In early June 2020, the municipality of the town of Michalowo in Podlasie boasted that it would be building a Disco Polo Music Center. In a laugh-out-loudatmosphere, the topic was picked up by thenationwidemedia. While itstartedout funny, it is now serious. The visualizationthat Michalowois using to brand the planned investment was stolen from the Cracow-based Horizone Studio. Five years ago, this exact design was realized as an office building by Ericpol in Lodz.
Copying is an immanent feature of architecture. And not only architecture - art, fashion, design and all other spheres ofcreativityare based on borrowing, being inspired by, imitating or negating what has been. In thisway, over the centuries, designs have spread from the so-called centersof culture to the provinces. From time to time, the increasingly less rhetorical question recurs: is it necessary to put boundaries somewhere ?
When one object looks exactly or nearly identical to another, earlier object, there is unlikely to be anydoubt that it is not a work of chance. On legal grounds, we are dealing with plagiarism. Often the case is not clear-cut and ends with a finding of similarity. However, if someone uses someone else's visualizations and plans for their ownpurposes, changing only the logo on the facade, it is not surprisingthatthe creators ofthe original edifice not only express dissatisfaction, but contact lawyers.
Copy-paste in Michalov
At the beginning of June, Michalowmadeheadlines throughout Poland. The Onet.pl portal, the main news services of TVN and Polsat, Radio Zet, "Dziennik" and a number of othermediareported on the planned investment in the town of Michalowo in Podlasie - the capital of disco polo. A Disco Polo Music Center is to be built at the School Complex in Michalowo, where a new disco polo stage profile will be launched after the vacations. It is to include an auditorium, museum, dressing rooms and practice rooms. The illustration for this material was a visualization of the building with a rainbow "disco polo" logo on the gable elevation,which, as it soon turned out, was stolen from the Horizone Studio website. The building in question is the Ericpol Software Pool in Lodz,whichwas commissioned in 2015. The following year, itscreatorsreceived the SARP 2015 Award of the Year for the best completed architectural structure in Poland in the category of public facility - office building, awarded by the Association of Polish Architects.
Ericpol Software Pool building in Lodz
proj.: © Horizone Studio
How did this happen? Konrad Sikora, deputy mayor of Michalow, explains, "This graphic was prepared only for our internal use, it is not a visualization of what is to come. On the other hand, I don't know how ithappened that this graphic got out,we are trying tofind out. When there were questions from themediaabout releasing this graphic, I refused, explainingthat this is not an official concept, but a graphic for our internal use, not an official graphic or construction project. The project is not there yet atall."
Themunicipality sees nothing wrong with "borrowing" an image for the purpose of drawing up an application to the Marshal's Office for financing a new investment. Visualization, as is known, stimulates the imagination, so officials in Michalov conducted an online search and found a nice building. All in all, a compliment to theauthors. Sticking to the facts, however, it must be clarified that the visualizationwas not leaked to themedia, butwas sent outto themediaby the office as part of the press materials. What's more, the information along with the visualization was on the official municipal website.
The deputy mayor, in a telephone conversation, announced that the matter would be clarified and that consequences would be drawnagainst the personatfault. But it is clear , after all, that it is not the personwholiked the Ericpol office buildingwhois to blame, but the municipality,whichdecided to visualize its efforts to obtain financing for the idea by using someone else's design. And it doesn't matter whether it's just an application to the marshal -which, afterall ,is an official document - or promotional and press materials.
Architects take legal action
"We became acquainted with the whole case quite by accident, whenmypartnerwas browsing the news on Onet.pl," says Robert Strzeński, a partner. - says Robert Strzeński, a partner in the Horizone Studio architectural office,whichdesigned the Ericpol office building. "The building has won manyawardssince its commissioning and is quite well recognized in Poland, so we were even more surprised when we saw a clumsily reworked visualization of our own.It wasn't even anattempt toimitate the office building we designed. Someone in Michalow simply copied our graphic, made a mirror image of it and inserted it into a random environment. We understand that one can be inspired by someone else's architecture, and if it was an inspiration, we would have no problem with it. On the other hand, this is an illegal use of the visualization created by Horizone Studio and tarnishes it. The building has been taken out of context and pasted into an environment it doesn't fit into and forwhichit was never designed."
The architects contacted the law firm,which, representing the studio, sent out two letters on June 17. One of them went to themedia,whichused the visualization in their materials about the Music Center to be built. It included a request to remove it and include informationstatingthat the visualization was used without theauthors' permission and violates their copyrights. The second letter was sent to the municipality of Mikhailovo, demanding that the illustration be removed from the municipality's website and that an explanation of the actual authorship and origin of the object be posted, as well as payment of symbolic compensation to the architects. Half of this amount would cover their legal fees, and the other half would be paid into the account of the Ignacy Paderewski Music School Complex in Bialystok.
At stake for the architectsis the studio's good name. Strzeński explains that the reputation of an atelier takes years to build, while it can be lostin a matter of days. After the visuals were published in the media, Horizone Studio began receiving emails asking if they knew someone in Michalow had plagiarized their design. "Somepeoplewhoare familiar with our approach to design will immediatelyguessthat this is a plagiarism of a building designed by our office, while we are concerned that there may be a group of people thinkingthat it is Horizone Studiotrying touse the same design in a completely different location. This is not ourway ofdesigning, andwe are totallyagainst so-called ready-made, or catalog designs. That's no way to create architecture," - Strzeńskisays.
Architectural piracy
Michalowois a small point on the map of Poland. It may seem that the issue is marginal and has primarily a humorous dimension due to the disco polo setting,whichwe often look at with a wink. Who knows, perhaps the Michalow authorities, fascinated bythe work ofthe Horizone studio, willsolicit it to design the edifice. But this is a good opportunity to continue the ongoing discussion in the world about architectural piracy.
She, of course, has many dimensionsand concerns variousaspects ofimitation and copying. The scale on which architectural piracy is rampant in China is unlikely to be surpassed by anything, and one can only rub one's eyes in disbelief when looking at the visualizations of Zaha Hadid's Wangjing Soho in Beijing and its "imitation" in Chongqing, and following the race inwhich the "copy" was erected faster than the "original ."This is a case from seven years ago.
Theworld's top architects are struggling with plagiarism in architecture. Cases are publicized in major news and trade media. Books are being written on the subject. Law firms specialize in the subject. Not from today, because architectural piracy is not the domain of the modern age. Obviously, it is shameful, undignified and illegal. Especially for a public entity like the municipality of Michalovo. This one, by the way, does not go into denial - the visualization from the office's website disappeared shortly after receiving the letter from thelawyers.But, come to think of it, don't all the actors in this story gain a little bit from such a situation?For the amount of compensation,Michalowo gains gigantic coverage in thenationalmedia, and the Horizone studio -whose copyrights wereunquestionably violated - takes upan importantvoice in the fight against plagiarism in architecture. A voicethat should resound not only in the architectural community, because as the example of Michalow shows, plagiarism can also be committed by officials.
