Imagine a situation where the city is wrapped in a system of green seams, connecting all green areas. From anywhere we can take a trip to a suburban forest. Walking between a succession of parks, squares, but also wastelands, a river valley or allotments, we reach the border of the city.
This was the vision of Anna Ptaszycka. She saw greenery as a common good and an indispensable element of the city. She begins her doctoral dissertation, published as a book titled: "Green Spaces in Cities" with the words "Looking for ways to restore balance in human life - balance in its relation to nature and in its individual and social development against its background - this is the purpose of this work." A forgotten publication, until it begs to be refreshed. The author not only outlines a completely different way of thinking about nature in the city, but also gives the specific calculations needed to create individual areas. Among the numerous tables, mathematical operations and summaries, one main idea shines through - we are the ones who shape cities, and it is up to us what paradigm we choose for ourselves in our vision for the future of the place.
pioneer of green urbanism
Ptaszycka died young, at the age of 56. Her entire life lends itself to a separate novel about struggle, tenacity, striving to improve the existing world. Perhaps it was such difficult circumstances of the time and place she found herself in that made her do so much during her life? Perhaps it was her character or the ideas that scouting instilled in her? Ptaszycka is spoken of as a pioneer and heroine for good reason. She was born on October 13, 1911 in Warsaw. She passed her high school diploma in 1929. Since her youth she has been active in scouting - she is listed as a squadron leader of the Emilia Plater Warsaw Women's Scouting Troop, and later she will receive the rank of assistant scoutmaster and scoutmaster in the Warsaw Scouting Troop[1].
1936 - there are student, worker strikes in Poland. Anna graduates from the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology and marries Tadeusz, also an architect. Europe is in turmoil. Anna does not remain passive, she is active in first in the ranks of the Union of Armed Struggle, then in the Home Army. She joins the fighting in the Warsaw Uprising, attains the rank of second lieutenant and receives the Bronze Cross of Merit with Swords.
Anna is also not passive in her professional activities. Even before the outbreak of World War II, she manages to develop about fifteen concepts for major buildings, designing together with her husband. It was then that they would conceive and develop the plan for the Polish Scouting Association House, erected at 7 Lazienkowska Street in Warsaw. The edifice was the result of a competition entry that the Ptaszyckis developed during their studies. In 1939 she received, together with her husband and Ewa and Jan Knothe, also the first prize for the design of the Children's House and Jordan Garden of the Society for the Construction and Operation of Railway Workers' Housing in Warsaw.
Starting in 1945, Anna works at the Bureau of Reconstruction of the Capital, but in the same year she moves to Wroclaw, where she joins her husband, who works at the Wroclaw Reconstruction Directorate. She designs at the Wroclaw Plan Office and is also active in the Department of Urban Planning at the Wroclaw University of Technology.
In 1950, she defends her doctorate at the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. She moves, again following her husband - to Krakow. There she becomes an assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology (1950-52). Until 1955, she works as a co-organizer and head of the General Plan Studio in Cracow, later she takes a managerial position in the Municipal Urban Planning Studio of the Presidium of the National Council of the City of Cracow. Meanwhile, she receives the Golden Cross of Merit (1954) and the Medal of the 10th Anniversary of People's Poland (1954). Ptaszycka also becomes a member of the Urban Planning and Architecture Commission of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the National Council of the City of Krakow. In 1956, together with Zbigniew Solawa, Zbigniew Karakiewicz, Zbigniew Gadek, Adam Klecki, Olgierd Krajewski, Stanisław Załubski, they will develop a detailed - coordination plan for downtown Krakow, including a concept for the reconstruction of the railroad junction. The project will receive a second degree award from the KUA[2].
In 1958, she falls ill. She is forced to limit her professional work. Limitations caused by illness she writes down in a diary, from which the unchanging fortitude of her spirit shines through. She continues to participate in the work of SARP. At one of the meetings of the Cracow Branch, she becomes weak and, without regaining consciousness, dies in 1967[3]. He is 56 years old at the time. Posthumously, he will also receive the Second Degree State Prize for the General Plan of the City of Cracow[4].
legacy and influence on modern urban planning
2022. Eska.pl publishes an article citing Ptaszycka's idea for a bathing area in Wola Justowska. "Despite the passage of years, ZZM announces that the proper shaping of the embankment has been done, so the plan could still be implemented," the article reads. However, the construction will not take place, because there is no approval from another authority - the Polish Waters. In addition, "building reservoirs of this size for pure recreational pleasure seems excessive spending," said Konrad Myślik, at the time a faculty member of the Society of Lovers of Krakow's History and Monuments.
In 2007, Alexander Bohm wrote that "Cracow for wiciu years was considered a model example of a concentric-radial system of urban greenery and, less commendably, a city with its back turned to the river. For some time now, only the second part of this opinion can be agreed with. (...) In 1909, as a result of the first urban planning competition on Polish soil for Greater Cracow, the concentric-radial green system was consolidated in the plan of the greatly enlarged city (...) Later, things got worse. As late as the 1950s, Anna Ptaszycka tried to encompass Krakow and the New Steelworks, which was being built on its side, with a common ring of greenery - using the riverside greenery as well."[5] Ptaszycka had always known that the city needed greenery. Yes, the ideas of Howardian and modernist thinking about the city, which were alive at the time, are evident in her works, but it seems that her attitude to greenery is more than just the current of the era. This is because she is the one who takes stock of the greenery of post-war Warsaw. This shows an unusual attitude to nature.
It is thanks to her that Krakow's new zoning plan will limit industrialization, and in 1966 the largest park in the area was created, whose primary function was to isolate Krakow from Nowa Huta and the industry there[6].
undervalued work
Ptaszycka will write repeatedly in her monograph, about the far inadequate state of greenery in the cities of postwar Poland, noting, among other things. on the "lack of funds," "deficiencies in the relevant laws and local regulations and in the way they are interpreted," as well as "the understanding of the importance of urban greenery, too slowly awakening among the public in the flood of other cares and hardships of life, and the prevailing lack of need among the urban population for order and aesthetics of the immediate surroundings." He laments the imbalance between nature and what man does.
Dear Anna, this is a message from the future - I'm sorry, but our cities will not learn lessons from your work. Cities will develop spontaneously, without land use plans. Your recalculations of needed greenery will be put to rest. We will endanger existing ecosystems, recreational areas. Only when we see how such development affects us will we begin to wake up from this concrete slumber and think about connecting individual places, for example, along river courses. Dear Anna, if you can, give us your strength. We need it very much, because we want to be able to walk in the city among the greenery. We want to be able to wander along green seams, which, by connecting, become green infrastructure.
Magdalena Milert
[1] K. Jarzembowski, L. Kuprianowicz, Sccmistrzynie i harcmistrze Związku Harcerstwa Polskiego mianowani w fatach 1920-1949, Krakow 2006, p. 65 za: Majczyk, J., & Tomaszewicz, A. (2019). Anna Ptaszycka. Girl scout, architect, urban planner. Pioneers, 13-45.
[2] https://www.archimemory.pl/pokaz/anna_jadwiga_ptaszycka,6293
[3] Rests in Rakowicki Cemetery, q. LXVIII, row 11, place 10.
[4] Co-authors: Stanisław Hager, Mieczysław Barbacki, Jarzy Bukowski, Zenon Grajek, Zdzisław Haupt, Z. Karakiewicz, A. Klecki, Leszek Koczyński, Jerzy Orkisz, Marek Paszucha, Lesław Stolfa, Jerzy Sulimski, S. Załubski, Wiesław Żardecki.
[5] Bohm, A. (2007). The river park system in Cracow. Proceedings of the Cultural Landscape Commission PTG, (07).
[6] Hrehorowicz-Gaber, H. (2013). Effects of transformations in the urban structure on the quality of life of city residents in the context of recreation. Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, (21), 61-68.
