Projekt odbudowy dawnej lecznicy dra M. Solmana, czyli konserwacja przez budowanie

• Authors: Szczepański Rafał , Szczerba Waldemar

Title variants

EN

THE PLAN FOR THE RESTORATION OF FORMER DR. M. SOLMAN’S POLYCLINIC (CONSERVATION THROUGH CONSTRUCTION)

• Languages of publication: PL EN

Abstracts

EN

The analysis of conservation work undertaken on Dr M. Solman's polyclinic in al. 1-szej Armii W.P. (i.e. 1st Polish Army Avenue) in Warsaw reveals typical conservation problems encountered during planning and the actual preservation of city structures from the 19th century. From a legal point of view dense city structures of the 19th c. are protected in the same way as medieval and classicistic monuments. However, the town-planning situation of these structures is often different from that of older buildings. This often leads to neglecting conservator's requirements, which hardly ever happens in case of older historic monuments. Capitalistic town-planning laws, in which much emphasis was put on property and utilization rights as well as an modern sanitary and building regulations, resulted in the impossibility of solving conservator’s problems without a more general town-planning programme analysis. During the preservation of the 19th-century structures one has to face problems of dense city structures and a direct vicinity to the 20th c. houses. Both of them affect the process of conservation. Initially, the polyclinic building was not treated as a monument. In 1977 partial demolition took place; the front tract, which survived, was classified as a monument and the decision of routine treatment followed. Dr M. Solman's polyclinic was built in the years of 1892— —1894 according to the design of Stefan Szyller, an architect. It was to be a maternity clinic and* it performed this function till 1939. During World W ar II a primary school was organized there in 1944. After the war till 1965 the building housed "Konsumy” (i.e. Consumers’ Cooperative) and then the Polish Corn Enterprise. The number of buildings designed by Stefan Szyller makes him one of the most active architects a t the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He designed nearly 100 tenement houses and ipublic edifices in Warsaw. The number itself is significant. St. Szyller’s creative life gave Warsaw the Z a chęta (the seat of the Union of Polish Artists and Designers), Warsaw Library, entrance gate to the University, the main building of Warsaw Technical University, the building of Cyclists’ Union, abatements of the Poniatowski Bridge, viaduct at Karowa street as well as many tenement houses. St. Szyller was involved in the idea of Polish national a r chitecture. The role of architects claiming the need for a national style was important in the period of independence tendencies and national gatherings (the end of the 19th century). As many other architects Szyller looked for the roots of Polish architecture in wooden folk building. He must have certainly identified his works with the "Polish architecture" and the independence movements then d e veloping. It is worth to evaluate his works from a distance. At that time in the USA the 20th-century architecture was being born. After winning the competition for a central ra ilway station in Helsinki (1906), Saarinem went to Chicago. In 1908 Frank Lloyd W right came up with Robie House with its steel cantilever of 8 m radius. Secession ruled in European arts. Then came Modernism and Expressionism. In 1903 the A. and G. Perret Brothers produced in Franklin st. in Paris a tenement house of reinforced concrete construction. It was the first dwelling-house constructed in this manner. After the partial demolition only outer walls and cellars were left of the polyclinic building. The stairs, ceilings and roof were not preserved. A temporary roof and an enclosure were later provided. In the open area of 350 cm width between the numbers 7 and 9 there is a ga rage in the ground floor. Since there has been no historical study on this subject, no separate conservation suggestions were formulated in a form of a special document. This does not mean, however, that they have not existed. After discussions with the conservation authorities the designers have agreed on the following measures with regard to the remaining front tract : 1. The existing elevation should be maximally preserved and its pre-demolition decoration should be restored. Consequently, a) the destroyed woodwork must be replaced by a new one based on original patterns, b) missing details of the front and side elevations must be reconstructed, e.g. the pinnacles of the projection and fra g ments of the moulding c) the destroyed fragments of facing brick in the front elevation must be reconstructed. 2. New ceramic ceilings should be at the same level as the original ones. 3. The arrangement of interiors should be preserved as far as it is possible. 4. The roofing material (sheet metal) and the angle of inclination of the roof surfaces should be kept unchanged. 5. No new opening should be introduced in side e le vations. The adaptation and rehabilitation of the 19th-century historical monuments become a problem for designers in many European countries. It is often called "introducing new supplement buildings” or " filling in" or " re h a b ilita tion” , depending on the analysis of a concrete situation carried out prior to designing. The authors believe that in the case tof the PKZ building the situation requires a plan of the building with partial revalorization of the existing front tract. Here we have to deal with the problem of adaptation of part of the old building to a new function and to new technical standards as well as with de signing a new part of the building. Since the term "19th- century historical monument is relatively broad, no d e finite rules of any "preservation school” or "conservator’s treatment” should be ap p lie d . In many countries two ty pes of conservation are distinguished, namely "soft conservation" and „hard conservation". The problem of choosing one of them in a given situation has been discussed for a long time. On the other hand, many monuments have been rehabilitated and one may analyse the types of a c tions undertaken in each case. In Poland the distinction is not strictly observed or defined because of the existence of practical restrictions. As fa r as materials a re concerned highly technological solutions are excluded. This restricts architects. For example, there is almost no aluminium or a proper type of glass av a ilab le for conservation work. The result is, e.g., a controversial solution of windows (aluminium) in the garden side elevation of the Wilan ow Palace, because of pane divisions — the only technically possible way. There is no univocal principle determining the criteria of evaluation and classification of the 19th-century architecture. The so-called revalorization is in fa c t more concerned with the cubage than with any conservation views. The methods of planning are being improved. H o wever, only more extensive practice may confirm the soundness of structural assumptions. There definitely exists a necessity to view those problems against a wider town- planning backround. This flows from the rules of town building and development in which architectural, in stallation, communication and transportation as well as town- planning problems overlap and produce a Gordian knot for us to cut. The ;plan of the PKZ building in al. 1-szej Armii WP is an example of such a 19th-century city structure (p artly pulled down), where conservation plans had to take into a c count all the problems mentioned. . Data concerning the building 1. Area of the structure: before rebuilding — 158.7 m2 a fter the mass rebuilding — 376.7 m2 2. Entire area after rebuilding: 2,566.0 m2 3. Utilizable area after rebuilding: 2.018,5 m2 4. Cubature: 10,414 m3 5. Number of floors: in the old part — 5 in the new part — 7 6. Height: 27.02 m 7. Normative numbers of users: 125 persons 8. The building is equipped with a lift 9. Offices for the PP PKZ ground floor, 1st and 2nd floors — BHZ (Foreign Trade Office) 3rd, 4th and 5th floors — OBiK (Research and Conservation Dept.) The technical plan was drawn by the architects W . Szczerba, R. Szczepański et al. in the period from January Ho June 1984. The plan is being now realized.

• Publisher: Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
• Journal: Ochrona Zabytków
• Year: 1986
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 121-125

Dates

published

1986

Contributors

author

Szczepański Rafał

author

Szczerba Waldemar

• arch., PP PKZ - Oddział w Warszawie
• arch., PP PKZ - Oddział w Warszawie

Identifiers

ISSN

0029-8247