Leisure, vacation, recreation and the architecture devoted to them is a powerful and attractive mine of topics. You can study the meaningful spoils of this resource for another month at an exhibition at the Museum of Architecture. The set of successful holiday buildings of the last century shown there is a good prelude to further research and exploration.
Most vacations are behind us, but until the end of September you can extend your vacation at the Wrocław exhibition „Vacations. Landscapes of Leisure.” It will also be, by the way, a vacation from the kitsch and trashiness of many mountain and seaside towns. For the exhibition shows the best of Polish leisure architecture, without entering into a polemic with today's level of leisure spaces. Also absent are references to similar works outside Poland. There is also rather no fodder for nostalgic reminiscences about the forms of communist leisure and dissecting the sociological aspects of the vacation revolution that Poles experienced after 1945.
The exhibition 'Holiday. Landscapes of Leisure' in the Museum of Architecture—holiday house 'Granit' in Szklarska Poreba, designed by Stefan Müller, 1974—model
photo: Jakub Głaz
gone and good!
The Wrocław story is based on the word „holiday”, which was widely restored to the Polish language after the war and has since been associated with recreation organized by the Employee Holiday Fund (FWP) and, since the late 1950s—also by workplaces or so-called unions of specific industries and branches. After 1990, the word again went by the wayside, perhaps because it was associated with the „wrong era” and—also—with the increasingly inferior standards of the resorts, the food served in them and the entertainment performed by the famous touts.
The term can also bring to mind: the smell of lunches mixed with cigarette smoke, a coal kitchen smoking through the chimney of the canteen, showers under an eternit shed, the appearance of menus tapped out by carbon paper on a typewriter, and other uninteresting details. However, this term also includes successful and distinctive furniture, metalwork, textiles and tableware, the forms of which have partially returned to favor in the past two decades. This, too, is absent from 'Holiday.
The exhibition 'Holiday. Landscapes of Leisure' at the Museum of Architecture—general view of the room with models
photo: Jakub Glaz
However, these numerous „absences” are not a drawback. Firstly, the subject of leisure and related architecture is so vast that the selection of selected topics seems necessary. Second, the Wrocław exhibition was shown first, last spring, in the Polish pavilion at the EXPO in Dubai. The foreign viewer needed to be provided with a digestible and communicative synthesis, with an indication of showpiece works, without entering into sociological and cultural footnotes and didaskalia. The protagonist of the exhibition is therefore mainly architecture.
The exhibition 'Holiday. Landscapes of Leisure' at the Museum of Architecture—a model of one of the 'pyramids' in Ustroń-Zawodzie (designed by Henryk Buszko, Aleksander Franta, Konrad Korpys)
photo: Jakub Głaz
more architecture than landscape
Thus, only the title of the exhibition seemsslightly out of place. For we are primarily viewing not so much "landscapes of leisure" as architectural specimens dissected from them . The well-designed mock-ups of twenty-one objects show how diversely and interestingly Polish architects created hotels, rest houses, hostels, sanatoriums and baths in the past century. When taken out of context, they are closer in several cases to interesting abstract sculptures.
The exhibition 'Vacations. Landscapes of Leisure' at the Museum of Architecture—model of the ZNP resort in Ustroń Jaszowiec, designed by Henryk Buszko, Aleksander Franta, Konrad Korpys (1962-64)—view from above
photo: Jakub Głaz
However, this way of presentation makes sense, it focuses attention on the composition and character of the blocks, and allows one to see what escapes (or escaped, as some of the buildings no longer exist) when observed in nature. It also makes it clear that the craftsmanship of modernist architecture of the People's Republic of Poland had a chance to manifest itself precisely in buildings serving recreation, escaping typification and „festive” in their own way. However, the skillful setting in the landscape, about which there is a lot in the descriptions of the exhibition, the viewer is unlikely to experience, even if it is supported by landscapes displayed on canvas sheets and photographs that show this context accurately.
The exhibition 'Holiday. Landscapes of Leisure' at the Museum of Architecture—in one frame: the observatory on Sniezka, the sanatorium in Zegiestow Zdroj and the scout hostel on Kostrzyca (Ukraine), designed by Jerzy Zhukowski 1934-35
photo: Jakub Glaz
Indeed, the gallery of well-designed mock-ups is complemented by a story about leisure time and the architecture devoted to it, illustrated by photos showing more examples. There is also a large-scale accent in the exhibition : a wooden skeleton of a camping house with a gabled roof, referring to the archetype of a hut—in Poland very popular and widespread under the name „Tramp” or „Brda”. Underneath it, the viewer will find a table with old maps, guidebooks and publications, a cursory look at which allows one to feel the atmosphere in which one vacationed in the People's Republic of Poland.
The exhibition 'Holiday. Landscapes of Leisure' at the Museum of Architecture—a wooden skeleton of the „Brda” cottage type with space for workshops
Photo: Jakub Głaz
novelties small and small
„Brda” in miniature is also present among the mock-ups—in a set with three other houses, which—as the only examples in the exhibition—were designed after the 1989 breakthrough. The rest were created in times at least four decades distant. The farthest into the past are objects from the early 20th century. This is because the set includes both traditional and regional forms (including one, non-existent, from the area of today's Ukraine), buildings designed by the pre-war avant-garde, modernist blocks of the post-war period realized until the 1970s, and—already mentioned—mini houses from less than a decade ago. On the handy plates attached to the mock-ups one will find both their descriptions and their current appearance. Some buildings have been restored with reverence, while others are not easy to recognize. Those that don't exist are illustrated with photographs of the overgrowth that has taken the place of architecture.
The exhibition 'Holiday. Landscapes of Leisure' at the Museum of Architecture, OW Delfin in Jastrzebia Gora, designed by Jerzy Piaseczny, Szczepan Baum, Stefan Philipp (1962-65)
photo: Jakub Głaz
The minimalistically served exhibition helps to look at iconic (such as the observatory and chalet on Śnieżka) and lesser-known objects with fresh eyes and from unexpected perspectives. The arrangement also allows buildings from different periods and places to be juxtaposed in a single frame, which creates sometimes surprising compositions. Finally, it brings back the memory of demolished but very interesting resorts (such as OW Delfin in Jastrzebia Gora). The only slight grumble is the inclusion in the groups of mock-ups of projectors displaying landscapes. Projectors, we should add, as white and of similar dimensions as the mock-ups standing next to them. Troublesome trifles also include the subtitles of the narrative boards, which are located too low.
The exhibition 'Holiday. Landscapes of Leisure' at the Museum of Architecture—an overhead projector as an equal element of the exhibition.
photo: Jakub Glaz
Leisure does not tire
However, these are minor stumbling blocks. "Landscapes of Leisure" is definitely worth a look. The more so because they provide just enough knowledge and examples to—without tiring the average view er (this is important in an exhibition about leisure!)—get the viewer interested in the subject. If the lure takes hold, the viewer can set about further exploration and discovery on his own. Worse still, despite appearances, this research will not be very easy. True, the Internet is full of sentimental postcards and photos showing hotels, vacation homes and resorts in their heyday, but what is missing is a more comprehensive and honestly written compendium of knowledge about leisure, its architecture and the evolution of the concept of "leisure."
The exhibition 'Vacation. Landscapes of Leisure' at the Museum of Architecture—initial board of the exhibition
photo: Jakub Glaz
Admittedly, a year ago came out exceptionally the book „Last Turn. Postcards from the People's Republic of Poland” by Marcin Wojdak, but it is a misguided position. Its author has previously recorded with great success and showed on Instagram former resorts and hotels. A piece of good work! Later, however, he added to them a drunken stream-of-consciousness type of text, which a responsible editor should not have let pass at all. But, it happened, we wrote about it in A&B a year ago, by the way.
The Wrocław exhibition, meanwhile, shows that it is possible to approach the subject sensibly. It just takes good researchers and authors and mental discipline. A light holiday theme is better served by matter-of-factness and cool analysis than by gushing impressions . Much can still be extracted from the vast and under-exploited mine of topics devoted to holidays, vacations, their architecture and design—including in the contemporary, rather rampant edition. It's time to show in one exhibition both the magnificent holiday house "Granit" from Szklarska Poreba, and the nearby Golebiewski from Karpacz.
