After half a year of intensive work, the installation "Absence" realized as part of the National Meeting of Architecture Students under the banner of Spatium opened in the Cistercian Abbey in Lubiaz at the end of May this year. The installation is the winning competition project by a team of students from the Warsaw University of Technology, consisting of: Mikołaj Cichocki, Marianna Moskal and Bartosz Teodorczyk.
OSSA is an architectural workshop organized as a grassroots initiative of students, which for more than two decades has brought together architecture students and architects from Poland and abroad. Their goal is to educate participants in an interdisciplinary way by bringing them into contact with representatives of various communities involved in discussions on architecture in the broadest sense.
"Absence" installation within the walls of the monastery in Lubiaz
© Guys Filming
OSSA Spatium has come to an end
The latest edition of OSSA, held under the banner of Spatium after a year and a half, has officially ended! The organizers of this edition were students of the Faculty of Architecture at Wroclaw University of Technology: Alexander Blicharski, Jakub Kozachenko, Apolonia Slesarow, Konrad Zaborski and Patrycja Lysoniewska from the Warsaw University of Technology.
The hybrid event brought together more than 130 participants, whose discussions and activities dealt with, broadly defined, the concept of space. The starting point of the edition, held in Lower Silesia, was an unusual architectural object - the post-Cistercian monastery complex in Lubiaz. It was it that was the subject of the design competition - the creation of an installation, which is part of the exhibition at the Cistercian Abbey.
The installation is an empty frame symbolizing paintings by Michael Willmann
Photo: Krystyna Torbiarczyk © Mikołaj Cichocki, Marianna Moskal, Bartosz Teodorczyk
installation competition
The task facing the contestants was to design an installation in the amphilad rooms of the Cistercian Abbey in Lubiaz. The theme of the work was free, but the scope of the study was to include one concept board, a technical board and an abstract describing the idea of the project.
You can read about the details of the competition, the jury's opinions and all the awards in this article.
the process of creating the winning installation
© OSSA Spatium
Absence
The competition, the prize of which was to make an installation in the monastery in Lubiaz, was won by students from the Warsaw University of Technology: Mikołaj Cichocki, Marianna Moskal and Bartosz Teodorczyk. They were the ones who worked at the Cistercian Abbey for more than six months to be able to present their realization to the public at the end of May this year. In it, emptiness became a medium for building a new spatial narrative. It is symbolized by a picture frame devoid of canvas. Naked, wooden structures, in a perverse way, become the main subject of the likes of the interiors and redefine their image.
The void has become a medium for building a new spatial narrative
Photo: Krystyna Torbiarczyk © Mikołaj Cichocki, Marianna Moskal, Bartosz Teodorczyk
The turbulent fate of the Lubyanka abbey meant that most of the interior decorations and works of art were stolen, destroyed or taken to other cities. In turn, the building itself gradually fell into disrepair. Today, the empty interiors of the monastery are a sad testimony to the gradual degradation of the entire architectural establishment and the rich collection of artworks. The epitome of the peculiarity of the Lubiaz abbey for us is the figure of Michael Willmann - an outstanding Baroque painter, known as the Silesian Rembrandt. Living in the monastery for more than 40 years, the artist created a collection of exquisite works of art designed specifically for its spacious interiors. Turbulent vicissitudes of fate have meant that more than 300 years after the painter's death, his paintings are nowhere to be found in Lubiaz. They are mainly found in Warsaw, Wroclaw and abroad. Our installation aims to restore the memory of Willmann's Lubiaz works. The composition, composed of empty frames left over from life-size paintings, is meant to emphasize the scale of the artist's output and the enormity of Lubiaz's lost heritage," say the authors of the winning project about their inspiration.
OSSA Spatium and the installation "Absence" were created thanks to the cooperation with the Lubiaz Foundation and the help of the Architecture Unit Foundation. The winning project was realized with the help of Pawel Paciorek and the FERWOR collective.
