International Achievements of Polish Urban Planning

ELABORATIONS

INTERNATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF POLISH URBAN PLANNING

SAWOMIR GZELL

MEASURES OF SUCCESS tecture, becomes an embarrassing and irresponsible composition of not-quite-new designs arranged of It is not easy to judge which examples of Polish toy bricks which should have been given to children, contemporary urban planning might possess the sta- though sampling in art and music fares quite well tus of works that achieved international success, and meanwhile. Bearing out the proposition on dyna- this includes creations in Poland as well as abroad. mism of assessment of urban designs is also the ac- One needs criteria for assessment, but intuition sug- ceptance of historicism, achieved some time ago and gests that even severe ones might be useless, while now well grounded, although the fashion for this is the selection of such criteria is not obvious. The num- too proceeding towards a decline. Another con [ rma- ber of citations, the frequency of publication of de- tion is the development of neomodernism in many scriptions and photographs, the number of imitators forms, even though critique of modernism itself and such like can of course be quanti [ ed, but against continues, with the effect i.a. that modernist archi- what should the resulting calculations be measured? tectural realizations are being physically removed; One would need to produce comparative tables but for instance the demolishing, ostensibly because of in spite of the work done, these would never bring frail condition, of department stores Supersam at about convincingly objective results. On the other Plac Unii Lubelskiej and Pawilon Chemii at Bracka hand, assessments transcending simple awarding of street in Warsaw, or the railway station in Katowice, points, such as admiration (or condemnation) of crit- or adding on buildings, or painting in bright colours ics, academic analyses, colleagues’ opinions, media even renowned housing estates constructed between reports etc, are obviously emburdened with the sin 1960-1980. of subjectivism and thus should only be auxiliary Thirdly, it is a fact that Polish urban planning and material. architecture never had any real introduction to the Secondly, the problem is that the value (in what- world information circuit, mainly because reports ever way measured) of a work may change with the were few and far between, and also for language rea- passage of time for reasons altogether insubstantial. sons because if anything did get published, as a rule This happens, e.g. with long-despised social realism, it was in Polish. In Western Europe or in the USA which revives at least as a theme for study, and ur- any larger project (larger does not necessarily relate ban designs from the time are considered worthy of to quality) was extensively described in special edi- visits, or even perhaps, of imitation 1. tions of albums or books, usually in two languages, At the same time postmodernism, which to many whereas in Poland nothing of the sort happened (nor was also sourced among others in socialist archi- does). Another real problem is the scant number of

1 Between 24-25.09.2011 Warsaw’s Society for the Preservation character? What is in the future for the interiors of the Palace of of Historic Monuments organised a symposium devoted to „Th- Culture? ... The architecture and urban planning of social realism reatened relics of social realism” commenting thus: „Will the ar- to a very large degree shaped the image of the city after World chitecture of social realism disappear from the Warsaw citysca- War 2 and nowadays more and more often attention is brought to pe, obliterated by a layer of styrofoam? Will complexes such as the need for its protection. Plac Konstytucji, Mariensztat, Plac Hallera preserve their unique

15 periodicals. There are some dedicated to architecture DOMESTIC ICONS but urban planning is sadly neglected. Generally, one or two publications survive on the market, when The beginnings were quite good. At the turn of these disappear, replacements do not surface for a the 20th century, in the early days of construction long time 2. of European “modern cities” we had at least several Fourthly, a grand majority of urban projects are high ranking representatives 4. Out of the blueprints spatial plans which are legal documents that, once for cities in Poland, it is worth recalling the com- adopted, no longer belong to their authors. They do petition plan for Cracow from 1910 and The initial not become monuments of urban planning, although draft for the regulation plan of the city of Warsaw if each corresponded to the layout of Barcelona, prepared under Tomasz To wi Lski in 1916, which Brasilia, Chandigarh, etc, it would have the chance excellently solved, in the opinions of a number of to be preserved in other ways than as provided by European urban planners, the complicated problems the instructions attached to the zoning laws. This op- of a metropolis in line with modern principles of its portunity presented itself to the new city of Tychy, formation 5. In free Poland, reunited after 1918, there built in the early 1950s in Silesia according to plans was the plan of Gdynia by Roman Feli Lski and An- by Kazimierz Wejchert and Hanna Adamczewska toni Kuncewicz from 1925, the construction of the (later Adamczewska Wejchert). Sadly, the methods Central Industrial Zone in the fork of rivers Vistula of construction for Tychy, decreed by the political and San, and the representative Marshall Pi sudski authorities, in the shape of amorphous groups of pre- Quarter with Mokotowskie Fields and the Temple fabricated, uni [ ed multi-family houses, which took of Divine Providence in Warsaw 6. Each of these the modernist idea to absurd proportions, ruined that projects (completed or not) had a different origin. chance. Gdynia with its liberal use of space, excellent com- Fifthly, an urban planning project will not appear positional combination of uneven land and \ at sea, where, as in Poland, urban designing has in fact been modernist architecture with a maritime twist, lavish struck out as an instrument of space management, use of expanses of public space, to this day does not and public interest expressed in designing space in have many imitators of comparable status. The Cen- the third dimension is contested by parliamentarians tral Industrial Zone, planted relatively far from the who make the spatial planning laws, state adminis- country’s borders in result of economic considera- tration, municipal authorities, local councils, inves- tions as well as national security, was magni [ cently tors and plot owners. Whereas in Western Europe rational. This also concerned the industrial towns and in the USA (also in countries to which these ex- planned there such as Stalowa Wola or Skar bysko port their urbanist products) the number of projects Kamienna, and architectural designing that was no concerning large city fragments and publications worse than the popular example of Bata’s Zlin built presenting them is on the rise, in Poland it would be more or less at the same time by the Czechs. Lastly, dif [ cult to [ nd even a few such examples 3. the Marshall Pi sudski quarter, designed in Warsaw Let this sad picture [ nd summary in a review of in the late 1930s and never built because of the Sec- efforts that had the chance to come into their own ond World War; having a „country’s leader” origin within European urban planning as its representative close in expression to Il Duce’s spacious fora in Ita- examples though only a few succeeded. ly. Perhaps this is not the best relationship, nonethe-

2 Among the really scandalous is the decision by the National under a variety of titles, with regard to various functions, and Chamber of Town Planners to refuse any assistance with main- nothing points to any optimistic resolution soon. taining the periodical „Urbanista”. Publications issued in limited 4 K.K. Paw owski, Pocz =tki polskiej nowoczesnej my Vli urbani- numbers at schools of architecture do not have the proper circu- stycznej , in: Sztuka oko o 1900 , PWN, Warsaw, 1969. lation nor popularity to exist without support, in spite of their 5 J. Purchla, Jak powsta nowoczesny Kraków , Wydawnictwo Li- generally high scholarly standards. terackie, Cracow, 1990; T. Kotaszewicz, Koncepcje przestrzen- 3 A truly curious case is Plac De [ lad square in Warsaw, the „he- ne rozwoju Warszawy w pracach Tadeusza To wi Lskiego 1916 art of the city” as one would want to say, work on the drafts - 1946 , series Krajobraz Warszawski, District Of [ ce for Warsza- for which has been underway for twenty years, since 1992, in a wa Centrum borough, Warsaw, 1994, variety of con [ gurations of designing and organisational teams, 6 M. So tysik, Gdynia. Miasto dwudziestolecia mi Bdzywojenne- go , PWN, Warsaw, 1993.

16 less at the time we did not know the things about ever, that for such extended periods there was no fascism that we do now, and that is why the National economic forecasting which should be at the funda- Museum could happen between 1926-1938, a mod- ment of spatial development projects. Boles aw Mal- ern edi [ ce then, nowadays a backdrop for [ lms from isz concluded that long-term studies should be based the fascist era, but still a grand, monumental build- on information that is given anyway, i.e. analysis of ing of ultra-high quality. the physical features of the land. He reminded that a In the [ rst years of the 20th century, very popular city, as it spreads onto surrounding areas, is met by in Poland was the idea of the garden city . The above- existing obstacles, natural and arti [ cial (e.g. railway said plans of Cracow and Warsaw were created un- lines). These obstacles are characterised by the fact der its in \ uence. Nevertheless, the idea was more that to cross them the city needs every time to put proper for projects not so big. In 1912, T.To wi Lski aside more funds for development, what is some- won a plotting competition for the Warsaw suburb of times dif [ cult. The obstacles thus become similar Z=bki. He put forward a design for a garden city with to thresholds, with the result that a city’s develop- all the Howardian attributes (as also did the laure- ment in fact proceeds by leaps. As a consequence, ates of the second and third prize). Another excellent apart from the usual outlays on development, from example from the Warsaw suburbs is the design for time to time the city must call up threshold funds. Le Vna Podkowa by A.Jawornicki from 1925, closely Their extent, calculated from the studied needs, can resembling Howard’s diagrams by its circular plan. be established, so is not random and can become an Certainly the same roots are had by 1920s designs instrument of method for rational urbanist policy. for parts of the Warsaw district of aoliborz: aoliborz For the [ rst time, threshold analysis was presented O[ cerski and aoliborz Urz Bdniczy. Enough to re- in 1964 in Moscow, at a meeting of the UN’s Cen- call the green colonies on Górno Vl=ska, Filtrowa, tre for Housing, Building and Planning. Malisz went Wawelska, Ch opickiego and aókiewskiego streets, there as the author of the book Polska buduje nowe and also the districts of Czerniaków (Oskar Sos- miasta (Poland builds new cities ), translated into nowski) and Sadyba, all described as garden cities, several languages and sent out to Polish embassies to realize how strongly was this movement present as information material - con [ rming the necessity to in Warsaw 7. Warsaw is of course an example here, publish not only in Polish, if we want to promote our garden cities and garden districts and suburbs were achievements. Soon afterwards he went to Greece as developed all over Poland. a UN expert, then - also on behalf of the UN - he Sadly, none of the cited examples, here studied took part in elaborating a plan for the region of the and exploited as themes for academic considera- southern Adriatic, with the application of threshold tions, has a permanent place in foreign literature nor analysis. It was the year 1968. is more widely known. What did rise to achieve such On a larger scale the procedure was applied in Ed- a place? inburgh, in the years 1968-1969 by Jerzy Koz owski, student and collaborator of Malisz, who drafted plans THE SCIENCE AND THE THEORIES for two regions of Scotland at the same time developing the theory. In his doctoral dissertation, written After the Second World War, much publicity under the supervision of professor Percy Johnson- went to threshold analysis conceived by Boles aw Marshall (Malisz was a reviewer), he precised the Malisz (1910-1995). Its principles were for the [ rst descriptions for the different types of thresholds, and time formulated in his postdoctoral dissertation titled before all initiated the use of the theory in computer- “Ekonomika kszta towania miast”, published by the ised techniques. The doctorate was published, it was Spatial Planning Committee of the Polish Academy often quoted, and Scotland laid down a requirement of Sciences in 1963. The work was started because for the method to be used. The author was invited the law on spatial planning adopted in 1961 provided by British universities and professional associations for plans spanning 15 years and more, alongside rel- to lectures and implementing seminars. Later, also atively short-term projects. The problem was, how- thanks to the postgraduate course for developing

7 The original of the plan by Jawornicki was never found, G. Nowy aoliborz , Studia z Historii Sztuki, tom XXV, PAN, Insty- Gr =tkowski, Architektura Podkowy Le Vnej , Towarzystwo Przy- tut Sztuki, Ossolineum, Wroc aw, 1976. jació Le Vnej Podkowy, Le Vna Podkowa, 1996; . Heyman,

17 countries led in Szczecin by professor Piotr Zarem- sis of a linear character of settlement in the War- ba, it spread to those countries and also appeared fre- saw area. Traditional East-West lines of transpor- quently in projects for European cities (i.a. Belgium, tation were intersected in the vicinity of Warsaw the Netherlands, Finland, Italy). Furthermore, via the by lines of increasing transit movement between works of Jerzy Koz owski, working as a professor at the Baltic and the Mediterranean Sea. Scaled down the University of Queensland, Australia (currently to city size, the picture showed that the region of again in Cracow), it spread worldwide. In its devel- Warsaw has a number of features which enable oped form it is now known as Ultimate Threshold transference of linear thinking on a national scale Analysis and is part of a wider theory described as to a local scale. Threshold Approach. The authors realized that recipients of the project It seems that in a text on the achievements of Pol- would want an explanation of the forms with which ish urban planning understood as a science we could the lines would be developed. They write with a cer- not but mention Kazimierz Wejchert (1912-1993). tain impatience that “if the reader must demand il- Author of the theory of elements of urban composi- lustration, then he or she should imagine the capital tion (EKU ) which he had taught since the nineteen- city belt to be a sort of Corbusieran ville radieuse [ fties at the Department of Architecture at the War- - the ultimate expression in functionalising the cen- saw University of Technology, where it has remained tre of a metropolis. Industrial belt? Perhaps a Mi- a part of the curriculum to this day, he published his lyutinesque sotsgorod - maybe one of the new in- book on EKU too late, in the year 1974. At that time, dustrial towns of the USSR.” Today we know that for some fourteen years already the world had known the proposals missed their mark, but that is without Kevin A.Lynch’s The Image of a City , published by consequence as we are only describing illustration to MIT, with multiple editions in dozens of countries. It a project, the value of which depended on something is the case when two authors independently of each entirely different. For the [ rst time, to such scale other speak and write of a similar theme in a simi- was formulated a programme of spatial organisation lar way, with the difference that one of them does it of an “urbanized region”. B.Malisz wrote that Func- at a more prestigious venue and in the world’s most tional Warsaw contained the fundamental elements popular language, while the other in a place which is of this model of settlement, promoted 30 years later, removed from the opinion-making centres. where the functions of a city were deconcentrated to the region 8. Simultaneously it relied on the suppo- STUDIES AND DESIGNS sition that modernised transportation routes become the axes of social and economic development, indus- Urbanist theories are as a rule very close to study trialization and urbanization included. In fact when efforts, more: the nature of urban planning means we read Peter Hall’s lecture City and Regions in a that usually one cannot exist without the other. Global Economy from the UN conference in Nagoya Nonetheless, for the purpopse of this article, some in 1991, the words of B. Malisz become fully con- studies can be isolated from some of the abovemen- [ rmed 9. tioned theories. Why did the draft of Functional Warsaw [ nd it- Out of such works, most luck was had by Warsza- self at the focus of interest of the Congresses of wa Funkcjonalna , ( Functional Warsaw ), a project Modern Architecture? Not without signi [ cance was by Jan Olaf Chmielewski and Szymon Syrkus from the share of Polish members of CIAM in its works 1934. This, similarly to the later Linear Continuous (mentioned here should be Helena Syrkusowa, judg- System by Oskar Hansen, a variety of linear city, the ing by literature, the person most strongly involved oldest concept for new settlements that appeared at in the matter) but this did not determine success. the turn of the 19th and 20th century, was created in What was important was the timing of publication the CIAM circuit. of Functional Warsaw . This concerns the time pe- The proposal by Chmielewski and Syrkus was riod and atmosphere of great expectation in respect based on the assertion of the existence and empha- of positive changes to the nineteenth-century city,

8 B. Malisz, Ekonomika kszta towania miast , Studia KPZK PAN, 9 P. Hall, Cities and Regions in a Global Economy , UN Centre vol.IV, 1963. for Regional Development, Nagoya, Japan, 1991.

18 what contributed to reception and assessment of this the plans were shown but with the addition of some concept 10 . new ones. Out of these Le Corbusier distinguished The Functional Warsaw project on the one hand his own design for Nemours in Morocco, claiming began with the re \ ections and studies of Chmielews- in later publications that it was the work best an- ki on functional and spatial relationships of War- swering the “functional city” resolution adopted at saw, precisely speaking of any city, with surround- the 4th Congress. Eighteen great blocks, parallel ings, and formulating these in the form of planning to one another, with a north-south orientation and concepts. On the other hand Syrkus, representing a situated in a sort of park that separated them from group of architects collaborating with CIAM on the a motorway running on an overpass... This is how necessary transformations of cities, took Chmielews- fast one idea superseded another in those times, in ki’s concepts to be answers to the expectations of the heat of searches for the best. It is worth recall- the international planning community. A con [ rma- ing that this was a time of quite tumultous change. tion of this can be the letter of congratulations (Lon- Groups of architects with leftist inclinations associ- don, 21 May 1934), sent by the International Com- ated with CIAM had to split with the Soviet Union mittee for the Realization of Problems of Contem- in which they had seen a country that could realize porary Architecture CIRPAC, that is the executive their dreams on modern (as they understood it) ur- organ of CIAM, to President of Warsaw Zyndram ban planning. In Germany, Hitler was dealing in his Ko Vcia kowski. The letter was signed, among others, own way with modern art, town planning and archi- by Le Corbusier, Siegfried Giedion, Walter Gropius tecture. Economic conditions after the world crisis and Jose Luis Sert. The letter, as well as carrying were also not advantageous to large-scale conversion strong words of appreciation, is also an announce- projects, such as those suggested by Chmielewski ment of readiness to accept the draft by Chmielews- with Syrkus. ki and Syrkus as “an example for similar studies, en- This does not mean that the two abandoned work trusted to various national CIAM teams on occasion on the project. By the year 1939 the impact of Func- of the 5th Congress”. tional Warsaw on regional planning in Poland was Functional Warsaw was presented for the [ rst evident. After World War II the work was somewhat time to an international body on 31 July 1933, on different. In 1946 Chmielewski presented a con- board of the vessel Patris II on a voyage between cept for the Warsaw City Complex but went back to Marseilles and Athens, that is, during the 4th Con- working on linear development ten years later and a gress of CIAM, held under the motto of “Functional publication on the subject appeared in 1968 11 . In the city”. More than 30 cities were presented during same year was published Koncepcja kszta towania the congress. The discussion, which developed in sieci osadniczej w Polsce wed ug zasad koncen- various forms also after return from Athens to Mar- tracji liniowej ( A concept for shaping the settlement seilles, initially did not bring up any opinion on the network in Poland according to principles of lin- particular worth or usefulness of the Polish project. ear concentration ) authored by Marek Budzy Lski, Nonetheless, with the passage of time, it proved that Krzysztof Chwalibóg, Jerzy Górnicki, Jacek Janc- the project contained many answers to problems zewski, Andrzej Kici Lski, Adam Kowalewski and presented in the Congress report as it was gradually Jan Rutkiewicz. One of the factors for concentration compiled and published by Le Corbusier many years (or rather: readying living space for new city dwell- later, in 1943, as the widely known Athens Charter. ers) was the advance of coming changes in employ- In this light, the contents of the said letter are not ment in rural areas and the migration of the rural surprising. population to other occupations. Alas, the spatial The scheduled publication with a full set of plans arrangement is not particularly delightful: what we as presented on Patris II never appeared. At the ex- see in the drawings and models is an amorphous set hibition in Amsterdam in 1935 again only part of of housing blocks, multiplied towards the horizon;

10 _ród a do studiów nad rozwojem przestrzennym Warszawy , Studia i Materia y do Teorii i Historii Architektury i Urbanisty- Instytut Urbanistyki i Planowania Przestrzennego, Wydzia Ar- ki XV, PAN, PWN, Warsaw, 1979; J.O. Chmielewski, Podsta- chitektury Politechniki Warszawskiej, Issue 1, Warsaw 1981. wowe problemy planowania przestrzennego obszarów odnowy 11 A. Kotarbi Lski, Jan Chmielewski - sylwetka twórcy i zarys i rozwoju si cz owieka , „Problemy Uzdrowiskowe”, R. 1968, dzia alno Vci , in: Pocz =tki planowania przestrzennego w Polsce, issue 1(38).

19 which in Poland has earned the popular deprecatory tive (from 1961) and Przyczó ek Grochowski estate title of “blokowisko”. In this situation, a perusal of (blueprint 1963, realization 1973) created at a time the descriptions of linear arrangement does not con- when the principles of LSC were attaining concrete vince and ranks the whole proposal among the total form and intended as the [ rst link in the chain of a projects. The opinion becomes even more strongly belt of linear development. And though LSC had grounded after an analysis of other examples appear- been devised as a response to the challenges of the ing at the time for the linear development of cities, to “Great Number”, i.e. the growing world population, mention but Cracow or Warsaw (the development of it did not gain much popularity, perhaps because of the Warsaw City Complex elaborated by the Young that catastrophic Przyczó ek realization. It is worth Architecture organisation from the 1960s, repeated adding that Hansen’s statements contain some unre- in 1973) 12 . solved inconsistencies: on the one hand Open Form A special place must here be awarded to Oskar was an answer to standardization of architecture, on Hansen (1922-2005). This architect, sculptor and the other, as LSC, it worried with a total solution to painter, who studied and worked for Pierre Janneret problems where the “great number” prevailed, and and Fernand Léger, who participated in CIAM con- not the focus on the individual which urban architec- gresses in Bergamo and Otterlo, and CIAM work- ture had announced at the time along with the rise of shops in London (1949), who authored designs for postmodernism. The pattern of four lines of settle- exposition halls in many European countries (as of ment, running through Poland in a north-south direc- the 1950s), could mark his presence in Europe on a tion, i.e. supra-human “channels meliorating demo- more permanent basis thanks to his Open Form the- graphic surplus” as Hansen had written, could not ory. In the meantime, his took his lecture on Open simultaneously be a proposal of “method to shape Form and the Art of the Great Number to the last the surroundings supported on an organic pattern, on CIAM congress in Otterlo in 1959, which closed a \ exible and properly proportional dependence of with the conclusion that modernist (functionalist) service zones on served zones, situated side by side”. ideas that had inspired European urban planning Such a description of LSC advantages did not much since 1928 must give way to new ideas, developing differ from the arguments “for” known since Soria’s after World War II; and decided to stop using the title time. Neither is there anything new in the author’s CIAM. And though Open Form stood in opposition opinion that “As in medieval times a cathedral was to forms which CIAM had hitherto acknowledged, the dominating element of a town and landscape, the end of this organisation drastically reduced so a classless, egalitarian, non-hierarchic character Hansen’s prospects of promoting his idea on a wider of a social house form is to be the dominant feature forum. He did not rise to be a permanent attendee at of this system of settlement” - enough to read more meetings of “Team Ten”, which in some ways be- writings by abovementioned linear city support- came heritor to CIAM, and being a resident of com- ers from the nineteen-thirties, to [ nd there similar munist-ruled Poland was not conducive to promot- sounding fragments, and all of it together con [ rms ing his concept abroad, in spite of appearances at the thesis that LSC belongs amongst the demiurgic congresses of the International Union of Architects theories 13 . and publication of his presentations thereat. It also seems that what Hansen identi [ ed as the Continuous COMPETITIONS Linear System (LSC), what was to be the translation of the Open Form to urbanist scale, did not go very It must be said that in the years following World far from the linear city idea that had been known War II, the Society of Polish Town Planners and the for decades and thus could not start an independ- Society of Polish Architects achieved much, orga- ent existence. Two main attempts at implementing nising international competitions with participation Hansen’s idea failed altogether: this was the Juliusz of colleagues from abroad, as well as facilitating the Sowacki estate of the Lublin Housing Coopera- participation of Polish designers in foreign contests.

12 K. Chwalibóg, Ewolucja struktury zespo ów mieszkaniowych , Wielkiego Krakowa, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Cracow 1983; A. PWN, Warsaw 1976; W. Seruga, A. Wy bykowski, Zespó osiedli Kowalewski, Warszawa. Problemy rozwoju , Ksi =b ka i Wiedza, Ruczaj-Zaborze w Krakowie , „Architektura”, Year 1976, no 10; Warsaw, 1981. Pasmo Wielickie , „Architektura”, Year 1980, no 4; Krakowski 13 O. Hansen, LSC. Linearny System Ci =gy, „Architektura”, Zespó Miejski , „Architektura” Year 1980, no 6; K. Seibert, Plan Year 1970, nos 4-5.

20 In respect of typically urbanist competitions, only communication routes, the forests which framed the two teams carried away any noticeable successes. taller buildings, stone lake shores where the rocks Both teams won [ rst prizes and were commented became multiplied by the rising walls of public utili- on widely, although the reasonably expected appli- ties. Thirdly, when we now look at the design for cation of results in practice did not really happen. the Espoo central district, we can easily discern the Some reasons for this, paradoxically, were that - as it wonderful expanses of public space with buildings, often happens with competitions - both works were that other architects have only now gained the cour- far ahead of their time and were not fully understood age to realize. For instance the Espoo concert hall by the organizers. takes one directly to the much-awarded building of The [ rst of these examples is the competition for the Opera in Oslo, opened in 2008 to a design by the a new administrative centre of Espoo township, situ- company Snohetta - enough to compare the forms ated west of Helsinki. Today we would say that the of the hall and the opera. And so, Espoo was green, design fell within the scope of ecological solutions, balanced development, progressive - to a degree that but the issue here is not straightforward “green plan- the Finnish investor failed to understand and built ning” or “environmentally-sound architecture”. We the way things were built everywhere, without much have many of these. More interesting is a variety of consideration for the publications that appeared in ecologic town planning which considers the life of top professional periodicals of world renown. a town or building, and their relationship with the The other example is the international competi- landscape. Nowadays, in respect of solutions for tion for the structure improvement of New Belgrade, towns melting into regions, this is thought to be obvi- a new, partly-realized quarter of Belgrade for some ous or even vital. Moreover, nowadays many build- 200 thousand inhabitants. The competition was an- ings which once used to be raised in town centres nounced by the Belgrade City Council in 1986. The are located far outside. Sometimes this other place jury was presided by Bogdan Bogdanovi 4. 94 works is a brown [ eld, an area ruined by industry, railway, were entered and [ rst prize ex equo went to Krzysz- military, but sometimes it is a so-called green habi- tof Domaradzki, Olgierd Dzieko Lski and Zbigniew tat. This was the case with Espoo. The local authori- Garbowski with their team. Most generally, it was a ties de [ ned the issue well and precisely: because proposal to introduce into an amorphous space taken the westwards dispersion of Helsinki had been ob- up by a mass of common, enormous prefabricated served, it was decided that Espoo would become the housing blocks, of new construction, forming an ur- crystallizing element for a new urban development, ban structure which de [ ned places, limits and areas, close-knit and in this way counterbalancing the ten- to constitute an uninterrupted system of public spac- dency for dispersion and contamination of the sur- es. According to the authors, the “spaces” were to be roundings. city interiors, created in line with the principles of The competition was resolved in 1967. 171 works urban composition and not the technological speci- had been entered. Among the jury members were [ cations of housing factories. The borders between Giovanni Astengo, Georges Candilis, Zbigniew public space and areas of development that were to Karpi Lski and Aarno Ruusuvuori. First prize went to become spaces for group use (social, in the words of Warsaw architects Jan Maciej Chmielewski, Janusz the authors of the design), were created by clearly Kazubi Lski and Krzysztof Kura V with their team. outlined frontages of streets and squares. Finally, The impact of their design was such that the jury developed areas were not conceived as islands in placed far behind the time’s popular and much-pro- the city but to be connected into a whole with an ar- moted mega-structural solutions, even though this rangement of public spaces, streets, piazzas, as well was the apogee of the fashion for “Metabolism” with as a system of open green spaces. cities in the air and multi-level marinas on the sea. The authors, who were also behind a strongly Secondly, the jury noticed and appreciated the unity (and incomprehensibly) attacked project of new gar- which the design awarded to landscape and town, den cities in the western belt of Warsaw’s develop- highlighting its features: the mountain peaks with ment; in the Belgrade one managed to excellently clusters of buildings, the valleys which concealed and creatively summarize the discussion that at the

14 W. Baburow et al., Architekt i urbanista , „Architektura”, Year 1948, no 11-12.

21 time was underway in Poland: whether and how to ist historicism, about which she wrote, putting them change the structure of hundreds of estates raised in a certain opposition to “authentic socialist” urban by housing factories. A considerable share in the design, had more chance of realization than in other discussion was had by participants of competitions countries of the former socialist bloc. Whether she known as the International Warsaw Confrontations, was right or not, her presentation con [ rmed the cor- results of which, though signi [ cant for the said dis- rectness of assumptions adopted by Domaradzki, cussion, went absolutely unnoticed abroad. Similarly Dzieko Lski and Garbowski. unnoticed was a competition important to urban de- At the end of this chapter it is worth recalling velopment, a design for the Pozna L district Owi Lska that the biggest of the Polish competitions lost to (1981), where all the winners of awards and com- the world is the competition for Plac De [ lad square mendations rejected the model of the district as a pe- in Warsaw (1991). Everything had been going as it ripheral of Pozna L, instead proposing a new town, should be until the moment when the results were to linked with the metropolis by ef [ cient transport. be put to use, that is until 1992. Plac De [ lad remains Moreover, that is when appeared a partially realized empty. Summing up the reasons for this condition, project for Owi Lska as a Federation of Small Towns, one could say that there was no agreement and no prepared by a team headed by Jerzy Buszkiewicz, accord how to turn the ideas devised for the com- at least a year earlier than Seaside, Florida, where petition into reality, nor was there awareness who New Urbanism was born. The same can be said of owned the relevant land plots. What dominated was Leon Krier’s Poundbury in Dorchester. But while nonchalance on the part of all the main actors in the Seaside, Poundbury and tens of other realizations process. Of [ cial letters were written and various ini- of this type are known worldwide, the development tiatives launched mainly to support the taken deci- Zielone Wzgórza (Green Hills), part of the Federa- sions, controversial from the point of view of the art tion, exists without any wider information about its of developing cities. Ideas changed incessantly on genesis, forms, etc. A pity... We do not have our what the competition’s laureates, Andrzej Skopi Lski own representative in the discussion on counterac- and Bart omiej Bie yszew, are to do (even the of [ - tive measures to the dispersement of cities, even cial naming of the area in question changed several while for [ fty years the Department of Architecture times), actions were duplicated, there was no knowl- at the Warsaw University of Technology has taught, edge of the state of possession, while amending of after Kazimierz Wejchert, urban design within the “Varsovian legislation” which regulated the scope curriculum of Elements of Urban Composition, and of competences of the plot’s administrator increased our colleagues at the Department of Architecture of the general confusion - those were the main trans- the University of Technology in Cracow teach the gressions on the side of the city authorities. There same within the course on urban and architectural are too critical remarks aimed against the competi- design. It is a situation that leads on to a reminder tion laureates, their ignorance of the surroundings in about the antecedents of Elisabeth Plater-Zyberk, if which they worked (surroundings as understood in a only to comfort hearts... variety of meanings), they demonstrated an un \ ex- So, if Espoo rather remains forgotten, then New ible stance when logic would have advocated other- Belgrade sometimes returns. And so, in 2008 Ljilja- wise or vice versa, they suddenly changed attitudes. na Blagojevic, professor at the Department of Archi- For instance in 2004 they abandoned without a tecture of the University of Belgrade and author of a word of explanation defence of a circular boulevard book on New Belgrade published in 2007, recalled around the Palace of Culture and Science in the mid- the competition at a conference in Delft. Although dle, a key spatial element of their design, and began the main subject of her presentation was an analysis drafting a chequered design of intersecting streets, of a text by Henri Lefebvre, attached to a work sent following a sketch from the of [ ce of the Main Ar- in to the competition by other participants, the very chitect of Warsaw! Question is: if so, then why for fact of “reviving” the competition points to its im- many years, struggling to preserve the circular pat- portance and, at the same time, to the importance of tern on their plan, did they blockade that same so- the award received by the Polish team. The lecture lution as suggested to them in the guidelines to the by L.Blagojevic de facto focused on issues undertak- plan from October 1999, for instance? Because of en by the Poles in their entry. The author believed, their obstinacy (considering their about-turn one that in Yugoslavia, neo-rationalism and postmodern- is entitled to call their actions so) Warsaw lost out

22 some years of its better future. Going even further, land that social realism had returned to Polish urban one might say, that although in Warsaw in the 1980s planning. We knew of the discussions carried on in and later nobody dared to implement postmodernist the West about the formal similarities of post-mod- decisions of [ cially on paper, they did happen. These ernist works to those of social realism but not until are fragments placed here and there in peripheral the conclusion of the competition for development of districts of Warsaw, with a particular indication of Warsaw’s Plac De [ lad did the problem become fully Kabaty - Ursynów. A pity, because maybe a great obvious. The Palace of Culture and its surroundings, postmodernist development could have updated the a patent symbol of almost [ fty years of an impaired urbanist theories of K.Wejchert, including the words statehood, in the awarded draft by B.Bie yszew and on crystallization of the city plan, highlighting the A.Skopi Lski received the stature of a keystone in signi [ cance of street and square as the most impor- the arrangement. The authors achieved such an ef- tant elements of an urban composition. Pity, because fect operating according to the canons of postmod- that would have con [ rmed the presence of our ur- ernistic urban design a) regulated the chaos of minor ban design in the world discussion on the nature of urban tissue, drafting a formal layout with the help a city, on the advantages that come from composing of an axis, b) preserved the peripheral block with its tissue, positive or negative. all consequences of the decision, c) complicated the building designs enough so as to make evident their THE PARADOX OF SOCIAL REALISM - LIFE provocative attitude towards the modernist past, d) AFTER LIFE endowed streets and squares with symbolic mean- ing. And if they (formally) approximated their effort Quite paradoxically (from today’s point of view), to the constructions of social realism, then we could the retreat from the amorphous modernist city began see an example of how close can be the enthusiasti- along with the appearance of the doctrine of social cally naive hyperurbanism of the postmodernist era realism. That is why, whatever might be our attitude to hyperurbanism by decree with a crafty, social en- to it, a reminder of erstwhile principles of creating gineering manipulation on a big scale in the back- urban complexes is a must. ground. But, as it has been written, Plac De [ lad was The picturesqueness of pre-socialist towns was not redeveloped according to the plans by Bie yszew to be replaced - in the new quarters and cities, im- and Skopi Lski. mediately [ nished - with other values. In place We are writing of social realism because it is now of layers of history there were to be uni [ ed urban enjoying extraordinary interest on the part of „urban complexes, composed as a whole, with determined tourists”. Perhaps, we long for the above-described boundaries. To a central arrangement were subordi- spatial features of a traditional city, which social re- nated hierarchically lesser fragments, architectural alism did not spare, and we want to remember them. scale included. As far as the street problem was con- And because modernism which has dominated in cerned the general inclination was for corridor style. the past [ fty years has done away with streets and A street was perceived as a uni [ ed complex in part squares, the stage on which a city’s life was lived, or section. The effect of this were long and compact in searching for these we visit MDM in Warsaw and interiors, contrasting to the open spaces of squares Nowa Huta, Poland’s best and one of Europe’s best and housing block insides. Visible are symmetric examples of social realist urban planning. layouts, rhythms of strong, repeated accents, multiplied facades. Symmetrical layouts were not based POLES ABROAD on the classic balance of mass but mirror-images of buildings, considered the simplest way to achieve an Among the Poles working abroad, moving into impression of monumentalism. Square and street at- [ rst place is Maciej Nowicki (1910-1950), who tained a unique position in the city structure, result- thanks to his decision not to return to Poland, which ing from the fact that they did not serve to connect he left for the USA in 1945, and thanks to a hap- far- \ ung points of the city but citizens in collective py coincidence became the author of the design for living. They were the places along the march to- Chandigarh in India, before his tragic death in an air wards a better future and because of this (with irony accident. Nowicki did not have the licence to design now) they may be called “tomorrow’s streets” 14 . The in the States on his own, and so he collaborated with irony also because in 1992 we began to feel in Po- top class architects such as Clarence Stein, Eero

23 Saarinen and Albert Mayer. The latter offered to No- In 1963 an earthquake ravaged Skopje. Some wicki to join him on a planning contract for the city weeks later Adolf Ciborowski, then Head Architect of Chandigarh, which was to be the new capital of of Warsaw, already led a Polish delegation there. As Panjab. They started work and Mayer was astounded a result, a year later, the Urban Planning Workshop by the many ideas which Nowicki drew up for the of Warsaw prepared a plan for the country’s recon- new city, including a concept of the whole plan. A struction which was accepted by the UN. Ciborowski similar, excellent opinion was voiced by the Indian became the director of the draft plan, among others authorities, who suggested Nowicki take over the working together with Stanis aw Jankowski, Janusz entire project and manage it in the rank of minister. Wilski, Olgierd Kaczy Lski, Olgierd Kuncewicz, He agreed and was going to return to the USA for a Kazimierz Marczewski, Maria Niemczyk, Janusz brief time but his plane crashed as they were \ ying Cierpi Lski, Stanis aw Furman, Bohdan Wyporek, over the Libyan desert on 31 August 1950. The proj- Stanis aw Proniewski, Zbigniew Galperyn, Bohdan ect was taken over by Le Corbusier. Jastrz Bbski and Zygmunt Pióro. They collaborated In the Encyclopaedia of urban planning published with the company of Constantinos Doxiadis, which by McGraw-Hill in 1974, C.S. Chandrasekhara, the dealt with housing projects, and with Kenzo Tange; author of the Indian entry does not mention Mayer with Arata Isozaki, Yoji Watanabe and Yoshiro or Nowicki; for him the author of Chandigarh is Taniguchi working on a detailed draft of the city solely the “famous architect Le Corbusier”. Fortu- centre. For the Poles this meant work with a team nately, the more important authors, such as Lewis of extraordinary authority. Its success later gave Mumford, convey more knowledge. A.Ciborowski the position of the head of the UN According to Mumford, Nowicki managed to in- project, plan for development of the Adriatic coast troduce to the designs for new housing complexes (with J.Wilski and St.Furman), where also Boles aw an old city atmosphere, which helps the residents Malisz was employed as a UN expect. identify more quickly with the new place where In 1970 the situation repeated itself. An earth- they move from their old homes. Mumford com- quake in Peru destroyed several cities. Polish urban- pares these complexes with Le Corbusier’s propos- ists in a similar lineup as in Yugoslavia drafted plans als, anonymous, displaced, requiring people to live for the reconstruction of the city Chimobote. Again there as they might in Marseilles, Rotterdam or New these were compiled according to a method worked York. This ignores the fundamental human needs, out in Yugoslavia: a plan drawn up for some time in altogether differently to the sketches by Nowicki. the future cannot be an obstacle to current rebuild- Mumford also believed that Nowicki was the ing. architect, who at the time, in his drafts for Chandi- In the years 1977-1984 an international team of garh, best solved the problem of combining function plannists (as of 1979 led by Bohdan Wyporek), com- and architectural expression. He understood, wrote prising i.a. J.Cierpi Lski and A.Kowalewski, prepared Mumford, that a building, even ultra-modern, must a Plan for the Spatial Development of Libya. The speak to people in a language they understand. And Wadeco team, together with the Bureau of Planning so, coming from the West to India, Nowicki did not for the Development of Warsaw, was responsible for bring ready-made architectural stereotypes (as Le the region of Tripolis and designing the plan for the Corbusier did later) but thanks to unique intuition city itself. Othe signi [ cant achievements are the de- translated the Indian lifestyle to urban planning and signs by Tadeusz Sumie L for Dar-es-Salaam in Tan- architecture. He was able to copy the richness of this zania, Zbigniew Jakobsze for the new capital of the life to his city plans in whole and part, in a way to country Dodoma and perhaps the most interesting make them at the same time vernacular and modern- and most important projects, though their existence ist. It was owing to Nowicki’s talent that Chandigarh is completely forgotten, was the plan of Singapore could be simultaneously organic and functional, ab- carried out under the direction of Krystyn Olszewski stractly rational and personal. Then came along the and the plan of Damascus by the group of Krystian great Le Corbusier and the ideal form of a modern Seibert. With the latter are also connected plans for city drafted by Nowicki disappeared somewhere. satellites of Damascus, on which Polish plannists Of course not only Maciej Nowicki drew city worked until the early nineteen-eighties. Similarly plans outside Poland. It is worth to recall at least the in Nigeria and Iraq, and one should also mention most important cases. the great share of Poles in the works of Habitat, the

24 UN agenda. Sadly, all of these efforts have remained that chances are minimal. Almost none feature e.g mainly in the memories of their authors, although - descriptions of prospective streets and squares, those on the other hand - even if the inhabitants of Sin- interiors that form the substance of city space. There gapore, Tripolis, Damascus etc do not know who are motorways, express ways, fast routes, main, col- designed their city, memory remains in the shape of lective, but this is a classi [ cation connected with realized plans. traf [ c which certainly is not the essence of city ex- It seems that these successes of Polish plannists istence. We have the main centre, the zone centres, abroad were the result of their professional expe- various belts and areas, but no visible streets. rience, gained during the reconstruction of Pol- Once more let us remind that Warsaw, planned ish towns and cities after World War II. It is worth in 1916, its garden-city districts, post-war recon- remembering that the reconstructed Old Town of struction, socialist realism episode and amorphous Warsaw, the collective effort of the Bureau for the estates built of prefabricates had their ideology Reconstruction of the Capital, was mentioned in (doctrine) that took the city towards another “to- the book by Charles Jencks, listed among the pro- morrow”. Is the repeated like a charm and never ex- toplasts of postmodernism, in the strain of straight panded idea of continuous development such an ide- revivalism. ology (doctrine), suf [ cient to attaining tomorrow’s success? Probably not, because simultaneously we CONCLUSION have subordinated urban design and planning to the economic neoliberal doctrine, which does not allow The list of successes of Polish urban planning in for the creation of a vision of a future city, a vision the 20th century would be very short if we did not of its image; we need New Planning. It would seem add on all those works, which in favourable circum- that today we are in a void with respect to ideas, stances could have become widely known. Is there an although this may be just a transitional, subcon- opportunity to expand the list in the future? Knowl- sciously undertaken, decadent escape in hard times edge of many Polish planning documents suggests from all things great.

Sawomir Gzell, prof. dr hab. in b. arch. Department of Urban Design and Rural Landscape Warsaw University of Technology Translation by E. Krajewska-Feryniec

25 MI ADZYNARODOWE OSI

STRESZCZENIE

Nie jest atwo oceni 4, co z polskiej wspó czesnej urbanistycz- Dzieko Lski i Z. Garbowski z zespo em, autorzy przebudowy No- nej twórczo Vci jest osi =gni Bciem na skal B mi Bdzynarodow =. Po- wego Belgradu w Jugos awii (1986). Do sukcesów mo bna tak be trzebne s = tu kryteria oceny, ale nie b Bd= one nigdy dostatecznie zaliczy 4 prac B wielu polskich urbanistów w agendach ONZ i oczywiste i zaaprobowane przez wszystkich. St =d lepszy jest po przy projektach cho 4by takich miast, jak Singapur (K. Olszew- prostu przegl =d dzie , uwa banych za polskie ikony urbanistyki ski), a tak be odbudow B Starego Miasta w Warszawie, uznan = i stwierdzenie, czy s = znane za granic =. Dla lepszej prezenta- przez Ch. Jencksa za jedno ze zreszt = licznych `róde postmo- cji mo bna wprowadzi 4 podzia zgodny z de [ nicj = mówi =c=, be dernizmu. Nie jest to wiele. Szczególnie baowa 4 trzeba, be nie urbanistyka to nauka i sztuka budowy miast. Tak wi Bc w dzie- przebi y si B do Vwiadomo Vci Vwiata: teoria elementów kompozy- dzinie nauki osi =gni Bciem jest wprowadzenie do powszechnego cji urbanistycznej K. Wejcherta, przedwojenna budowa Gdyni i stosowania analizy progowej przez B. Malisza i potem J. Ko- Centralnego Okr Bgu Przemys owego, powojenna akcja planów zowskiego (1963). Je Vli chodzi o prace studialne z pogranicza uproszczonych na Ziemiach Odzyskanych czy Linearny System nauki i projektowania, to bezsprzecznie wymieni 4 trzeba projekt Ci =gy O. Hansena. Czy dzi V mamy szanse wej Vcia do anna ów Warszawy Funkcjonalnej J.O. Chmielewskiego i Sz. Syrkusa urbanistyki Vwiatowej? Mo be to by 4 trudne, zwa bywszy na fakt (1933). Zauwa beni laureaci konkursów urbanistycznych to J.M. lekcewa benia pracy urbanistów, najlepszych znawców urbani- Chmielewski, J. Kazubi Lski i K. Kura V z zespo em, autorzy pro- styki jako nauki i sztuki budowy, przez tych wszystkich, którzy jektu miasta Espoo w Finlandii (1967) oraz K. Domaradzki, O. odpowiadaj = dzi V za kszta t polskiej przestrzeni.