Interview with Bartlomiej Kisielewski - architect of Horizone Studio - from issue 12/2021 of A&B.
New Wesoła - the city planning process should be reversed. As part of the process of shaping the post-hospital area of Wesoła, a centrally located part of Krakow that is undergoing a process of transformation, an urban planning workshop was held with the participation of Krakow and non-Cracow architects, planners, officials and researchers. Among the guests at the International Architecture Biennale in Krakow were Bartlomiej Kisielewski, an architect from Horizone Studio, Lukasz Maślona, an urban activist and councilor of the City of Krakow, Kuba Snopek, an urban planner and urban researcher, and Jan Pamula, president of ARMK, the company established to manage Wesoola. I talk to them about their reflections from the workshop work during the Biennale and their personal vision for Wesoła.
Katarzyna Jagodzinska: From which moment have you been following the fate of Wesoła? How do you assess the process involved in planning the area?
Bartłomiej Kisielewski: Our first activities related to participation in the discussion about Wesoła go back to 2010, when together with two German offices we took part in an ideological competition organized by the city of Krakow and SARP concerning the development of the area after the medical clinics that were to move out of this part of the city. Then, over the following years, as Horizone Studio, we joined in various discussions concerning Grzegórzki - we took part in workshops and community discussions on the so-called Superpath along Warsaw Uprising Avenue, and co-initiated a discussion on thedevelopment of the area around the future viaducts, when PKP announced that it has plans to rebuild the railroad embankment in the center of the city, separating Grzegórzki from the Old Town and Kazimierz for decades.
Participants during design work
© Lubomir Nikolov
Catherine: From 2010 to 2020, when the public consultations took place, a ragged time has passed. What happened to what the participants of the 2010 competition developed? Has the potential of architects and urban planners been used by the city authorities in the context of Wesola?
Bartholomew: The premise of ideation contests is to gather information and ideas that will be used for further analysis and discussion regarding the development of a given area. In 2010 it was known that the clinics would move out of Wesola. It seems to me that, unfortunately, the 2010 competition entries were tucked away in a drawer and never saw the light of day again. This is a mistake, because this shows that a lot of human potential useful for further analysis is being wasted. If the city wants to be credible, in this case and its other activities, it must show that it respects people's creative work. Creativity is one of the greatest potentials of any city in the modern world.
Catherine: Was the next moment when architects were involved, the workshop for the 2021 Biennale, when again the city government gathered a handful of ideas?
Bartholomew: The next step was the community discussions that began in 2018 with the city's work on the local plan. People realizing the potential of Wesola wanted to participate in the discussion, because they were aware that this unique place needed an idea. My impression is that before the work on the local plan began, the city did not have such an overall idea for the area. You can see how the MPZP was changed, sometimes in the wrong direction. Anyway, the question for the city and the ARMK is still valid: what is the main idea for Wesoola? The launch slogan "open, elegant neighborhood" was perhaps enough a year and a half ago. Today it is no longer enough. After months of discussion at various levels, generating expectations from community groups and other stakeholders, we should know which way we are going. What I miss, for example, is defining the leitmotif, the big picture, around which this new place is built. Because the new functions of Wesola, it will be a new address in Krakow.
Catherine: What would be the ideal scenario for what should play out now with regard to Wesola? What steps should the city take?
Bartholomew: It's well known that in analogous cases in Europe, cities set up special-purpose companies that take years, sometimes decades, to develop and manage such spaces. This is also what happened in Krakow. The Agency for the Development of the City of Krakow (ARMK) was established and entrusted with this task. Such a company should have both the tools, the power to do so, and be substantively prepared for the process. This is obvious. Its responsibility is to prepare assumptions, analyses and, as a result, a master plan that defines functional and spatial solutions. It should be flexible, because some assumptions today may be outdated in ten years. Such competence can be built within the team of a city company, but in the modern world a more frequent and effective way is to network and use the knowledge of several external teams. On the basis of the master plan, a local plan should be developed. In the case of Wesoła, this logic and sequence is not preserved, because the master plan is passed before the study and analysis taking into account the comments of stakeholders and the Krakow community are completed.
Katarzyna: So quick adoption of the local plan is not the most important thing?
Bartholomew: The draft local plan currently being developed by the city, according to the comments of the public consultation, but also the insights of all three workshop groups working during the MBA, should be revised. That doesn't mean changed a hundred percent. For example, it is completely incomprehensible why the MPZP cuts off Wesoła from the Warsaw Uprising Avenue area in terms of transportation. The MPZP's assumptions for east-west communication bypass Wesoola. It should be natural to let the main traffic of pedestrians and cyclists coming from the Old Town and Kazimierz towards public facilities on the other side of Aleja Powstania Warszawskiego pass through the middle of Wesoła, as this would further revitalize this now dead area.
Participants during design work
© Lubomir Nikolov
Catherine: What were your expectations from the urban planning workshops at the Biennale? Did they come true?
Bartholomew: The expectation was a substantive review of existing ideas emerging from the community side and the city side. This was facilitated by the composition of the workshop groups. Discussions took place among specialists in various fields. A great advantage of the workshop was that architects made up only half of the participants in the various groups, and the other half were people representing other sides of interest in the city's issues - sociologists, representatives of associations, city activists, councilors and even employees of the magistrate's departments. For me, it was also important to combine the Krakow perspective with the fresh analysis of people who came to the workshop from other cities. So the expectation was that the discussion would be substantive and multi-faceted. Now the question is what the City Hall and ARMK will do with the conclusions of the various groups, which overlapped in many places and at the same time also coincide with public expectations expressed during several months of consultations.
Catherine: You were a member of one of the groups that worked out the concept. Now - knowing all the proposals made by the interdisciplinary teams - what do you think should be implemented in the planning process?
Bartholomew: The common proposal was to define the new Wesola as a multifunctional place, full of life, where different users meet. We defined many potential users in the workshop, both current and potential future users. The area is so large that it can easily accommodate a variety of functions. In the city's declarations in response to public expectations, there is an assumption that at least fifty percent of the Wesola area will be green space. This is a correct assumption. However, half of the area as green space can be achieved not necessarily in the form of a single park, with the other half with dense development.
Catherine: What kind of Wesola would you like? What functions would you see there? What specific entities, institutions, services should be located there?
Bartłomiej: The Wesoła area is nine hectares belonging to the municipality of Krakow, as well as areas still owned by the Jagiellonian University, the Academy of Physical Education, the State Treasury. This is a huge area. My wish, as a resident of Krakow, is that cultural events and the headquarters of cultural institutions, creative industries, which will also activate outdoor spaces, including green spaces, will appear in Wesola. Another potential function, which is emerging in the media space and seems great, is the creation of a cooperation and innovation cluster there under the aegis of several universities. A cluster along the lines of Copenhagen's BLOXHUB, which opened in 2018 and advertises itself as the Nordic Hub for sustainable urbanization. A place for knowledge exchange between universities, organizations, research institutes, companies and public entities. As one analyzes the neighborhood of Grzegórzki, universities with their staff and students are already nearby. I also believe that the post-clinic area, in order for it to be a vibrant place, should have people living here permanently. Currently, no one lives in the post-hospital area. The residents are in the neighboring areas, i.e. in the area of Blich, Grzegórzecka streets. The draft MPZP for almost the entire area designated for development envisages only a service function. In my opinion, this is a mistake. MPZP should allow for some flexibility in shaping the function, for example, defining some development blocks as residential-service (with services on the lower floors). If this area is to function at different times of the day, there must be functions that are enforced by residential functions - stores, cafes, small services.
participants during design work
© Lubomir Nikolov
Catherine: What proposals for Wesola did the workshop group to which you belonged have?
Bartholomew: The ideas and proposals were the result of the work of twelve people. Here, as a participant of the workshop, I would like to pass on the information to other people in our group: it was a pleasure to work with you. The main conclusions were consistent. At the end of the first day of work, as a result of several hours of discussion, a keynote emerged: " WesołaSpa," which I think was the first to be presented by Artur Celinski of City Magazine. Speaking of a health resort, we obviously had in mind not a sanatorium with gentlemen walking around in bathrobes, but a place on earth, in the middle of Krakow, that would heal andbuild social relations, interpersonal contacts, intergenerational relations, between residents and social organizations and institutions, or finally between people and the environment and nature, which is important in the context of climate challenges.
Catherine: Did the divisions between local and non-local perspectives make themselves known in the workshop groups?
Bartholomew: No, they did not fundamentally differ. However, from my point of view as a person "contaminated" with a certain vision of Wesoła, the comments of people from Poznan or Warsaw were very valuable, because they drew attention to certain things that we do not notice.
Katarzyna: What specifically did the Cracovians not notice?
Bartholomew: For example, the way to redefine the building quarters, to reduce certain distances. Marcin Kościuch of Poznan-based Ultra Architects, as a person unrelated to Wesoła, was tasked with analyzing and reviewing the draft local plan. Some of his comments are, in my opinion, possible to implement. In the group we were also all in agreement to abandon the idea of one big square in favor of a series of smaller urban interiors that would be closer to human scale.
Catherine: Should the further stages of developing these solutions take place on the basis of consultation with the community of architects and urban planners - consultation or a continuation of the workshops that have now taken place? Which would be best?
Bartholomew: There are several tools. Logically, all the work should be coordinated by a company that is appointed by the city for this purpose. It should prepare and moderate the whole process. This can be done in various ways, for example, in the form of workshops, design charette series. One can appoint a group of specialists and consult with them on the work. One can finally define the needs and main expectations, and then launch a master plan competition. Sometimes it happens so, in Scandinavian countries it is commonly practiced, that a competition is held, three projects are selected, for example, and then their authors take part in shaping the area.
Design sketch of Group I during the Biennale
Catherine: Such an approach certainly translates into better quality, but it lengthens the whole process. Is there a time horizon in which you feel the process of inventing and planning should close?
Bartholomew: If I had to choose between doing something well and taking longer or at all costs doing it quickly, I would have no doubts about taking more time. The City of Krakow received a clear message during the public consultation that it should not be rushed, which, by its own admission, came as a bit of a surprise. It's worth spending two or three years on such a discussion and working out a result that in a hundred years will testify to the maturity of people living in Krakow in the 2020s. I note in passing that such a discussion does not eliminate the possibility of taking action on Wesola. The area should be made accessible and activated. After all, certain activities can be temporary, the space can be prototyped, made available to private entities as well, and see what works, what finds acceptance. I'm talking about both outdoor space, which is the cheapest, and buildings, which, after all, have to earn their keep. Determining the target shape of the space and function, in my opinion, is not incompatible with taking temporary adaptation measures.
Catherine: What if you were the person making the decision about Wesola?
Bartholomew: If I were the mayor of the city or the head of a municipal company and had such an area, I would say that it should be an area that shows our ambition for an approach to respecting the environment and climate, our ambition to transform the world in that direction. Ambitions linked to the city's policy of fostering knowledge and creativity. This could be an afterthought for the development of the entire district, not just the urban fragment, but also the remaining post-hospital area that does not belong to the city. The Wesola area has such a high value, including financially, that the application of new, even experimental technologies, would find not only pro-development, but also economic justification.
Catherine: Thank you for the interview.
