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1

THE DECADE OF LUXURY. PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF POLAND AND THE HOTELS IN THE 1970'S (Dekada luksusu. PRL i hotele w latach 70.)

100%

Szczerski A.

Ikonotheka

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2007

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issue 20

161-162

EN

If judged by the People's Republic of Poland's (PRL) standards, the 1970's were a decade of luxury. After the hungry years of the post-war reconstruction and then the years of 'small-scale stability', luxury became the trademark and the passport to legitimacy for the new government. Hence, luxury assumed a strictly ideological dimension. New models of leisure culture, the rapidly developing tourism among them, were some of the signs of luxury. In the entire history of the PRL the 1970's were undoubtedly the highest point of architecture related to leisure and tourism, both with regard to numbers and with regard to quality. For instance, in this period 'Orbis', the state-owned tourist bureau, built twenty-three hotels, thus doubling its possessions in this respect. The Warsaw hotels Forum (1973) and Victoria (1976) stand out among new edifices constructed with a clearly propagandist aim in mind. They were built on the basis of the so-called 'investment import' by Swedish architects and mainly using methods of construction imported from Sweden. The other larger towns and tourist centres in attractive regions of Poland soon followed in Warsaw's footsteps. Several hotels were constructed in cooperation with partners from beyond the Iron Curtain; their construction was financed by international loans. Very few could afford this level of luxury, since prices there were astronomical; the 'democratisation' of luxury was only visible in health and holiday resorts constructed by state-owned enterprises. For instance, the state heavy industry plants built the 'Orle Gniazdo' holiday home in Szczyrk (1974), the tourist village in Porabka-Kozubnik (constructed from 1969 onward) or the health resort section of Ustron-Zawodzie designed to house seven thousand visitors (1971-75). A far more modest, but more accessible 'mass luxury' was provided on holidays organised by the Employee Holiday Fund. The level of luxury at particular hotels demonstrated the stratification of society and attested to the new strategy of the authorities. By manipulating the attributes of affluence, the authorities wanted to convey an impression of a dynamic development of the country. Hotels were used as a very specific simulacrum. Paradoxically, the attributes of capitalist consumption were perceived as the signs of progress. This demonstrates that the Communist regime was ready, to a large extent, to submit to the process of 'auto-colonisation' and create a hyper-realist picture of the West as a model for imitation in the country. Despite all those efforts, however, the hotels of that decade were only a modest version of the hotels aboard (the interiors of the Victoria Hotel in Warsaw being only an exception to the rule). They just attested to the provinciality of the People's Republic of Poland, where the 'Soc-Modernist', grotesque kitsch received accolades. In the 1970's, therefore, luxury constituted an element of control over the society, and hotels were the space where reality was 'carnivalised'.

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THE FAMILY HOMES OF ANTONIN RAYMOND, CZECH ARCHITECT IN JAPAN

100%

Vendredi-Auzanneau C.

Umění (Art)

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2005

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vol. 53

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issue 2

156-164

EN

The Czech native Antonin Raymond (1888-1976) went to Japan in 1919 as the assistant of Frank Lloyd Wright and worked there until 1973, except for the period of the Second World War. His studio executed many buildings in Japan, where Raymond pioneered the development of construction using reinforced concrete. Raymond's conception of the family home was well received by many contemporary architects, including his protégé Yoshimura Junzo (1908-1997). In these homes, he created a modern private space that was suited to the changing Japanese lifestyle. The article outlines how Raymond developed his ideas of residential space over forty years in the country where he had decided to live. The article also indicates how his approach was unique in the framework of the community of foreign architects in Japan. In select examples documenting the four basic stages of Raymond's professional career, the article shows how his homes developed from the closed European space, divided by permanent partitions, to an architecture in which spatial divisions were only suggested by flowing features. This space corresponded to the composition of the traditional Japanese home. But Raymond also revised the tradition. His homes had a dual orientation: they opened to the view outside and at the same time were organised around a central hearth. As far as aesthetics were concerned, Raymond's buildings were similar to what the Japanese were used to, but they also had all the modern comforts (from the bathroom to the kitchen). They showed more feeling for the quality of light and for the relation to the surrounding nature than did the traditional residential buildings.

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ALMOST A MONUMENT - ALMOST A REMEMBRANCE (Prawie pomnik - prawie pamiec)

80%

Lesniakowska M.

Ikonotheka

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2007

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issue 20

147-159

EN

The article concerns the issue of contemporary monumental sculpture viewed as narration. Comparison is drawn between two monumental structures, both erected in Europe and both referring to the WW II: the Memorial to Warsaw Uprising (Warsaw, 1979, Andrzej Domanski, constructed for the 35th anniversary of the outbreak of the Uprising), and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas), also known as the Holocaust Memorial (Berlin, 2003-5, Peter Eisenman). The authoress presents these structures as illustrations to two different models of representing history. Those models, functioning with the sphere of the 'policy of remembrance', are viewed as two opposing historiographic schemes. She finds the monuments to be an expression of the discourse on monuments functioning as texts in the public space, related to Dominick LaCapra's theory of history as memory and Frank Ankersmit's Narrativism, and on this basis conducts an analysis of both structures as historiographic texts. The reading of the Warsaw monument, which was erected in the Communist period, demonstrates that its chief category is 'the memory of forgetting' and that it is a memorial to the 'other hero'. Its true subject / 'hero' turns out not to be the Warsaw Uprising at all. Instead, this monument is the demonstration of the propaganda of the People's Republic of Poland, the then 'manager of memory'. The idea of the pseudo-abstract form of this 'almost a monument' refers to the manner in which the memory of the Warsaw Uprising was viewed by the authorities: as an experience which can essentially be erased, removed from history or presented in an ideologically appropriate manner. The persuasive power of the monument was aimed at 'teaching' the viewer-recipient to perceive the appropriate historiographic vision. It is, therefore, the monument to the killers, not to the victims. Applying the method of 'inverted reading' of this memorial as a historical narrative, the authoress demonstrates that this 'almost a monument' has also a meaning which was not conceived by its creators. It can be, in fact, interpreted as the memorial to those who are absent and excluded, and hence as a disguised memorial to the victims. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is an antithesis to the Warsaw monument. Its main idea is also based on the 'management of memory', the ideologisation of the city space and the hermeneutics of a monument as a text, but understood from an entirely opposite point of view. There, the perception of the past is understood as 'remembering to remember' (Ankersmit).From the formal point of view, both monuments seemingly display similar features of style (minimalism, abstract art and geometry - radical representations of a symbolic form); yet the aesthetic narration of these two memorials brings about different results. Interpreted as two models of representing, interpreting and evaluating history (historiography), these memorials refer not to the past itself, but to the present day's manner of looking at the past.

4

Reinforced-Concrete Cathedrals of the Monumentalism. References to the Gothic in Polish Ecclesiastical Architecture of the 1930s

80%

Burno F.

Ikonotheka

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2005

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issue 18

87-104

EN

The search for new methods of creating monumental expression is one of the most interesting phenomena in the architecture of the 1930s.The aim of this article is to demonstrate the presence of references to the Gothic tradition in the Polish ecclesiastical architecture of that period. The competitions for the project of the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw, which took place in the years 1929 and 1931, have a special importance for the further development of Polish ecclesiastical architecture of the 1930s, including the trend discussed here. Bohdan Pniewski, the winner of the second competition, did not use direct quotations from the Gothic: pointed arches, tracery or pinnacles, or even the skeleton construction of the shafts and ribs; instead, he tried to indicate the character of the Gothic architecture, for instance by stressing the spire-like slenderness of the silhouette by means of lizenes, which divided the façades into narrow, often concave segments. Only the huge stained-glass rosettes were a direct borrowing from the Gothic repertoire of forms. The forms façade proposed in his project for the Temple of Providence and the 1933 project for the Sea Basilica in Gdynia were readily imitated in Polish ecclesiastical architecture of the 1930s. e.g. in the 1932 project by Bronislaw Colonna Walewski of the Church of Christ the King in the Warsaw district of Targówek (never carried out). Analogies to Pniewski's competition project can also be found in the 1934 project by Franciszek Maczynski of the Church of St. Kazimierz the Prince in Cracow, which unfortunately was carried out only partially. To the reinforced-concrete cathedrals of Bohdan Pniewski referred the projects of the Lvov church of the Missionaries of St Vincent a Paulo by Waclaw Rembiszewski and associates, and by Tadeusz Teodorowiczow-Todorowski (completed only in part by 1939) as well as the Czestochowa church of St Anthony (1936-1939 and 1947-1956) by Zygmunt Gawlik. The Waclaw Lisowski's 1935 project of the new front façade of the Church of the Transfiguration in Lódz, Andrzej Boni's (Church of Mary's Purest Heart in Warsaw 1934-1941) and Wawrzyniec Dayczak (church in Lvov-Sygniówka) are mentioned as well.

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RIGID MODERNITY', KAREL HONZIK'S THEORY OF FUNCTIONALISM FROM 1930 TO 1950. SOURCES AND PARALLELS

80%

Dvorakova D.

Umění (Art)

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2005

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vol. 53

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issue 2

142-155

EN

In architectural theory, the period 1930-1950 confronted the concept of functionalism with new themes of the symbolic-representative role of architecture and an aesthetic style that catered more to the psychological needs of consumers than did formal, abstract, early functionalist architecture. The form of modern architecture was further modified by attempts to develop the regional building traditions and the existing architectural context, and by the contradictory trends that appeared in connection with the international development of the rationalisation of construction and building production. The article analyses these themes and their sources of inspiration in the texts of the Czech architect and theorist Karel Honzik (1900-1966). In the early 1930s, Honzik came to see the limits of the early theory of functionalism. Using examples from biology, he demonstrated that the basic functionalist tenet that form proceeded from the function of a building was invalid. Under the influence of surrealism, he expanded his critique of utilitarianism and the pseudo-scientific instrumental approach to architecture. After 1935, he was strongly influenced by the aesthetics and art theory of the period, in particular the aesthetic structuralism of Jan Mukarovský. In a key text from the end of the 1930s, entitled 'Fyzioplastika' (Physio-plastics), he set about analysing the causes of the growing contemporary interest in the representative qualities of architecture, with reference to local and international debates. In his insistence on the functionalist requirement of the autonomy of architecture, untainted by symbolic function, however, he showed a lack of understanding for the contemporary search for a modern monumental style. From the beginning of the 1940s, he focused intensively on the legacy of the regional architectural tradition, suppressed by the programmatic internationalism of modernism. It seems that he was reacting not only to the nationalist reactionary wave characteristic of Germany, but also to the interpretation of the Mediterranean vernacular that appeared in the work of the architect Le Corbusier. With the architect Ladislav Zák, he tried to establish the key features that would give a unified visual impact to the Czech village in the landscape. He later became acquainted with the 'folk' style of the Scandinavian architectural movement known as '‘new empiricism'. During the 1940s he unwittingly drew closer, in his theory only, to the concept of organic architecture advocated by the art historian Sigfried Giedion and elaborated by the Italian architect Bruno Zevi. In connection with the publication of 'Tvorba zivotniho slohu' (The creation of a lifestyle), another contemporary theme became prominent in Honzik's theory: the application of scientific-technological innovation in the rationalisation of building production. In this area, Honzik paid particular attention to the views of the members of the PAS group and Ladislav Zák. After 1948, Honzik did not at first accept the line of socialist realism. He gave in, however, after the failure of his attempt to establish late aestheticised functionalism as the official style of the socialist state. He did not return to the theory of modern architecture until the late 1950s. The article concludes that Honzik's theoretical analyses, in many respects too abstract and often verging on academic, were not consistently grounded in his own architectural work.

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'BEHIND THE IRON GATE': SURPLUS OF MEMORY, PLACE OF MEMORY, AND FORGETTING IN A CONTEMPORARY CITY (Za Zelazna Brama. Nadmiar pamieci, miejsce pamieci i zapominanie we wspolczesnym miescie)

80%

Switek G.

Ikonotheka

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2007

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issue 20

117-146

EN

'Behind the Iron Gate' is the name of the massive-scale housing estate in the centre of Warsaw, consisting of 19 apartment blocks, 16 storeys each, designed by a team of Polish architects (Jan Furman, Jerzy Czyz, Jerzy Józefowicz, Andrzej Skopinski) between 1966-1970. This realisation has been interpreted as one of the far-reaching consequences of the Athens Charter which commited CIAM to a single type of urban housing, described as high, widely-spaced apartment blocks wherever the necessity of housing high density of population exists. In the 1970s, the Behind the Iron Gate housing estate was considered a symbol of Polish socialist prosperity. The principles of so-called modern rationalism - that is, 'Siedlungen' responding to the drastic housing shortage, and 'Existenzminimum' understood as the apartment for the minimal existence - became subject to a political propaganda which affected the post-war urbanism in Poland as the country behind the Iron Curtain. Since 1989, the Behind the Iron Gate area is one of the most active construction sites in the city, attracting foreign investments, and gradually shaped as a 'Warsaw Manhattan'. Former green zones and playgrounds now host parking lots, bank and insurance company buildings, business centers, and exclusive hotels. At the same time, the Behind the Iron Gate housing estate is a rather neglected part of the city; the pre-fabricated apartment blocks are often referred to as 'architecture on pension', 'slums' or even 'pathological substandards'. 'A Surplus of Memory' is the title of memoirs by Yitzhak 'Antek' Zuckerman, a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization Command, who took part in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The Behind the Iron Gate housing estate was designed upon the field of ruins of the so-called 'small ghetto' liquidated in August 1942. On today's map of Warsaw, there are only few ruins in this highly built-up area that constitute the Jewish Route of Memory: a part of the ghetto wall, a gate, fragments of the original pavement and rails, and some pre-war 'memory places', such as the sites of non existing houses: of Isaac Bashevis Singer at Krochmalna street and of Icchok Lejbusz Perec at Ceglana (now Pereca street). Designed as a narrative walk along the contemporary streets and squares of the Behind the Iron Gate area, the paper examines the specificity of urban memory and questions the notion itself. Paul Ricoeur's description of the threefold, interpretative nature of the historiographical operation (as demonstrated in his 'Memory, History, Forgetting') is referred to the concrete urban site with its ambiguous character. Acknowledging the reciprocity of writing history and collecting memories, as well as the difference between the ontological question and the 'hauntological' description, the paper discusses the possibilities of historiographical and commemorative tasks of architecture. The Behind the Iron Gate area with its contemporary in-fills, socialist blocks and ruins, where architecture is not turned into a timeless monument or a museum-district, serves as an example of both the space of memory and the space of forgetting.

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4 Ikonotheka

2 Umění (Art)

1 Burno F.

1 Dvorakova D.

1 Lesniakowska M.

1 Switek G.

1 Szczerski A.

1 Vendredi-Auzanneau C.

3 2007

3 2005

THE DECADE OF LUXURY. PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF POLAND AND THE HOTELS IN THE 1970'S (Dekada luksusu. PRL i hotele w latach 70.)

THE FAMILY HOMES OF ANTONIN RAYMOND, CZECH ARCHITECT IN JAPAN

ALMOST A MONUMENT - ALMOST A REMEMBRANCE (Prawie pomnik - prawie pamiec)

Reinforced-Concrete Cathedrals of the Monumentalism. References to the Gothic in Polish Ecclesiastical Architecture of the 1930s

RIGID MODERNITY', KAREL HONZIK'S THEORY OF FUNCTIONALISM FROM 1930 TO 1950. SOURCES AND PARALLELS

'BEHIND THE IRON GATE': SURPLUS OF MEMORY, PLACE OF MEMORY, AND FORGETTING IN A CONTEMPORARY CITY (Za Zelazna Brama. Nadmiar pamieci, miejsce pamieci i zapominanie we wspolczesnym miescie)