Poland's Fantastical Fairy-Tale Buildings
Can the walls or roof of a building transport us to the land of fairy tales? There are buildings across Poland whose design and decoration offer guests the promise of a world of imagination.
‘A fairy-tale building’, we often say at the sight of a striking design. Usually in such situations we do not mean houses on chicken legs or castles for princesses, but simply beautiful, interesting, attractive buildings that stand out from others. There are, however, buildings designed to directly reflect a fairy-tale ambiance. Sometimes, architects consciously use forms associated with the world of fairy tales to signal the function of the building to the public or to place them in an appropriate mood before they cross the building’s threshold.
Drawers full of treasures
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Baj Pomorski Theater, Toruń, photo: Travelphoto / Forum
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The best example of this is the Baj Pomorski Theatre in Toruń. As a result of the modernisation and reconstruction completed in 2006 – designed by Elżbieta and Mateusz Grochocki, as well as Pavel Hubička, a Czech stage designer working in Poland – the building received a unique façade, deceptively reminiscent of an open wardrobe full of drawers with mysterious nooks and crannies. This literal form is meant to be a metaphor for the world of fairy tales, imagination, and mystery, with which every spectator should associate a visit to the theatre. With this striking façade, the designers used the architecture to signal to the audience what they can expect inside the building
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European Fairy Tale Center Matołek the goat in Pacanów, photo: Images GmbH / Alamy / PAP
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In the past it was more common for buildings designed with the youngest guests in mind to be colourful, eye-catching, and, unfortunately, often quite infantile in their details or decorations. We might think, for example, of the kindergarten on Telekiego Street in Warsaw's Kabaty district, widely criticised for its kitsch literalness, or the facade of the Gulliver Puppet Theatre in Warsaw, which dates back to the 1990s and is striking with its frenzy of colours. Today, however, architecture for children trends towards universal and subdued forms. Such tasteful design is evident in the Interactive Fairy Tale and Animation Centre at the Animated Film Studio in Bielsko-Biała, designed by Mirosław Nizio's team, the Rabcio Puppet Theatre in Rabka-Zdrój built in 2020, and the award-winning nursery school buildings created by xystudio
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European Fairy Tale Center Koziołka Matołka in Pacanów, photo: Paweł Małecki / Agencja Wyborcza
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When designing the Koziołek Matołek European Fairy Tale Centre in Pacanów in 2008, the team of the Kulczyński Architekt studio sought a compromise between fairy-tale references and a form that would not be labelled as kitsch. Completed in 2010, the building is enclosed in dreamy forms unlike any other – irregular parts of the structure are covered with wooden railings, and there are cylindrical structures resembling mounds or bucket-made sandcastles. The Fairy Tale Centre in Pacanów is different, unique, and at first glance signals its ‘fairy tale’ function, though it does so in a way that is not literal, but rather stimulates the imagination and is intriguing.
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Krzywy Domek in Sopot, photo: Łukasz Dejnarowicz / Forum
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Literalism indicating bad taste or ‘fancifulness’ understood too simply also has its place in architecture. Often, buildings that are supposed to be the effect of the authors' unbridled imagination are criticised by specialists for being kitschy, tacky, and not fitting into the surroundings. Interestingly, these same buildings are very popular among tourists, who like to see and photograph them. The best proof is the Crooked House, built in 2004 on one of Poland's most famous promenades, Monte Cassino Street in Sopot. The project of the Szotyńscy & Zaleski team of architects clearly stands out from the surrounding buildings and is, for some people, the quintessence of bad taste, and for others, an interesting tourist attraction. The architects themselves derived their design from drawings by Jan Marcin Szancer, a graphic artist and illustrator known, among other things, for illustrating the most beautiful fairy tales, fables, and poems for children.
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Upside down house in Szymbark - Szymbark Region Education and Promotion Center, photo: Marcin Mierzejewski / Getty Images
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Fantasy-like forms also were also used by the designers of the Regional Centre of Education and Promotion in Szymbark. This open-air museum – created by private investors and presenting examples of various types of traditional wooden cabins – advertises itself with its upside-down house, for which it has become known. It is literally a wooden building that has been placed on its roof. According to its designers, the building, which is supposed to evoke vertigo in visitors, is ‘an allegory of the modern world, in which tradition and the system of values have been turned upside down’.
Buildings from another world
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Gate of the Sun, Tychy, photo: Robert Neumann / Forum
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The originator and founder of the ‘upside-down house’ in Szymbark, Daniel Czapiewski, has often emphasised that the project is also a symbol of the overthrow of communism, a system in which everything was turned upside down. With the decline of communism in the 1980s, a number of buildings were designed to combat the greyness and monotony of the architecture of the time. Associations with the land of fairy tales are certainly evoked by the tall apartment block built at the end of the 1980s in Kraków's Czyżyny district. Led by the team of Leszek Filar, the project was created for the employees of the Academy of Physical Education in Kraków, yet the shape in which the architect dressed this prefabricated residential building rather brings to mind the needs of fairy-tale princely families. The soaring block is topped with numerous towers and turrets reminiscent of historic castles. This curious block of flats continues to arouse great interest, not least because it towers over the surrounding buildings and can be seen from far away.
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Ship block at ul. Kiełczowska, Wrocław Psie Pole, TBS "Nasze Kąty", photo: SOP the DRONE / https: //sopthedrone.com
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The residential building called Brama Słońca (Sun Gate), built according to a design by Zdzisław Łojewski with conceptual cooperation from Kazimierz Wejchert, similarly towers over its surroundings. Composed of two twin 12-storey blocks with a distinctive stepped shape, it was intentionally positioned in such a way so that the inhabitants travelling along the nearby road could see the rising sun in the morning just between the two pointed towers of the building. The effect was meant to introduce a fairy-tale atmosphere to a city dominated by blocks of flats.
While Brama Słońca was supposed to make the mornings of Tychy’s residents more pleasant and change the face of the city, the shape of the residential building of the ‘Nasze Kąty’ Social Housing Association in Wrocław may take your imagination to faraway places. Built in the 1990s in the Psie Pole district, the huge building was given the shape of a ship. The blue ‘steamer’ built on the outskirts of the city has a bow towering over the surrounding trees, portholes, two massive smokestacks, and the usable ground floor has a cornice imitating a sea wave. I wonder whether the shape of the steamboat takes the residents’ imagination to the land of pirate adventures.
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Kopulaki - a housing estate at ul. Ustrzycka, Warsaw, 2021, photo: Włodzimierz Wasyluk / Forum
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Looking for slightly more unreal, fanciful forms for contemporary architecture often ends in failure. This was the case with an Olsztyn tenement building, whose architect, Józef Żołądkowicz, implemented forms inspired by fairy-tale shapes of the Art Nouveau style. However, due to the use of modern construction technologies and poor colouring, instead of having the desired effect of a stylish fantasy, the building became an eyesore (‘makabryły’ in Polish).
There are, nevertheless, architectural projects that, due to their totally surreal nature, have become virtually iconic. One of them is a somewhat mysterious, small estate of single-family houses in Warsaw called ‘kopulaki’ (domed houses) due to their shape. Located in an unappealing area near the airport, the complex of peculiar buildings with domed roofs resembles a Smurf village. The podgy mushroom houses were designed by Andrzej Iwanicki at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, using prefabricated elements. Iwanicki thus proved that an architect with imagination can create buildings directly from the world of fantasy using ready-made, identical concrete elements.
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Castle in Moszna, photo: MikeMareen / Getty Images
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When looking for truly fairy-tale-like structures, it is best to head for Lower Silesia. There, one can find preserved many buildings fit for fairy-tale royalty. The castles in Moszna or Książ are certainly some of the most spectacular palace and castle premises preserved in Poland; enchanting with their picturesque location, extraordinarily rich decoration, and very impressive interiors. For everyone who has ever dreamed of being transported to the world of fairy tales, there is a hotel inside the Moszna Castle. Visitors can stay inside interiors dating back to the turn of the 19th and 20th century, while they look out for a prince on a white horse, either from the castle tower or the vast stone stairs. In the impressive interiors of Książ castle, which towers over the river valley, visitors can hold balls in the hall equipped with crystal mirrors, golden chandeliers, bas-reliefs, frescoes, and stucco. Who knows whether Cinderella would be ready to leave these extraordinary interiors at midnight?
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The Borek water tower in Wrocław, photo: Agencja Wyborcza
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In the search for fairy-tale structures that allow us to break away from reality and stimulate our imagination, it is easy to run into kitsch and shoddiness. Contemporary projects show that in the 21st century it is extremely difficult to create a real fairy-tale atmosphere using the language of modern architecture. It is easier to find it among historic buildings, sometimes in structures as inconspicuous as water towers. Indeed, the water tower on Sudecka Street in Wrocław, although currently not open to visitors, stirs the imagination perhaps more strongly than film sets from fairy tales. Although it is urban infrastructure in the middle of a bustling city, the early 20th-century tower helps one to slip into a world of fantasy. Looking at the soaring towers joined by a glass connector, at the little house hidden between the tower supports, or at the vast interior of the building, open to all directions, it is impossible not to dream about experiencing fairy-tale adventures here.
Among the structures that surround us every day, it is sometimes worth looking for those few places that allow us to break away from a reality that is usually grey and banal. There are buildings that can help us do just that.
Originally written in Polish, translated by Agnes Dudek, Jan 2022