In 2016, after many years, the Architectural Prize of the Mayor of Warsaw was reactivated, and the capital joined the group of the cities where new architectural enterprises are being judged and appreciated. When they went to vote, Varsovians didn’t award the most spectacular investment but rather an important one for city life – the renovation and modernisation of the Warsaw Public Library, where many generations of the city’s inhabitants had spent time broadening their knowledge.
The Grand Prix awarded by the jury aroused even more emotions though. The award didn’t go to any building but an exhibition. It was given to the noteworthy annual Warsaw Under Construction festival organised by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, specifically its 2015 edition which centred around the exhibition Reconstruction Disputes.
The show was dedicated to the phenomenon of the capital’s post-war reconstruction and its contemporary consequences – the reprivatisation of Warsaw’s buildings and land. Some architects decided that awarding a cultural event was misappropriating the idea of the competition, which was supposed to judge buildings. Others noticed that the award was given by the authorities of Warsaw soon after a series of publications criticising certain less-than profitable actions by City Hall to do with reprivatisation. Despite the differing opinions, the results of the Architectural Prize of the Mayor of Warsaw prove that architecture is not only about pretty buildings and when discussing the space that surrounds us, we shouldn’t limit our thoughts only to them.
3. Łódź Fabryczna Railway Station
The citizens of Łódź have been waiting for this opening for a long time. Autumn 2011 was the last time a train departed the Łódź Fabryczna railway station in the city centre, and a few months later there was nothing of the building left. Construction of the new station began, a place that was supposed to be a hub connecting many different means of transportation. A distinctive symbol of the previous incarnation appeared when the main hall of the new station opened in December 2016: its expressive glass roof, decorated with mock facades of the apartments that used to be part of the old building.
Łódź’s new train station is another investment aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens and increase a city’s attractiveness in the eyes of investors. Łódź had dealt for many years with the problem of a decreasing population – it has one of the fastest shrinking populations in Poland. A neglected city needs huge investments – it needs new workplaces, as well as renovations in housing or even the revitalisation of whole neighbourhoods.
Łódź’s local authority wanted to increase its attractiveness through the phenomenon of architecture. Different things were attempted and huge visions were created: a new centre was supposed to be designed by Rob Krier, a huge festival centre was sketched by Frank Gehry, and the build-up of spectacular buildings was supposed to take place in participation with David Lynch and Daniel Libeskind. Although those plans didn’t come to fruition, others did. A few years ago, the former power plant neighbouring the old station was transformed into a centre for culture and science, and now this modern transport hub has arisen in the heart of the city. Will this huge new investment give a new life to the city? We will soon find out. So far, despite praise for the building, the surroundings of the train station with roads with two or more lanes and grade separated crossings and without friendly public spaces were strongly criticised.
4. Centre for the Meeting of Cultures in Lublin
A large cultural centre for Lublin was supposed to be built near one of the main streets at the end of the 1960s, specifically an ultramodern theatre. Although construction of the building began, it was never finished. The Theatre Under Construction, as it was called, was a blemish on Lublin’s the city centre for almost four decades. In 2009, a contest was held for a new building design that would take the place of the unfinished theatre. A famous architect from Lublin, Bolesław Stelmach, won the competition with his strict construction of concrete and glass.
In summer 2016, the new Centre for the Meeting of Cultures in Lublin opened its doors. The building includes a big concert hall and theatre, and many smaller rooms available for lectures, shows, concerts, workshops, meetings and exhibitions. However that’s not all: the square in front of the building has been given over to the people. The concrete slopes supporting the construction are designed for bikers and skateboarders, while the building’s huge glass facade was designed as a screen for film projections and light shows.
Essentially, it is a cultural centre in the modern sense. Although it has many traditional rooms like a theatre, most of its space was designed to enable using it in many different ways. Its flexible, easy-to-arrange space allows different kinds of activities that make it attractive to different groups of users. Its faded, elegant and minimal architecture designed by Bolesław Stelmach is a wonderful background for them all.
5. Rise of the youth
The Polish press loves to write about international successes especially when Poles win important, well-known and prestigious competitions. The rule is prevails everywhere, from sport to architecture. However it’s not often possible to hear about the successes of young people making their debut and being noticed internationally at the beginning of their careers. But 2016 was a year full of young Polish architects’ successes.
The Venice Architecture Biennale opened in May, where Hugon Kowalski was personally invited to participate by the curator, a Pitzker Award laureate, Alejandro Aravena. This was a huge success a designer under thirty years-old. In Venice, Kowalski and his team presented the installation Let’s Talk about Garbage which highlighted the problem of the over-production of trash and ways of solving it with architecture’s help.
In 2016 a new competition searching for the most promising talents was announced by the same foundation that every two years grants the most prestigious architecture award in Europe: the Mies van der Rohe Award. The Young talent Architecture Award is supposed to recognise those who one day may build the best European buildings during their future professional career. In the first edition of the competition, two of three main prizes were given to Polish architecture students: Iwo Borkowicz, a graduate at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and Tomasz Broma from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology.
6. Wrocław – European Capital of Culture 2016
Many Polish cities competed for the title of the European Capital of Culture with their cultural offer, and Gdańsk, Katowice, Lublin and Warszawa all fought in the finals. But it was Wrocław which won – recent years had seen many cultural events organised there to prove its potential.
Architecture was a very important element of the programme. Unexpectedly, one of the key events was the construction of a housing estate. Nowe Żerniki, in the west suburbs of the city, is to be a model realisation of an estate that’s both friendly to its inhabitants as well as the environment. Nowe Żerniki is untypical from the urban point of view – its construction is the result of a collaboration between Wrocław’s city council, the Lower Silesian District Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland, and the Wrocław district of the Society of Architects of Republic of Poland/SARP. Over 40 architects participated in designing Nowe Żerniki.