also served on the board of the architects association SARP, and from 1978 to 1983 was the vice president of the International Architects Union UIA and co-organiser of the 1981 UIA conference in Warsaw. He taught at the State Art School in Poznań and was a regular contributor to the journal Architektura. Buszkiewicz’s penchant for neo-historical design became apparent in the late 1970s, when he designed the regionalist summerhouse that was mentioned in Chapter 1 and subsequently expressed his support for an “architecture that is national in its spirit.”47 He also designed a series of over 30 neo-vernacular roadside inns in the Wielkopolska region, which became models for similar structures all over Poland. At the time, like many architects who moved from modern to postmodern design, he did not perceive his radical change as such, but rather pointed out that the historicising language, like his previous modern designs, was “dictated by the logic of the task” and “conforming to function and site.”48 Fourteen years later such residual functionalist approaches seem to have disappeared. Buszkiewicz now expressed his commitment to genius loci, atmosphere, and emotional attachment. He stated his goal to transcend “the impasse of the modernist block” and find alternatives to the scientific materialism of socialist planning. He presented the non-orthogonal plan and historicising facades in Zielone Wzgórza as deriving from a national tradition of Polish small-town life.49 46 Andrzej J. Nowak, “Architekt Jerzy Buszkiewicz” [obituary, 2000], online at the site of the Alumni Association of the Piotr Skarga School in Szamotuły http://stow-utw. szamotuly.pl (accessed August 2018). The author was one of Buszkiewicz’s successors as Voivodeship architect in Poznań. 47 Jerzy Buszkiewicz, interviewed by Andrzej Bruszewski Architektura 31 n. 3 (May 1979), 69. 48 Ibid. 49 Jerzy Buszkiewicz, Interview with Witold Molicki (1992), reprinted in Witold Molicki, Miasteczko Zielone Wzgórza wedlug idei Jerzego Buszkiewicza (Wrocław: Typoscript, 2002), 95.

203

9780367860721_text.indb 203

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

His explanations became increasingly spiritual, conjuring the “holiness, the eternal theses of the art of urbanism, whose formulae are fully irrational.”50 Slightly simplified, he now claimed that just as the spirituality of the Catholic Church outlasted communism, the transcendental characteristics of the city outlived the materialist approaches underlying modernist functionalism. Buszkiewicz’s ideas align with those of the architect and university teacher Witold Molicki (1930–2013), whose flamboyant 1976 Przyjaźni Housing Complex in Wrocław was mentioned in Chapter 1. In 2002 Molicki dedicated a monograph to Zielone Wzgórza, focusing on Buszkiewicz’s ideas. He depoliticises the town as being grounded in a “spirit of the city” that first and foremost derives “from the noosphere [from noos, Greek for intellect/intuition]” rather than from any material or socio-political context.51 Such flowery rhetoric notwithstanding, Zielone Wzgórza was grounded in concrete economic deliberations. It was part of a larger spatial development plan for the Poznań metropolitan region, and particularly the urbanisation of the northern suburbs. It was designed by a team that Buszkiewicz established in 1980 at the state design office Inwestprojekt Poznań. It comprised his former students Tomasz Durniewicz, Stanisław Sipiński, and Eugeniusz Skrzypczak, who continued carrying out postmodern design after the end of socialism. The psychologist Augustyn Bańka worked as a consultant. The conceptual background was the idea of a “federation of small towns.” That is, the new development was not conceived of as a suburb subordinated to the centrality of Poznań, but, together with existing towns in the area and other developments that remained unbuilt, as spatial units in their own right. The construction of Zielone Wzgórza, situated in a different township than the factory that employs its inhabitants and in a different administrative entity than the city of Poznań, has to be seen against this background and in relation to the decentralisation strategies that also inspired the new towns of the modernist era. Although originally a socialist company town, Zielone Wzgórza fared far better in the post-socialist period than, for example, Eisenhüttenstadt or Dunaújváros. The state firm Cegielski Metal Industry Works was privatised and restructured in the 1990s and eventually went bankrupt in the 2000s. But new manufacturing jobs were created on the site of the old plant. The railway line to Poznań was improved. Decline was stopped, and the population remained stable. In the early twenty-first century Zielone Wzgórza presents itself as a bustling small town with a lively centre, sporting, like many genuinely old small towns, a pastiche of contemporary and historical forms. Likewise, the apparent contradictions of Buszkiewicz’s personal and professional life—as a party member and functionalist planner, on the one hand, and “national” architect and promoter of a spiritually grounded urbanism, on the other—are typical for the postmodern approach to the urban context at the time. 50 Ibid., 96. 51 Witold Molicki, Miasteczko Zielone Wzgórza wedlug idei Jerzego Buszkiewicza (Wrocław: Typoscript, 2002), 61.

204

9780367860721_text.indb 204

04/11/20 9:20 PM

The Urban Context

Functionalist urban planning had run its course, as the social, technological, and aesthetic downsides of modernist housing complexes were all too apparent. At the same time, the attempts to build an urban environment from the spirit of pre-modernist cities was patchy and riddled with economic hardship and conceptual contradictions. The most consistent projects, and, in socio-economic terms the most successful, were those which combined the institutional set-up of the modernist age—public or semi-public finance and the guidance of municipal planning authorities—with the flexibility and individual creativity of the postmodern era. Along those lines Zielone Wzgórza, just like Stanisław Niemczyk’s contextual housing estates and the infills in Wrocław, Łódź, and other cities, are emblematic of the last years of the socialist regime.

205

9780367860721_text.indb 205

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Conclusion

BRIDGING CONTRADICTORY DESIRES Polish postmodern architecture evolved in different ways from postmodernism in Western Europe and North America, and to some extent also differently from postmodern currents in other socialist countries. If the emergence of postmodernism all over the world was a reaction to modern architecture, in particular, the disappointment with modernist urban design, the limitations of standardisation and mass production, and a rising concern with history and local culture in light of its progressive disappearance, the Polish example, while responding to the same deficiencies of modernism, shows the scope of diversity within these parameters. In a particularly evident way, the Polish examples show postmodern architecture’s reconciliatory potential. They aimed at a solution of the basic contradictions of contemporary life: how to be modern and at the same time not to lose one’s traditions; how to reconcile the experience of change and disruption with the desire for familiarity and long-term continuity; how to enjoy the amenities of modernity without having to accept the disappearance of much-cherished aspects of pre-modern life. Postmodernism’s capacity to bridge contradictory desires became particularly prominent in Poland, where the destruction of the Second World War exceeded that in almost any other country. The Polish school of historic conservation, which aimed at safeguarding national heritage in defiance of Nazi Germany’s attempts to eradicate it, had prepared the intellectual ground for an extended view of authenticity and originality. Somewhat indirectly, postmodern historicism became part of the wider project to re-establish an awareness of the past in contexts where historical continuity became increasingly complex: because historic buildings had been destroyed, because former residents had been murdered or deported, because towns and cities in the Western territories had belonged to Germany a generation before, or because local communities consisted of those resettled from the pre-war Eastern territories that now belonged to the Soviet Union. Postmodern architecture was different from the political symbolism of the Warsaw Old Town rebuilding but nonetheless was inspired by the significance that

9780367860721_text.indb 206

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Conclusion

this project had attained around 1980, roughly two decades after its completion. When Warsaw’s rebuilt Old Town was proudly presented as Poland’s best contemporary neighbourhood at the 1981 UIA conference, the focus was no longer put on patriotism, cultural perseverance, and the merits of meticulous conservationist research but on the importance of a historically inspired environment for contemporary life. It is therefore not accidental that many postmodern architects had some degree of professional relation with the conservationist environment or followed its theoretical propositions. Accepting historic inspiration beyond physical authenticity, the Polish school of conservation pre-empted an approach that in the 1980s became increasingly widespread at an international level. The new views on historic authenticity resonated far beyond the conservationist context and also influenced postmodern architecture. Historic references and quotations were no longer regarded as false or inauthentic, but as expressions of a legitimate commitment to historical continuity in light of the modern era’s numerous disruptions. The Polish examples make a convincing case against those who dismiss postmodernism as inherently superficial or false. The “search for truth” by which Polish intellectuals, both Christian and secular, confronted the hollow-ringing Marxist ideology in the 1980s also inspired the attempts to transcend modern architecture, and the answers were not playful and humorous, but serious and at the same time consciously ambiguous. The apparently medieval village church in Mierzowice/Lower Silesia, which proudly boasts the year of construction 1980 on its façade and which was commissioned by a priest who had lived under six different political regimes without leaving his country, proves the point. The building, which is not modelled after any historic precedent, is a postmodern “copy without an original” and at the same time a successful response to the contradictory desires of modernity and tradition, acceptance of painful ruptures, and longing for historical continuity. The same can be said of the postmodern houses in Old Town Elbląg, which are both historical and new, both reminders of a German past and achievements of the Polish present, or the Ascension Church in the Warsaw-Ursynów housing complex, which features references to premodern community life amidst a functionalist urban environment. And aspects of this discourse even resonated in the many historically inspired infills or single-family homes in Wrocław, Łódź, Kraków, and Warsaw. BEYOND COMPLIANCE AND DISSIDENCE Somewhat surprisingly in the highly politicised late socialist context, postmodernism did not attain an unambiguous political significance. The fact that communism had been a modern utopia and closely aligned to the promises of architectural modernism—a new, just, and equal society governed by efficiency and rationality—in theory made any non-modern design inherently critical of socialist ideology. In practice, however, such associations were blurred throughout the socialist period and well beyond the short-lived era of Stalinist neo-classicism. Poland’s

207

9780367860721_text.indb 207

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Conclusion

socialist rulers had always used non-socialist and non-modernist tropes and policies in their attempts to legitimise their rule. These included national narratives, a focus on continuity connected to historic conservation, and, compared to some other socialist countries, a high degree of tolerance towards religious practice and private property. In addition, their approach to architecture and urban design, in light of the worsening economic crisis since the 1970s, was predominantly pragmatic and noncommittal, and there were no longer any attempts to impose an official style or a consistent architectural policy. Against this background postmodernism evolved beyond questions of compliance versus resistance to socialist rule. Postmodern design was neither clearly supportive nor unmistakeably oppositional to the regime. Its conditions were created through both government policy and dissident practice, and designers and clients were associated with both government and opposition. Hence, the categories of society (“us”) versus state (“them”), which were fundamental to the protesters of the Solidarity Trade Union, hardly lend themselves as analytical tools for architectural matters. Rather, postmodern design in Poland centred on particular themes that gained importance in light of the socialist regime’s progressive decline. These themes grew from the spaces of leeway that resulted from loosening control over economy and social practice, and in practice they were operative in expanding the leeway for individual action. Postmodern sacred architecture is a good example. It was based on the regime’s growing inability or unwillingness to control social and institutional forces outside the socialist political realm. The resulting churches were evidence of both popular religious practice and the Catholic Church’s growing institutional power. They were based on economic activities outside the planned socialist economy but at the same time on structures that were not strictly capitalist: non-formalised fees and barter by local clerics, parishioners’ volunteer work, or philanthropic donations from Western countries. And they ended up representing Church matters as much as socio-political conditions outside religious practice: references to long-standing national narratives; a longing for the past and visible historical continuity; and a desire for diversity, difference, and individual artistic expression. The trope of the lush and colourful postmodern church in the dull and standardised modernist housing complex, which can be found all over Poland, is thus a reflection of reconfigured socio-economic relations in a changed cultural environment. The same applies to residential architecture. The postmodern cooperative and private residences and the attempts to “postmodernise” the panel-built housing block were similar expressions of new social conditions. Cooperative and private homes were visible results of economic liberalisation, as they were commissioned by those who profited from growing international trade and a fledgling market economy. But like the churches, they did not derive from fully fledged capitalist structures, but rather from a mixed economy particular to the late socialist period. The socialist cooperative legislation and the building plots that municipalities gave the inhabitants for free demonstrate the non-capitalist aspects. These conditions were very different from the market economy that was established after 1989.

208

9780367860721_text.indb 208

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Conclusion

INCREASING INDIVIDUAL AGENCY Postmodern architecture was an agent of transformation in the sense that it promoted individual agency beyond the constraints of socialist order. This included private entrepreneurialism, but similarly the growing activities of committed architects and public servants to increase the scope for individualised design. Such individual agency led Father Ryszard Łapiński in Warsaw-Rembertów to build a neo-baroque church in his parents’ garden, without a proper building permit, and supported by his neighbours’ hands and his American uncle’s dollars. Likewise, it propelled aspiring owner-occupiers in Wrocław, Kraków, and Warsaw to sponsor historicising cooperative buildings or moderately wealthy business owners to commission lushly decorated single-family homes. Increasing individual agency also pervaded the objectives of state-employed architects such as Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, and Andrzej Owczarek in Łódź or Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, Anna Koziołkiewicz, and Piotr Wicha in Warsaw-Ursynów, who proposed master plans to be completed through incremental growth by multiple actors. It also lay at the bottom of the work of public servants like Andrzej Gretschel in Wrocław or Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann and the planners of Old Town Elbląg who, in light of dwindling public funds, worked out schemes for private investment and the smallscale rebuilding of a traditional urban fabric in the city centre. These inhabitants, architects, public servants, and clerics acted without explicit support of the rulers, under conditions of scarcity, and facing complex bureaucratic hurdles. Their achievements and successes are not only impressive from a professional point of view, but at the same time evidenced an innovative spirit that eventually transformed an authoritarian regime. Postmodernism relied on and promoted such agency. Its sophisticated and often labour-intensive forms had to be produced through non-standardised processes and at the same time touted that their designers and clients had successfully ignored, bypassed, or overcome the restrictions of one-size-fits-all modernism. In this sense the new postmodern buildings in Poland, as well as the discourse that surrounded them, were both symptom and agent of incipient political and economic change. They were shaped by increasing intellectual and professional freedom, and at the same time contributed to economic liberalisation and social transformation. Indirectly they were thus connected to the growth of what in capitalist Western countries would be called a middle class, which, in contrast to the “intelligentsia” in the Eastern bloc, was not only characterised by a higher level of education, strong international ties, and a potential for independent thinking but also by particular economic activities such as homeownership, entrepreneurialism, and conspicuous consumption. NATIONAL NARRATIVES The connection to nationalist ideas was among the most salient features that distinguish Polish postmodernism from that in the West. Postmodern architecture tied into the long-standing significance of national narratives in Poland since

209

9780367860721_text.indb 209

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Conclusion

the nineteenth century. Against this background certain international features of postmodernism, such as the concern with long-standing typologies, historic quotations, or symbolic meaning, were subsumed into the national theme. They acquired significance not as statements of irony and play, but as signifiers of national strength, patriotism, or “Polishness.” Somewhat paradoxically, such categories were not clear expressions of political affiliation and were used in similar ways by different factions, including socialist officials and Catholic clerics. The political ambiguity from the very beginning diluted the persuasiveness of allegedly national expressions, such as a church modelled on early modern typologies or a house featuring quotations from a purported Polish “Golden Age.” Also the fact that in Poland, as in most European countries, historical architectural styles hardly aligned with modern national borders weakened the claims of patriotic symbolism. Against this background, the call for a “national architecture” first and foremost became a cipher for criticism of current social conditions, just as “Polishness” became an umbrella term for any aspect of society that was considered desirable. This discourse nonetheless took up select influences from international postmodernism and framed them in national terms. This included, for example, the use of historic quotations and “speaking” forms exemplified in the works of Charles Moore, Robert Venturi, James Stirling, Ricardo Bofill, and other international architects who were discussed in Poland at the time. In Poland, such stylistic elements were not used to criticise the architectural discipline or to engage in an ironic play with no-longer-venerated traditions, but employed in an apparently serious engagement with architectural heritage, often in order to re-establish historical continuity in the interest of national expression.

SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION OF COMMUNITY Also in Western Europe and North America postmodernism responded to the fact that modernist business districts and housing complexes were often criticised for not fulfilling what had been one of their most basic goals: to provide better community life than the overcrowded industrial metropolises of the nineteenth century. Postmodernism reacted to the trope of the alienating tower block estate or the deserted commercial centre by proposing mixed-use neighbourhoods modelled on bustling nineteenth-century quarters and expressive buildings featuring meaningful forms and symbolic ornamentation. The concern with community resonated noticeably in Poland, which, like most Eastern bloc countries, had been subjected to the Soviet form of panel-built, one-size-fits-all architecture and was dotted with countless repetitive housing complexes. In practice, they were often not only bleak and shoddily built but also deprived of essential spaces for social life, as the carefully planned youth clubs, function rooms, and culture houses, in the same way as in many West European modernist housing estates, were often delayed or scrapped for lack of resources.

210

9780367860721_text.indb 210

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Conclusion

That same lack of community space first motivated the construction of Warsaw-Ursynów’s Ascension Church and Kraków-Krowodrza Górka’s St Jadwiga Church. They were the first large meeting spaces in their respective housing complexes and replaced a small and distant church in Ursynów and an improvised chapel and church hall in Krowodrza Górka that were both bursting at their seams. Even if the population had been willing to accept secular gathering spaces instead, they would have been hard-pressed to find them, as also in these housing complexes the completion of community facilities was notoriously lagging behind. Likewise, the design of flexible master plans for Łódź-Radogoszcz-East or Warsaw-Ursynów derived from a pressing need: there were insufficient residential and commercial spaces that were quickly adaptable to people’s changing needs. Next to these practical measures there was also a symbolic dimension in postmodern neighbourhood design. Many postmodern buildings aimed at a symbolic representation of community life, quoting from pre-modern small towns and historical squares dominated by a church. The concern with historical typologies and “speaking” architecture was at the same time a reference to pre-modernist communities that were seen as implicitly superior to everyday life in the panel-built housing complexes. The studies of historical streets and buildings in books and architectural journals, which reflected similar concerns in the West, attained particular significance against this background of the ubiquitous panel-built blocks. URBAN REGENERATION In Western Europe and North America the emergence of postmodernism coincided with the efforts to regenerate down-at-the-heel inner-city neighbourhoods, which had suffered from the decline of heavy industry, automobilisation, and population loss as a consequence of suburbanisation. None of these aspects directly translated into the Polish context. The struggling economy in Poland meant that both suburbanisation and automobilisation were rather limited throughout the post-war decades, and heavy industry, although ailing, remained the backbone of economic production until the end of socialism. There was nonetheless an equivalent of urban regeneration. The urban dimension of postmodern architecture involving small-scale construction and concern with historical typologies first and foremost manifested itself in the rebuilding of war-destroyed city centres, as in Elbąg, Gdańsk, and Wrocław. It also appeared in inner-city areas that had taken a backseat in post-war planning, such as gap sites in Warsaw-Praga, Kraków, and Łódź. These interventions did not rely on state-led economic development or neighbourhood regeneration programmes, since socialist policy makers had never neglected inner-city neighbourhoods as such. Rather, they were the outcome of ad-hoc measures to mitigate the consequences of economic crisis and the shortcomings of modernist urbanism. Some effects paralleled those of urban regeneration in the West. The “socialist gentrification” of inner-city neighbourhoods in Wrocław or Gdańsk did not (yet) imply the dominance of the service sector and tourism or the driving out of less wealthy

211

9780367860721_text.indb 211

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Conclusion

inhabitants, but it did mean an increasingly positive attitude towards the historic city and a growing presence of privileged groups in the city centre. POSTMODERNISM ACROSS THE EASTERN BLOC Postmodern architecture in Poland partially aligned with the similar currents in other socialist countries at the time. The desire to overcome the aesthetic and technical limitations of panel-built housing complexes was shared across the Eastern bloc. Likewise, in all socialist countries the industrialisation of the construction industry limited the attempts to overcome standardised modern architecture at a broader scale, as small traditional construction firms with the skills to carry out individual design had progressively shrunk—in many countries much more comprehensively than in Poland. Also the renaissance of history after the forward-looking 1960s was a common feature of the architectural discourses in most socialist countries, just as a growing concern with long-neglected historic neighbourhoods and an increasing popularity of eclectic historicism and neo-vernacular architecture. And all over the Eastern bloc there were comparatively few postmodern buildings, as the economically challenged 1980s hardly allowed for extensive architectural production anywhere. Particular to Poland was the connection of postmodernism to church architecture and the comparatively close ties to the national narrative. Both relied on long-standing characteristics that took sway long before the advent of socialism: the centuries-old influence of the Catholic Church and the impact of nineteenth-century nationalism. Postmodernism showed the re-emergence of these factors whilst socialism was progressively waning. Other countries experienced similar phenomena after the end of socialism, as exemplified in the wave of neo-historical churches in Russia and Ukraine, the popularity of neo-Stalinist residences in Russia, and the concern with national identity in the reinvented Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius or the Museum of Archaeology in Skopje. Unlike some of its neighbouring countries neo-historical architecture in Poland was rarely used for state representation or image marketing on the part of the socialist regime. In Poland there was no Nikolaiviertel, the reinvented Old Town that the East German rulers had built for Berlin’s 750th anniversary celebrations in 1987; no House of the Republic, the megalomaniac neoclassical palace in Bucharest that Romania’s dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu started in 1984; and no National Library of Estonia, the Stirling and Rossi–inspired building in Tallinn that was begun in 1984. Much suggests that this can largely be attributed to the progressive decay of the socialist regime, which, in light of growing political protest, refrained from sponsoring major architectural projects that had prestige. The reconstruction of the Royal Palace in Warsaw (1971–84), which party leader Edward Gierek started almost three decades after the building’s destruction by the German invaders, was among the few examples of a historically inspired showcase building during this period and at the same time firmly rooted in the decades-long conservationist commitment to the rebuilding of Warsaw’s Old Town.

212

9780367860721_text.indb 212

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Conclusion

POSTMODERN ARCHITECTURE, INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE, AND FLUID MEANING Postmodernism did not end in 1989. Some of the best-known projects were started after the demise of the socialist regime, and many were designed by architects who had risen to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. These include the Solpol Shopping Centre in Wrocław (1992–93, Wojciech Jarząbek), the Warsaw University Library (1995–99, Marek Budzyński), the Philharmonic Concert Hall in Łódź (Romuald Loegler, 1999–2004), the Holy Spirit Church in Kraków (1992– 2001, Witold Cęckiewicz), the Hotel Hanza in Gdańsk (1994–99, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka), and the St Francis of Assisi and St Clara Church in Tychy (2000– 20, Stanisław Niemczyk). In these projects the themes of the socialist period were still noticeable. The buildings took up historical forms and typologies and often featured explicit references to past contexts and events. At the same time, they demonstrate the creative evolution of their respective architects who, liberated from the socialist era’s shortages of materials and labour, could experiment more freely with unusual forms, while at the same time face client considerations and financial restrictions common to any capitalist context. These buildings, and many others, stand witness to postmodernism’s long-lasting influence on the built environment, social conditions, and intellectual life in Poland. But also at an international level Polish postmodern buildings provide important insights into the relation between architectural culture, economics, and politics. They show that during an era of intensifying globalisation there was still local difference and cultural specificity, but in a rather different way than what those concerned with local or national architecture might have in mind. While in recent architectural history claims for untainted place-specific traditions are hard to sustain, the Polish examples show how a global style such as postmodernism attained a distinctive meaning in a particular context—not as an expression of national spirit or ethnic difference, but as a result of specific power constellations, economic circumstances, and historical experiences. This demonstrates the flexibility of architecture’s communicative capacity and a certain fluidity of meaning in apparently similar architectural expressions across the globe. The examples also suggest that the localised aspects of postmodern architecture developed from international exchange and the transfer of ideas across national borders and were thus characteristic of a modern, closely connected world.

213

9780367860721_text.indb 213

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Pronunciation of Polish names

In Polish, unlike in English, each letter is always pronounced the same way (hence in order not to confuse Polish readers, Shakespeare and Voltaire are usually spelled Szekspir and Wolter in Polish). Certain phonemes are rendered through diacritical marks or combinations of consonants (as in ł for the w-sound and sz for the sh-sound). The stress is always on the penultimate syllable. VOWELS a, e, i, o, u are always pronounced as in smart, red, fit, port, put. There is no differentiation between short and long vowels. ą is a nasal sound as in French bon ę is a nasal sound as in French pain ó is pronounced the same as u, as in put CONSONANTS Most consonants are pronounced like in English. Exceptions are: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

ch and h sound the same, like ch in Scots loch cz is pronounced like ch in cheese ć is a slightly softer version of cz, almost like te in righteous j is pronounced like y in yes ł is pronounced like w in winter ń like ny in canyon or Spanish ñ r is always rolled as in Scots or Italian rz see ż sz is like sh in short szcz sounds like shch in Khrushchev (who is spelled Chruszczow in Polish) ś is a slightly softer version of sz, almost like h in Hugh ść is a slightly softer version of szcz w as v in vintage ż and rz sound the same, like g in genre ź is a slightly softer version of ż/rz, almost like si in vision

214

9780367860721_text.indb 214

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Buildings

Page numbers in italic indicate illustrations.

IN POLAND Arka Pana (Lord’s Ark), officially Kościół Matki Bożej Królowej Polski (Church of Our Lady Queen of Poland), Kraków-Nowa Huta (1967–77, Wojciech Pietrzyk) 18, 41 Ascension Church, Warsaw-Ursynów (1980–85, Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, Piotr Wicha), 17, 22, 29, 41, 47–62, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 73, 81–2, 93, 99, 121, 182–8, 207, 211 Bazylika kolegiacka Wiślica see Collegiate Church Bazylika kolegiacka, Wiślica, South Poland (c. 1350, destroyed 1916, rebuilt 1920s, Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz) 37 Church of God’s Mercy on Żytnia Street 9, Warsaw (19th century destroyed 1944, rebuilt in a different shape since 1978, Tomasz Turczynowicz, Jeremi Królikowski, Jacek Cybis, Marek Eibel, and others) 33 Church of God’s Mercy, Kraków (1991–93, Stanisław Niemczyk, Marek Kuszewski) 198 Church of Our Lady Mother of the Church, Warsaw Domaniewska Street (1981–94, Marek Martens, Lech Kordowicz, Tadeusz Szumielewicz) 64 Church of Our Lady of Jerusalem, Warsaw-Łazienkowska Street (1979-c.89 Tomasz Turczynowicz, Anna Bielecka, Piotr Walkowiak) 22, 33, 62, 62–5, 82 Church of Our Lady of La Salette, Kraków (1980s, unrealised, Dariusz Kozłowski) 80 Church of Our Lady of La Salette, Kraków (1985–99, Witold Cęckiewicz) 80–1 Church of Our Lady Queen of Peace, Wrocław (1980–95, Wojciech Jarząbek) 4, 188 Church of Our Lady Queen of Poland, Głogów (1985–89, Marian Fikus, Jerzy Gurawski) 22, 41, 71–3, 72, 81–2, 103, 127, 132 Church of St Andrew Bobola, Warsaw (1980–91, Hanna Madejowska, Bogdan Madejowski) 93 Church of St Brother Albert Chmielowski, Warsaw-Nowa Huta (1986–94, Witold Cęckiewicz) 81 Church of St Francis of Assisi and St Clara, Tychy (2000–20, Stanisław Niemczyk) 198, 213 Church of St Francis of Assisi, Mierzowice, Lower Silesia (1977–c.90) 23, 83, 101–5, 102, 103, 207 Church of St Jacek on Freta Street, Warsaw (1603–39, Giovanni Trevano, destroed 1944, rebuilt 1947–59) 97, 98 Church of St Jadwiga, Kraków (1983–89, Romuald Loegler and Jacek Czekaj) 17, 22, 47, 73–6, 74, 77, 81–2, 136, 211

215

9780367860721_text.indb 215

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Buildings

Church of St Lucia, Warsaw-Rembertów (1972–93, Feliks Dzierżanowski) 23, 83–95, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 94, 96, 107 Church of St Michael Archangel and St Anna, Kamion, Central Poland (1978–1990s) 23, 83–4, 95–101, 95, 98, 99, 101, 103, 105 Church of the Conversion of St Paul, Warsaw-Grochów (1978–82, Konrad KuczaKuczyński, Andrzej Miklaszewski) 14 Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Katowice (Henryk Buszko, Aleksander Franta, 1979–91) 81 Church of the Good Shepherd Rudy Rysie, South Poland (1968–73, Tadeusz Gawłowski, Teresa Lisowska-Gawłowska) 68 Church of the Holy Spirit, Kraków-Ruczaj (1992–2001, Witold Cęckiewicz) 213 Church of the Holy Spirit, Tychy (1978–83, Stanisław Niemczyk) 27, 198 Church of the Holy Spirit, Wrocław (1973–81, Waldemar Wawrzyniak, Jerzy Wojnarowicz, Tadeusz Zipser) 2, 101, 188 Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Otwock-Śródborów near Warsaw (1979–84, Małgorzata Handzelewicz-Wacławek, Zbigniew Wacławek) 65–8, 66 Cytadela Warszawska (unrealised project) see Warsaw Citadel Dom Pomocy Społecznej imienia Świętego Brata Alberta see St Albert Social Care Centre Elbląg Old Town (destroyed 1945, rebuilt since 1983, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka and others, promoted by Head Conservationist Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann) 8, 10, 23, 36, 39, 46, 139–176, 141–176, 185, 189, 207, 209 Gdańsk city centre, select buildings (1980s, Stanisław Michel and others) 170–3, 172 Gdańsk-Niedźwiednik scheme (1979–83 Szczepan Baum) 144 Glinka housing complex (originally called “H-7 Estate”), Tychy (begun in 1978, Stanisław Niemczyk) 198–200, 199 Grobla Street ensemble, Gdańsk (1980s, Stanisław Michel) 172–3, 172 HEAN Cosmetics Factory, Kraków (“The Alchemist’s House”) (1989, Dariusz Kozłowski) 80 Hotel Hanza, Gdańsk (1994–99, Szczepan Baum, Ryszard Semka) 173, 174, 213 Kalisz Old Town (destroyed 1914, rebuilt 1914–39, various architects) 37 Katedra Świętego Jana see St John’s Cathedral, Warsaw Kolegium Polonijne Kraków see Polish Emigrants’ College Kościół Bożego Miłoserdzia on Żytnia Street, Warsaw see Church of God’s Mercy on Żytnia Street 9 Kościół Bożego Miłosierdzia Kraków see Church of God’s Mercy, Kraków Kościół Ducha Świętego Tychy see Church of the Holy Spirit, Tychy Kościół Ducha Świętego Wrocław see Church of the Holy Spirit, Wrocław Kościół Matki Bożej Jerozolimskiej Warsaw see Church of Our Lady of Jerusalem Kościół Matki Bożej Królowej Polski, Kraków Nowa-Huta see Arka Pana Kościół Matki Bożej Saletyńskiej Kraków see Church of Our Lady of La Salette Kościół Matki Bożej Saletyńskiej Kraków, unrealised project, see Church of Our Lady of La Salette Kościół Najświętszej Maryi Panny Królowej Pokoju Wrocław see Church of Our Lady Queen of Peace Kościół Najświętszej Maryi Panny Królowej Polski Głogów see Church of Our Lady Queen of Poland Kościół Najświętszej Maryi Panny Matki Kościoła Warsaw see Church of Our Lady Mother of the Church Kościół Nawrócenia Świętego Pawła Apostoła Warsaw-Grochów see Church of the Conversion of St Paul Kościół Niepokalanego Serca Maryi Otwock-Śródborów see Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

216

9780367860721_text.indb 216

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Buildings

Kościół Pana Jezusa Dobrego Pasterza Rydy Rysie see Church of the Good Shepherd Rudy Rysie Kościół Podwyższenia Krzyża Świętego Katowice see Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Kościół Świętego Andrzeja Boboli Warsaw-Mokotów see Church of St Andrew Bobola Kościół Świętego Brata Alberta Chmielowskiego Kraków-Nowa Huta see Church of St Brother Albert Chmielowski Kościół Świętego Franciszka z Asyżu i Świętej Klary Tychy see Church of St Francis of Assisi and St Clara Kościół Świętego Franciszka z Asyżu Mierzowice see Church of St Francis of Assisi Kościół Świętego Jacka, see St Jacek Church Kościół Świętego Michała Archanioła i Świętej Anny, Kamion see Church of St Michael Archangel and St Anna Kościół Świętej Jadwigi Królowej, Kraków see Church of St Jadwiga Kościół Świętej Łucji Warsaw-Rembertów see Church of St Lucia Kościół Wniebowstąpienia Pańskiego Warsaw-Ursynów see Ascension Church Kościół Zesłania Ducha Świętego Kraków-Ruczaj see Church of the Holy Spirit, Kraków-Ruczaj Łazienkowska Street Church, Warsaw see Kościół Matki Bożej Jerozolimskiej Manggha Museum, Kraków (1992–94, Arata Isozaki, Krzysztof Ingarden) 35 Miasto wstęgowe (ribbon city) (1960s, unrealised project, Włodzimierz Gruszczyński) 34 Miraculous Medal Church, Zakopane see Sanctuary of the Mother of God Revealing the Miraculous Medal Multifamily building “Bolek” on Piotrkowska and Zamenhofa, Łódź (1978–84, Bolesław Kardaszewski, Joanna Matuszewska) 193–4, 194 Multifamily building on 11 Kwiatowa/55 Madalińskiego, Warsaw (1979–80, Małgorzata Handzelewicz-Wacławek) 67 Multifamily building on Bolesława Prusa 16, Wrocław (1987, Stanisław Lose, Zenon Marciniak, Jerzy Chmura) 189, 190 Multifamily Building on Cekiery 2 (now Legionów Józefa Piłsudskiego 2), Kraków-Podgórze area (1985-89, Wojciech Obtułowicz, Danuta Oledzka-Baran) 195–7, 197 Multifamily building on Dzielna 6, Warsaw (1983–87, Tomasz Lechowski, Wojciech Hermanowicz, Marek Żarski) 177–9, 178 Multifamily building on Grochowska 244a, Warsaw-Praga (begun 1988, Tadeusz Szumielewicz, Marek Martens, Lech Kordowicz) 177, 178 Multifamily building on Nowowiejska and Kazimierza Wielkiego, Kraków (begun 1981, Romuald Loegler and others) 197, 197 Multifamily building on Piotrkowska 193 and Żwirki, Łódź (1976–81, Bolesław Kardaszewski, Mirosław Wiśniewski) 195 Multifamily building on Traugutta 26/Dąbrowskiego, Kraków (1987–89, Romuald Loegler, Wojciech Dobrzański, Ewa Fitzke, Michał Szymanowski) 197 Multifamily building Przestrzenna 19-19A/ Łódzka 33A, Wrocław (begun 1986, Anna BożekNowicka) 191, 191 Na Skarpie scheme, Kraków-Nowa Huta (1987–95, Romuald Loegler, Wojciech Dobrzański, Ewa Fitzke, Michał Szymanowski) 23, 75, 109–10, 135–7, 137, 138 Nad Jamną (on the River Jamna) complex, Mikołów near Tychy (1983–86 Stanisław Niemczyk), 200–1, 200, 201 Nowe Tychy (begun 1951, plan by Kazimierz Wejchert) 44 Nowe Żerniki scheme, Wrocław (begun 2014, Piotr Fokczyński, Zbigniew Macków, Anna Misiura, and others) 116 Pasaż Ursynowski, Warsaw see Ursynów Arcades Philharmonic Concert Hall, Łódź (Romuald Loegler, 1999–2004), 213

217

9780367860721_text.indb 217

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Buildings

Physics, Acoustics and Mathematics Building at Poznań University, Poznań (1978–94, modified in 1999, Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski) 131, 131 Polish Emigrants’ College at Kraków Politechnika (1980–91, Tomasz Mańkowski) 77 Post Office, Izabelin near Warsaw (begun 1988, Tomasz Turczynowicz et al.) 13 Poznań Market Square (destroyed 1944, rebuilt 1946–56 Zbigniew Zieliński and others) 37–8 Poznań University, Morasko Campus, see Różany Potok scheme Przyczółek Grochowski housing complex, Warsaw (1969–74, Oskar Hansen, Zofia Hansen) 130 Przyjaźni (“Friendship”) Housing Complex, Wrocław (1976–80, Witold Molicki et al.) 3 Radogoszcz-East, Łódź (1979–1989, Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, Andrzej Owczarek), 23, 27, 109–11, 112–26, 113–25 Rojna, development of 24 terraced houses in the Rojna neighbourhood, Łódź (1983–87, Andrzej Owczarek) 126–7, 126 Royal Palace Warsaw (begun fifteenth century, destroyed 1944, rebuilt 1971–84, Jan Zachwatowicz, Stanisław Lorentz, Jan Bogusławiecki and others) 37 Różany Potok scheme, Poznań (part of the university campus in the Morasko district begun in 1978, Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski) 23, 109–10, 127–35, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 203 Sanctuary of the Mother of God Revealing the Miraculous Medal, Zakopane (1980–88, Tadeusz Gawłowski and Teresa Lisowska-Gawłowska) 22, 68–9, 69 Sanktuarium Matki Boskiej Objawiającej Cudowny Medalik see Sanctuary of the Mother of God Revealing the Miraculous Medal Seminarium Zmartwychwstańców Kraków, see Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation, Kraków (1985–93, Dariusz Kozłowski, Maria Misiągiewicz, Wacław Stefański) 8, 22, 35, 47, 76–81, 78, 79, 80 Single-family house on Belgijska 18, Wrocław (begun 1986, Stefan Müller) 18 Single-family house, Owczarnia near Warsaw (begun 1988, Marek Budzyński) 57 Single-family house, Podkowa Lesna near Warsaw (begun 1983, Marek Budzyński) 57 Single-family houses on Stanów Zjednoczonych Street, Wrocław (begun 1984, Wojciech Jarząbek) Solpol Shopping Centre, Wrocław (1992–93, Wojciech Jarząbek) 213 St Albert Social Care Centre, Kawęczyńska Street 4b, Warsaw-Praga (1983–89, Tomasz Lechowski, Wojciech Hermanowicz, Marek Żarski) 179–182, 180, 181 St John’s Cathedral, Warsaw (begun c. 1390, repeatedly rebuilt, destroyed 1944, rebuilt 1945–56, Jan Zachwatowicz, Maria Piechotka, Kazimierz Piechotka) 38, 63 Stągiewa Complex with 42 houses on the Wyspa Spichrzów (Warehouse Island), Gdańsk (1993–98, Stefan Philipp and others, 12 buildings on the southern portion by Stanisław Michel) 173 Summerhouse near Poznań (1975, project, Jerzy Buszkiewicz) 29 Ursynów Arcades, Warsaw-Ursynów (1995–97, Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, Anna Koziołkiewicz and Piotr Wicha) 45, 46, 49, 182–8, 183, 185 Warsaw Cathedral see St John’s Cathedral, Warsaw Warsaw Citadel (1975, unrealised project, Marek Budzyński, Andrzej Kiciński) 29 Warsaw Old Town (destroyed 1944, rebuilt 1945–63, Jan Zachwatowicz, Józef Sigalin) 36–8, 98, 157, 206 Warsaw University Library (1995–99, Marek Budzyński) 213 Wawel Castle, Kraków (begun fourteenth century, restored 1920s by Adolf SzyszkoBohusz) 42 Wrocław city centre, infills (1980s) 188–92, 90, 91

218

9780367860721_text.indb 218

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Buildings

Wyższe Seminarium Duchowne Zmartwychwstańców Kraków see Seminary of the Resurrectionist Congregation Zamek Królewski, Warsaw see Royal Palace Warsaw Zielone Wzgórza (“green hills”), new town in Murowana Goślina near Poznań (begun 1982, Jerzy Buszkiewicz, Tomasz Durniewicz, Stanisław Sipiński, Eugeniusz Skrzypczak) 24, 35, 45, 46, 177, 201–5, 202

OUTSIDE POLAND Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage (1958–60, Aldo van Eyck) 117 Aspern Lake Town, Vienna (begun 2007, master plan by Johannes Tovatt, buildings by Einszueins, Scheifinger & Partner, Walter Stelzhammer and others), 116 Bonjour Tristesse multifamily residence, West Berlin (Alvaro Siza, 1982–84) 26 Exeter Library (1972, Louis Kahn) 180 Faculty of History Building at Cambridge University (James Stirling, 1964–68) 131 Free University, West Berlin (1967–72, Georges Candilis, Alexis Josic, Shadrach Woods) 131 IBA, see International Building Exhibit International Building Exhibit (“IBA”) in West Berlin (1979–87) 26, 119, 134, 136, 180, 197 Kasbah Housing, Hengelo, Netherlands (1969–72, Piet Blom) 117 Lützowplatz Housing, West Berlin (Oswald Mathias Ungers, 1979–1984) 26 Multifamily building on Reichenberger Straße 26, West Berlin (1983–85 Wilhelm Holzbauer) 180 Nikolaiviertel (Nikolai/St Nicholas Quarter), East Berlin (1979–87, Günter Stahn and others) 150–1, 151 Pampus new town near Amsterdam (1964, unrealised, Jaap Bakema) 107 Piazza d’Italia, New Orleans (1978–79, Charles Moore) 30 Poundbury new town, Dorset, England (begun 1993, Leon Krier) 177, 201 Ruhr University, Bochum (1964–74, Helmut Hentrich, Hubert Petschnigg) 128 Seaside new town, Florida (begun 1984, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk with Leon Krier) 177, 201 Tokyo plan (1960, unrealised, Kenzo Tange and others) 117 Urban Villas, West Berlin (1980–84, Aldo Rossi, Hans Hollein, Rob Krier and others) 26, 137

219

9780367860721_text.indb 219

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Architects

Adamczewska-Wejchert, Hanna 26, 44, 198 Alexander, Christopher 44, 186, 200 Anders, Wiesław 139–40, 142, 144, 146–7, 146, 149, 173 Bakema, Jaap 107 Baum, Szczepan 8, 23, 35, 139–40, 142, 144–5, 146, 147, 149, 156, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 167, 169, 173, 213 Bielecka, Anna 22, 35, 62, 62, 65 Bielecki, Czesław 8, 29, 44 Blom, Piet 110, 117, 138 Bogusławiecki, Jan 37 Böhm, Aleksander 42 Bożek-Nowicka, Anna 191, 191 Budzyński, Marek 22, 29, 34–5, 43, 44, 47–62, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 82, 121, 182–8 183, 184, 185, 186, 209, 213 Buszkiewicz, Jerzy 24, 29, 35, 128, 201–4, 202 Buszko, Henryk 34–5, 81–2 Candilis, Georges 110, 128, 132 Cęckiewicz, Witold 34, 80, 81, 213, Chmura, Jerzy 189, 190 Cybis, Jacek 215 Czekaj, Jacek 22, 47, 72, 74, 74, 136 Dobrzański, Wojciech 23, 109–10, 136, 137, 197, 197 Duany, Andres 177, 201 Durniewicz, Tomasz 201–4, 202

Dzierżanowski, Feliks 23, 83–7, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 94, 96–7 Eibel, Marek 215 Fikus, Marian 8, 22, 23, 35, 47, 71–2, 72, 109, 111, 127, 127–34, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135 Fitzke, Ewa 23, 109–10, 135, 137, 197, 197 Fokczyński, Piotr 116 Franta, Aleksander 35, 81–2 Gawłowski Tadeusz 22, 68–9, 69 Gliński, Andrzej 32 Goldzamt, Edmund 45 Grabowska-Hawrylak, Jadwiga 26, 188 Gretschel, Andrzej 24, 35, 188–91, 209 Gruszczyński, Włodzimierz 34, 68–9, 197 Gurawski, Jerzy 8, 22, 23, 35, 47, 71–2, 72, 109, 111, 127, 127–34, 129, 130, 131, 132 Handzelewicz-Wacławek, Małgorzata 22, 27, 65–8, 66 Hansen, Oskar 26, 110, 129–30, 138 Hansen, Zofia 26, 130 Hentrich, Helmut 128 Hermanowicz, Wojciech 177, 179–80, 179, 180 Hertzberger, Herman 44, 187 Hollein, Hans 26 Holzbauer, Wilhelm 180 Ingarden, Krzysztof 35 Isozaki, Arata 35

220

9780367860721_text.indb 220

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Architects

Jagiełło, Olgierd 8, 35 Jarząbek, Wojciech 4, 10, 188, 191–2, 191, 213 JEMS 8 Jencks, Charles 26, 32–3, 178, Johnson, Philip 1, 29, 32 Josic, Alexis 110, 128, 132 Kahn, Louis 180 Kardaszewski, Bolesław 193–5 Kiciński, Andrzej 29 Koetter, Fred 44 Kordowicz, Lech 64, 177, 178 Koziołkiewicz, Anna 182–3, 183, 185, 209 Kozłowski, Dariusz 8, 22, 35, 47, 76–8, 78, 79, 80 Krassowski, Czesław Witold 32–3 Krier, Leon, 177, 196, 197, 201 Krier, Rob 119, 138, 140, 157, 178, 180, 189, 196, 197 Królikowski, Jeremi 33–4 Kucza-Kuczyński, Konrad 14, 54, Kuryłowicz, Stefan 8 Kuszewski, Marek 198 Lampugnani, Vittorio 34 Lauterbach, Alfred 37 Lechowski, Tomasz 177, 179–80, 179, 180 Lipski, Zdzisław 23, 27, 109, 110, 112–26, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 209 Lisowska-Gawłowska, Teresa 22, 68–9, 69 Loegler, Romuald 8, 22, 23, 35, 40, 47, 72, 73–6, 74, 109–10, 136 136, 137, 197, 197 Lorentz, Stanisław 37 Lose, Stanisław 189, 190 Lubocka-Hoffmann, Maria Macków, Zbigniew 116 Madejowska, Hanna 93 Madejowski, Bogdan 93 Mańkowski, Tomasz 77 Marciniak, Zenon 189, 190 Martens, Marek 64, 177, 178 Matuszewska, Joanna 193, 194 Michel, Stanisław 23, 172–3, 172 Miklaszewski, Andrzej Miłobędzki, Maciej 8

Misiągiewicz, Maria 22, 47, 76, 78, 79, 80 Misiura, Anna 116 Molicki, Witold 3, 204–5 Moore, Charles 29–30, 30, 32, 104, 210 Müller, Stefan 10, 18, 40, 188 Niemczyk, Stanisław 8, 24, 27, 34, 35, 197–201, 199, 200, 201, 205, 213, Norberg-Schulz, Christian 26, 34 Obtułowicz, Wojciech 195–6, 195 Olędzka-Baran, Danuta 195–6, 195 Owczarek, Andrzej 23, 27, 112–26, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 126, 209 Pérez-Gómez, Alberto 34 Petschnigg, Hubert 128 Piechotka, Kazimierz 38 Piechotka, Maria 38 Pietrzyk, Wojciech 18, 41 Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth 177, 201 Rossi, Aldo 26, 34, 62, 73, 75, 131, 138, 140, 157, 165, 178, 180, 189, 212 Rowe, Colin 44 Rymaszewski, Bohdan 36 Sas-Zubrzycki, Jan 33, 42 Schwanzer, Karl 75 Semka, Ryszard 8, 23, 35, 139–40, 142, 144–5, 146, 147, 149, 156, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 167, 169, 173, 213 Sigalin, Józef 36 Sipiński, Stanisław 201–4, 202 Siza, Alvaro 26 Skibniewska, Halina 26 Skrzypczak, Eugeniusz 201–4, 202 Stahn, Günter 150–1, 151 Stefański, Wacław 22, 47, 76, 78, 79, 80 Stelzhammer, Walter 116 Stern, Robert 32 Stirling, James 73, 131, 212 Szczepanik-Dzikowski, Jerzy 8, 31, 121 Szumielewicz, Tadeusz 8, 34, 51, 52, 64–5, 80, 177, 178 Szyller, Stefan 33, 42 Szymanowski, Michał 23, 109–10, 136, 137, 197, 197 Szyszko-Bohusz, Adolf 37, 42 Tovatt, Johannes 116 Turczynowicz, Tomasz 13, 22, 33, 35, 62–5, 62,

221

9780367860721_text.indb 221

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Architects

Ungers, Oswald Mathias, 26 van Eyck, Aldo 44, 110, 117, 187 Venturi, Robert 1, 16, 29, 32–3, 59, 85, 93–4, 104–5, 210 Wacławek, Zbigniew 22, 27, 65–8, 66 Walkowiak, Piotr 22, 62, 62, 65 Wawrzyniak, Waldemar 2, 101, 188 Wejchert, Kazimierz 26, 44–5, 198 Wicha, Piotr 22, 47–62, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 182–8 183, 184, 185, 186, 209 Wiśniewski, Mirosław 195

Wojciechowski, Jarosław 37 Wojnarowicz, Jerzy 2, 101, 188 Woods, Shadrach 110, 128, 132 Wujek, Jakub 23, 27, 35, 109–26, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 138, 209 Zachwatowicz, Jan 36–9, 156 Żarski, Marek 177, 179–80, 179, 180 Zieliński, Zbigniew 37 Zielonka, Jacek 8, 33 Zin, Wiktor 36, 158–9 Zipser, Tadeusz 2, 101, 188 Żórawski, Juliusz 34

222

9780367860721_text.indb 222

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Subjects

archaeology 141, 152–3, 160, 166 architectural education 32–4 Architektura (periodical) 20, 21, 26, 27–32 atheism 15, 64, 105 Athens Charter 26 Baroque architecture 38, 47, 57, 62, 78, 88, 93, 97, 100, 172 Biennale of Architecture in Kraków 75, 136, 169, 195 Biennale of Architecture in Venice 26, 78 Catholic Church 12–18, 47–82, 83–108, 208; architectural policy of 18–19, 53–4; economic situation of 16, 72, 208; influence under socialism 12–19; separation of Church and state 13–14; social service of 12, 182 Catholicism see Catholic Church Censorship 5, 28, 34, 40–1, 43, 112, 122, 138 Church see Catholic Church communists, communist party see PZPR conservation 23, 27, 33, 36–9, 42, 63–4, 93, 96, 107, 139–75, 189, 206–8, 212 cooperatives (housing) 9, 11–12, 18, 113–14, 120, 121, 128, 132, 136, 18, 144, 160, 162, 176–9, 185, 189, 195, 201–2, 208–9 Critical Regionalism 67–8 displacement: of Germans from the territories ceded by Germany to

Poland 141, 158, 170, 188; of Poles from the territories ceded by Poland to the Soviet Union 71, 105, 141, 206 economic transformation 4–6, 8, 21, 39, 209 fabryki domów (house factories) 111–12, 121, 122, 127 see also panel construction folk architecture 29, 32, 42, 57, 65–8, 70, 71–2, 136, 140, 203, 212 Gdańsk agreement 52; see also Solidarity Trade Union Gentrification 23, 188–92, 211 German Democratic Republic see Germany, East Germany German occupation see Germany Germany: East Germany 57, 112, 137, 150–2, 158, 195, 212; Nazi Germany 37, 57, 157, 206; West Germany 27, 32, 65, 75, 112, 152, 198 Góral (Highlander) construction workers 39, 69, 93, 180 historic conservation see conservation housing complexes 2, 3, 7–8, 11–12, 26–9, 40–5, 47, 50, 64, 71, 73, 75, 78, 81–2, 109–38, 147, 176–7, 187, 205–12; see also panel construction Hungary 137 IBA see International Building Exhibit infill buildings 11, 23, 35, 44, 177–82, 188–95, 205, 207

223

9780367860721_text.indb 223

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Subjects

International Building Exhibit (IBA) in West Berlin 26, 119, 134, 136, 180, 197 interwar period 34, 42, 104 Komunikat SARP (periodical) 25 KOR (Komitet Obrony Robotników, Workers’ Defence Committee) 7 martial law 7, 9, 26, 29, 41–2, 51, 55, 103–4, 122, 142 Marxism 17, 68, 207 Miasto (periodical) 21 Middle-East, Polish architects working in 21, 76 modern architecture see modernism modernism 5, 8, 18, 21, 26–7, 29, 31–2, 34–5, 40, 41–2, 44–5, 67, 71, 75, 81, 85, 100, 107, 110–13, 116, 124–7, 134, 136, 144, 147, 151, 169, 180–3, 190, 193–1, 198, 203–7, 209–10 monasteries/nunneries 78, 89, 103, 179, 180 Nara Document on Authenticity 38 national narratives 15, 37, 41–3, 70, 82, 96, 100, 209–10 neo-historicism 18, 22, 39, 42, 57, 63, 83–5, 93–4, 95–7, 105–8, 144, 150, 189, 201, 206, 212–13 neo-traditionalism, see neo-historicism New Urbanism 177, 201–5 Nowa Huta 23, 35, 81, 135–7; protests in 18, 41 panel construction 2, 11, 21, 23, 25, 27–8, 43–4, 48, 71, 77, 81, 109–38, 141, 145–73, 194–5, 199–200, 203, 208, 210–12; see also fabryki domów (“house factories”); housing complexes party (socialist, communist) see PZPR PAX Association 14, 18 phenomenology 34, 78 planned economy 28, 82, 84, 124, 138 planning see urban planning plomby (“tooth fillings”) see infill buildings Polish school of historic conservation, see conservation

Politburo 9, 11, 17, 43, 101, 112 prefabrication see panel construction prewar period see interwar period Primate’s Council for Church Construction 53, 93 private business under socialism 9–10, 77, 160, 177 privatization 162, 173, 204 protest against the socialist government 6, 7, 9, 16–17, 18, 25–6, 41, 44, 46, 52, 72, 75, 88, 101–3, 115, 124, 130, 142, 158, 160, 208, 212 PZPR (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, United Polish Workers’ Party) 1, 6–9, 12–17, 25, 28–30, 35, 37, 42–3, 50, 51–2, 64, 71–2, 85, 89, 96, 101, 106–7, 112, 115, 122, 142, 148, 150–2, 158–60, 191, 195, 198, 203–4, 212 refugees 71, 105, 141 see also displacement SARP (Stowarzyszenie Polskich Architektów) 28, 30, 128, 136, 151, 189, 195, 203 scientific socialism 40–1 Second Vatican Council 17–18, 72 Second World War 101, 105, 177; destructions during 5, 11, 63, 66, 84, 100, 102, 136–7, 141, 144, 150, 170, 188, 193, 206; rebuilding after 23–4, 36–7, 53, 144, 150, 170 Secret Service see Security Service Security Service 7, 12, 17, 42, 58, 84, 88, 96, 101, 106 semiotics 33, 55–9 Silesia 23, 35, 71, 83, 101–5, 128, 188, 197–8, 207 single-family homes 10, 18, 57, 66, 68, 85–6, 95, 111, 126–7, 126, 164–5, 191–2, 192, 199, 201, 207, 209 socialist realism see Stalinist architecture Solidarity Trade Union 7, 9, 12, 14–18, 26, 44, 52, 66, 100, 106, 130, 142, 160, 208 Soviet Union 28–9, 55, 71, 101, 104–5, 111–13, 137, 141, 206, 210 Stalinist architecture 8, 28, 37, 45, 207, 212

224

9780367860721_text.indb 224

04/11/20 9:20 PM

Index of Subjects

strikes see protest against the socialist government structuralism 22–3, 44, 95, 109–10, 112– 18, 127, 128–9, 134, 139, 182, 187 styl zakopiański (Zakopane style) 34, 42, 57, 67, 69, styl dwórkowy (manor house style) 57 suburbanisation 134, 191, 211; see also single-family homes tenement architecture 1, 11, 26, 111, 127, 137, 167–8, 177–9, 188– 91, 195–6 transition to capitalism see economic transformation Tygodnik Powszechny (periodical) 14, 41, 54 UIA Conference in Warsaw 26–7, 57, 203, 207 UNESCO 27, 38 see also World Heritage

United States 27, 36, 40, 42, 60, 70, 85, 107, 140, 177; Polish emigrant communities in 28, 88, 92 universities see architectural education university housing 128, 133 urban planning 17, 24, 25, 43–5, 49, 55, 60, 82, 84, 96, 110, 113–4, 116, 122, 126–8, 135, 138–40, 142–51, 159, 168, 173, 175–6, 177, 183–9, 193, 201–3, 205, 211 urban regeneration 23–4, 39, 139–40, 148, 159, 176, 188–9, 211–12 Vatican 17–18 Venice Charter 38, 156 vernacular architecture see folk architecture Warsaw rebuilding 36–8, 157, 206 World Heritage 38

225

9780367860721_text.indb 225

04/11/20 9:20 PM