The Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek is not only a building, but also a manifesto for social change. Established in the heart of a degraded city, it attempts to bring new life, hidden under a mask familiar to residents, while reinterpreting history and exploring the possibilities of symbolic messages in architecture. How did the studio's project {tag:pracownie} fare in a place that is finally trying to rise from its knees after three difficult decades?
The political transformation has not worked out well for Wloclawek. A report prepared by OPR IRMiR classified it as a stagnant city, and Piotr Witwicki, author of the book "Vanishing Poland," even referred to it as the Polish Detroit. Industry, which contributed to its success back in the 19th century and then sustained the city's status during the People's Republic of Poland, has declined, leaving Wloclawek in a state of progressive socioeconomic degradation.
The center of Wloclawek in 2017
photo courtesy of ANALOG studio
Faced with this process, city authorities decided to develop a Municipal Revitalization Program to help activate society, create new jobs and develop culture. However, the "disappearing city" lacked a tangible development stimulus that could initiate real change. The impetus for a new direction was to become the Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship, erected according to a design by the Koszalin-based ANALOG studio, selected in a 2017 competition. After a long construction process, which was not without problems, the CAiP, also known as the Revitalization Center, was put into operation in late 2024. Is there actually a real revolution behind its eclectic facade?
The Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
Activation and Entrepreneurship Center in Wloclawek
The Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek was designed as a complex of three volumes arranged within the boundaries of a plot of land at 18 May 3 Street. The first is a building that stood on the site of a former tenement house built in a historical style. Initially, the project selected in an architectural competition assumed the preservation of the facade and the gate of the old tenement along with the restoration of the architectural detail that once adorned it. During construction, however, it turned out that the structure was in very poor condition.
Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
pic: ANALOG
As the architects point out, expert reports clearly indicated that the front wall could not be preserved, so with the consent of the conservator it was decided to demolish it. The façade was then painstakingly reconstructed, but behind it appeared a completely new structure, with its volume close to the earlier building that stood in this place.
The Center for Activism and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
From the very beginning, demolition was planned for the outbuildings located at the rear of the plot. In order to preserve the memory of the site's architectural past, the project team decided to leave fragments of their perimeter walls, reaching the height of two stories. The material obtained from the demolition was also not wasted:
The entire building was faced with hand-formed brick using bricks from the demolished outbuildings, and the walls above were painted white. The space defined in this way clearly defines the boundary between the public zone and the private zone of apartments located above.
Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
The outbuildings were replaced by two new volumes in the form of cuboid pavilions stretched between the walls marking the boundaries of the plot. Both were suspended above ground level, at the height of the second story of the former outbuildings. The first of them, located closer to the front wall of the entire building, was connected to the building standing in place of the tenement house by means of a connecting link, also led at the height of the second floor.
Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
pic: ANALOG
The second of the pavilions, clearly moved away from the plot, was separated from the rest of the buildings. The inside of the block, suspended above the ground, can be accessed through a small staircase, lowered to ground level and located on the north side of the building.
Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
Photo: Jakub Certowicz
sequence in space
The architects describe their project as a spatial sequence. Indeed, observing the Activation and Entrepreneurship Center both from a bird's eye view and from a pedestrian perspective, it appears as an alternating rhythm of volumes and the spaces arranged between them. The spatial "flickering" plays out both vertically and horizontally. Already behind the front building, a connecting link that extends to the height of the first floor marks the area of the first courtyard, surrounded by architecture like an atrium in a Roman villa or an early medieval temple.
Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
Further down the plot, the courtyard "slides" under the first of the overhanging pavilions, whose mass provides CAiP users with protection from the sun and precipitation. Behind the pavilion was a square with sides defined by the walls of neighboring tenements and the mass of the second pavilion. This one was planned as an almost empty space, lined with red bricks and only flurried by two small square fields filled with stones.
Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
Photo: Jakub Certowicz
The sequence ends with a green accent in the form of a participatory garden, with a lone tree growing in addition to grass. In the context of the difficult history that befell this part of Wloclawek during and after World War II, as well as the function that the Activation and Entrepreneurship Center is supposed to perform for the community, the greenery-filled courtyard appears as a hopeful harbinger of a better future.
The Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
all-in-one architecture
However, the buildings of the Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship are not only a formal game, but above all functions. These are extremely important for the community of degraded Włocławek. The complex designed by the ANALOG studio plays several roles in the city. The reason for the construction of the building was the adoption of the Municipal Revitalization Program of the City of Wloclawek, the most important point of which was the creation of a new building to support the process of renewal of the Kuyavian city. The building provided space for the Revitalization Department, a civic cafe "Downtown Café", a job bank or a legal and professional counseling point, as well as the headquarters of the Local Action Group association.
The Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
In addition, in the front building, five social housing units have been set aside on the top two floors, intended for rent to talented graduates of schools and technical studies. Four of the five units are planned as two-story units, each consisting of a room with a kitchenette a bedroom and a bathroom.
Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
A pavilion deep in the courtyard has been designated as an artist's residence. Inside there was room for a studio and an apartment. The translucency of the façade, which is virtually all glass on both sides, was also adjusted to the function performed by the building. Only from this object can one peek through a puzzling breach in the wall on the west side of the plot.
The Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
meaningful void
Can emptiness also carry a symbolic message? In the architecture of the Activation and Entrepreneurship Center in Wloclawek, this is exactly what happened. The building, which stands in the center of a neighborhood formerly inhabited by the Jewish population, is largely composed precisely of emptiness, which is a spatial reminder of the Old Great Synagogue, designed by Kalisz architect Franciszek Tournelle. Shortly after the start of World War II, in October 1939, the synagogue was burned down by the Nazis, who accused local Jews of setting the fire. The ANALOG studio team decided to commemorate the building, the physical absence of which is one of the symbols of the Holocaust that took place in Wloclawek:
At the climax of the spatial sequence, an opening was located, the significance of which goes beyond the function of connecting the inside with the outside. This opening, whose proportions derive from Tournelle's synagogue, which no longer exists, is a reminder of the tragic history of this part of the city.
The rectangular breach in the wall, located at the rear of the Center for Activism and Entrepreneurship, opens onto an empty courtyard and a small pocket park, on the site occupied by the Old Synagogue before the war. From a pedestrian perspective, only the sky is visible through the opening.
The Center for Activism and Entrepreneurship in Wloclawek
photo: Jakub Certowicz
Wloclawek from scratch
Revitalization in Wloclawek has not stopped at the Center for Activation and Entrepreneurship. Back in 2020, the city, in cooperation with the Bydgoszcz branch of SARP , announced a competition for the development of the quarter between Żabia, Brzeska, 3 Maja and Cyganka streets, where Social Housing buildings are to be built. Three years later, a competition was organized to design the reconstruction of Liberty Square, and the Revitalization Department is also thriving, having found its headquarters in a new building designed by the ANALOG studio. Its mission is to conduct both large-scale revitalization actions and smaller-scale activities, in the form of urban acupuncture. City authorities announce that CAiP is only the beginning of a great metamorphosis of Wloclawek. After a great start, will it be possible to keep up the good pace?
You will learn more about the work of the ANALOG studio during a broadcast as part of the Festival of Open Architecture Studios, which will take place on Friday, April 11, 2025 at 1 p.m. You are welcome!
