Danuta Olędzka, a Tricity-bound architect, academic lecturer and co-designer of, among other things, the longest residential building in Poland - the iconic wave building in Gdansk's Przymorze district - has passed away at the age of 98.
Danuta Olędzka (née Sorgowicka) was born in March 1927 in the village of Poczapowo, in an area that today belongs to Belarus. After the end of World War II, she and her family moved from the Eastern Borderlands to the Czestochowa area, and then - in 1946 - to Gdynia, where, thanks to the help of her mother's friend, the writer Mieczysława Luczynska, they settled on Swietojanska Street. A year later, Olędzka began studying at the Faculty of Architecture at the Gdansk University of Technology, which she chose at her mother's insistence.
I was somewhat artistically gifted, I could draw, so she suggested that I choose this field of study. [...] Before I went to college, I was looking at an exhibition of works by architecture students and was horrified to think: "What has this mother of mine come up with, I will never be able to do such things". But I took the exam, which I passed with only A's
- recalled Danuta Olędzka in an interview with Jakub Knera(New Goes from the Sea).
The year 1952 was an important one in Oledzka's life - at that time she graduated from college, began working (by assignment) as a supervisory inspector at the Investment Bank in Gdansk and as an assistant at the Department of Utilitarian and Industrial Construction of the PG Architecture Department. That year, too, she married her college classmate Daniel Oledzki, two years older, co-author of the Wybrzeze Theater at the Coal Market in Gdansk and the Musical Theater in Gdynia, among others. About the life and work of the Olędzskis (although they do not have many projects together to their credit, they mainly joined forces by taking part in architectural competitions) in 2023 the book "Danuta and Daniel Olędzcy. Architecture to the Possibilities" was written by Blazej Ciarkowski.
Wave building on Obrońców Wybrzeża Street in Gdansk, designed by Danuta Olędzka, Tadeusz Różański, Janusz Morek
Photo: Johan von Nameh | Wikimedia Commons © CC BY-SA 3.0
Danuta Olędzka spent nearly 30 years working as a designer at the Gdansk Miastoprojekt. In the late 1950s she joined the team of Tadeusz Różanski and Jozef Chmiel, who won the competition organized by SARP for the urban-architectural design of the Przymorze housing estate in Gdansk. Eleven-story galleried buildings with zigzag facade lines were part of the team's vision. The most famous of the wave towers is the one completed on Obrońców Wybrzeża Street - about 860 meters long and with nearly 1,800 apartments - the longest in the country, and the second longest in Europe, residential building (designed by Tadeusz Różański, Danuta Olędzka and Janusz Morek).
Read more: The longest block of flats in Poland. What is the phenomenon of the Gdansk Falowiec?
At that time Le Corbusier was building his long buildings - we were fascinated by him and the designs of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or Louis Kahn. The architecture of that period was not necessarily only rational, various new ideas were created. It is difficult for me to judge their value. Personally, I liked certain contrasts, with large open spaces - small intimate, squares and intimate interiors. I tried to achieve this in holiday homes and in the projects I submitted to competitions
- Danuta Olędzka said about her inspirations at the time
in an interview with Jakub Knera(New Goes from the Sea).
The trailer for the film "Blocks," directed by: Konrad Królikowski; produced by Media Dizajn (screenshot from the trailer in the opening photo of the article).
© Filister Film
The architect's period of professional activity fell during the difficult post-war years, the period of the People's Republic of Poland and the time of transition, which undoubtedly influenced her work, in which both modernism and postmodernism inspirations can be seen.
In the 1960s, she worked mainly with Szczepan Baum, winner of the 1991 SARP Honorary Award, creating buildings with a distinct modernist flavor. In 1965 they won a competition to design the Dom Technika at 6 Rajska Street in Gdansk (together with Zbigniew Budzyński), and two years later they designed the town hall in Dzierzgon.
Dom Technika in Gdansk, proj.: Szczepan Baum, Danuta Olędzka
Photo: Yanek / fotopolska.eu | Wikimedia Commons © CC BY-SA 3.0
The architect also designed leisure facilities (holiday homes in Krynica Morska, Hotel Neptun in Jurata), educational facilities (Elementary School No. 1 in Sopot, School of Leather Industry in Gdynia), residential buildings (post-modern multi-family apartment building in the Lower Town in Gdansk) and sports facilities (PG Academic Sports Center in Gdansk).
Danuta Olędzka's death was announced on March 23 by her daughter, Agnieszka Olędzka.
