The interview comes from A&B 4|24 issue
One of the greatest honors in Polish architecture is the Honorary Award of the Society of Architects (SARP), which has been awarded since 1966. In a new series in the pages of A&B about the professional path, the activities of SARP and current events from the world of architecture, Wojciech Fudala talks to the laureates of this award. His first interviewee is Professor Ewa Kurylowicz, winner of the SARP 2021 Honorary Award.
Ewa KURYŁOWICZ — Professor. General designer, proxy and vice president at Kurylowicz & Associates, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology, Chairman of the Council of the Stefan Kurylowicz Foundation, member of the Chapter of the POLITYKA Science Award, member of the Committee on Architecture and Urban Planning of the Polish Academy of Sciences. A graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, she also studied at Iowa State University in the United States. Promoter of diplomas, doctorates, reviewer of scientific papers and qualification proceedings. Author of the book "Universal Design. Making the environment accessible to people with disabilities". Universal design expert for the Architects' Council of Europe from 2005 to 2008, member of the 1st NKP PKN for Persons with Disabilities from 1994 to 2008, accessibility consultant for Warsaw University from 1996 to 2012 and project auditor for Jagiellonian University from 2009 to 2018. International universal design auditor for the European Parliament (2019). Chair of the Coordination Team of Competition Judges at the General Assembly of SARP in the term 2015-2019, Judge of SARP, member of the Team of the College of Competition Judges of the General Assembly of SARP in successive terms since 1990, Member of the Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland. From 2000-2008 Director of the Working Program "Spiritual Places" of the International Union of Architects UIA, based in Paris, from 1996-2000 Assistant Director of the UIA PR "Places of Worship".
Wojciech Fudala: Pracownia Kuryłowicz & Associates has been on the Polish market for more than thirty years, and you started your business with Stefan Kuryłowicz back in the communist era. What did the beginnings look like?
Ewa Kuryłowicz: We started when Edward Gierek was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, and all offices were state-owned, which severely restricted architectural creativity. Stefan Kurylowicz worked at BPBO Budopol, but he never felt comfortable there.
We were very fortunate that in the 1970s the possibility of private commissions first appeared. These were projects for churches. Stefan received several such orders: for the expansion of a church in Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki, for a church in Lodz on the Widzew estate, and then for the design of a temple dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels in Wierzbno, which we had already done together, in a team with Jakub Waclawek, as well as a church in Grodzisk Mazowiecki on Piaskowa Street. These subjects made it possible for Stefan to leave Budopol.
APA Kurylowicz & Associates exhibition at the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, 2007
© Kuryłowicz & Associates archives
Wojciech Fudala: It was possible to operate outside Budopol at that time?
Ewa Kuryłowicz: In the 1980s, a group of distinguished architects, led by Ryszard Trzaska and Zbigniew Wacławek, formulated something that was the nucleus of later private activity, namely the PP Authorial Architectural Laboratories. They were still state-owned enterprises, but the idea was to win commissions on their own. Stefan was one of the heads of such an atelier, and we acquired subjects mainly from competitions, because it was difficult to get private commissions.
Wojciech Fudala: Did your work become easier after the fall of communist Poland?
Ewa Kurylowicz: First of all, I have to say that thanks to our experiences from the communist era in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we were already at a completely different level of doing work than most of our colleagues. Therefore, at the first opportunity to set up our own studio, we decided to do so.
At that time, Poland's economy was in a shambles, but capital from abroad began to flow into the country. Foreign investors, however, did not have much confidence in the skills of Polish architects, so they sent their designers here, in relation to whom we had a subservient position. Unlike many others, we decided to agree to this, and as a result we worked on the Ford factory project and various projects for the PepsiCo corporation. This move was heavily criticized at the time by other architects, who argued that Poles should be the main designers. We, however, understood the lack of confidence of investors who came to a country where there was literally nothing at the time.
Instead of taking offense at the situation, we took it as an opportunity to show our skills. In retrospect, I know that this was a good strategy. An Italian architect was coming to the Ford factory and quickly became friends with our team. After a month, he said that there was basically nothing to do here, because the Polish team could calmly handle everything. That's when we became convinced that we were at the point where we could really design the way we thought and dreamed of doing it. We began to implement our own ideas, some of which seemed strongly avant-garde.
Witold Lutoslawski National Forum of Music, Wroclaw, 2015
photo: Maciej Lulko
Wojciech Fudala: Tomasz Malkowski said that the realizations of the Kuryłowicz & Associates studio are a milestone in the development of Polish contemporary architecture.
Ewa Kuryłowicz: I believe that from 2000 until 2014-2015 all Polish architecture was at the forefront of the world. We were proposing the best solutions that could confidently compete with what was happening in countries famous for good buildings. Let's look at the University of Warsaw Library (designed by Marek Budzyński, 1998). Although more than twenty-five years have passed, it is still a remarkable, forward-looking building. Today, however, we no longer have so many architectural proposals that would bring something significantly new.
Wojciech Fudala: What is the reason for this?
Ewa Kurylowicz: Perhaps from what is happening in the world today. Awards are being given to projects such as the reconstruction of an apartment block by Lacaton & Vassal or Alejandro Aravena's housing system, where people independently complete the designed space. The eyes of the architectural world are focused on different activities than a few years earlier. If there are already new developments, they are like Dietmar Eberle's in his self-sufficient 2226 building. It's an office building with excellent architecture, but it's not an architectural gesture like, say, Paris' Grands Travaux, headed by the Louvre Pyramid (designed by Ieoh Ming Pei, 1989) or the National Library (designed by Dominique Perrault, 1996).
Wojciech Fudala: And the PLATO Gallery in Ostrava by KWK Promes Robert Konieczny is not an architecture that contributes something? The building has just made it to the finals of the Mies van der Rohe Award.
Ewa Kurylowicz: By all means it is, but it is an exception against the background of what is going on. The KWK Promes team has carried out the difficult revitalization of the building with extraordinary culture. It's not something completely new, though, as Silesian architects have already used moving elements in the Safe House, and we (Kurylowicz & Associates) did moving shutters even earlier in the Wolf Nullo office building in Warsaw. Konieczny showed, however, that when dealing with the display of art in an old slaughterhouse falling into disrepair, it is possible to make a beautiful building that creates a new quality through the manifestation of technology in the service of architecture, and through beautiful architecture promotes art, where the art is both what is displayed and the architecture itself.
Wojciech Fudala: Let's go back to the days of running the Kurylowicz & Associates office. Warsaw today is full of your realizations. Which of them have brought you the most satisfaction?
Ewa Kuryłowicz: I like all of them. Maybe I'll tell you about two, for different reasons. In the 1990s we put up a private office building called Nautilus on Nowogrodzka Street. Opinions about it at the time were very mixed. However, I remember one time the artist Teresa Pągowska called our studio to congratulate us. She said she was so delighted with the building that she absolutely had to meet the architects. She was invited, of course, and then we visited her at the studio in Mokotow, where she lived together with Henryk Tomaszewski. A long-term relationship was formed from this, and I started collecting her paintings.
Another building that generated a positive public response was the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. It was designed by the Lahdelma & Mahlamäki studio, and we, as a Polish co-designer, had the honor of designing all phases of this building and supervising its construction together with Prof. Rainer Mahlamäki. Back then, people came simply to look at the building.
Today, architecture has unfortunately come to a bit of a standstill. You no longer hear about competitions for new large buildings, although in my opinion not everything has been done yet. Warsaw, for example, still lacks a concert hall of true merit. The one designed in Grochów by Thomas Pucher somehow has no luck....
Faculty of Applied Linguistics and Neophilology at Warsaw University, Warsaw, Powiśle, 2022
photo: Nate Cook
Wojciech Fudala: And the competition for the reconstruction of the Saski Palace? What do you think of this initiative?
Ewa Kurylowicz: I don't think it's a building that deserves to be put up from scratch. Not even the most beautiful one, because the competition entry that won is unquestionably architecturally high class. However, it was also the palace of a Russian merchant and is not needed by Warsaw for the memory of its space, neither architecturally nor urban planning.
Wojciech Fudala: Should it therefore remain an empty square?
Ewa Kurylowicz: I didn't say that. I have conducted several works on this subject, including diploma works with students, and I believe that this square can be formed as much as possible. This has also been proven by numerous competitions for the development of its space. There is such a mess here now that I don't think it could be worse. Here a cross, here a staircase, there other monuments. All these elements, since they are there, must somehow be put in order. This requires intervention, of course, but rebuilding the palace that once stood here, along with the neighboring historical buildings, while the city around has changed so much, is not the right way to go.
The development of Pilsudski Square is primarily an urban planning issue. The development of this area should take into account the neighboring Malachowski Square, for whose new plans, by the way, there have also been competitions recently. These are two spaces, their relationship needs to be concretized, especially due to the prominence of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is now visible from the square in front of Zachęta. The walls of the new complex — the Saxon Palace and its adjuncts, which will grow up and block this view — will not help this. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier will lose the role it gained in the postwar reality of Poland and Warsaw, tucked away in a park under a colonnade on the now essentially spatially non-existent Saxon Axis.
Let's remember that contemporary architecture is the architecture of the time when it is created. It is difficult to assume that going back to the Czarist era and earlier is the best answer to the question of how to improve this part of Warsaw. Especially when now on the square it is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that is an extremely important memorial for a huge number of Poles. I see some automatism in this. For me, the reconstruction of the Saxon Palace as an answer to the problem is a dodge, not taking up the challenge, and from the point of view of architecture and the logic of its development, I consider it a failure in terms of even cultural. It's sad, but that's what I chose to call it.
Ewa Kurylowicz (right) at the construction site of the Faculty of Neophilology at the UW with the architects of the author's team — Magda Izewska and Darek Gryta, March 2021
© Kurylowicz & Associates archives
Wojciech Fudala: What is your opinion on smaller competitions organized by local SARP chapters? Would you advise young architects to participate in them?
Ewa Kurylowicz: Despite the different aspects of the issue, I believe that it is worth taking part in competitions, but each time you should carefully check who is on the jury. Architects have their own views, and the criteria for competitions leave a lot of leeway for a particular judge to interpret the entries. Therefore, in order to submit to the judgment of competition judges, you need to know what they themselves do, how they express themselves or what they support. If there is an architect on the jury whose opinion is not valued, I would advise against participating in that particular competition. You should also always read the Important Provisions of the Contract from the competition rules, because there are many things there that the architect is then bound by.
Wojciech Fudala: Are all competitions fair?
Ewa Kurylowicz: They should be, in fact they must be! For many years I was active in the Coordination Team of Competition Judges at the SARP Main Board, and the basic condition for me was always a fair and objective judgment. Are all today's competitions decided this way? This, unfortunately, I don't know, but I can't imagine that it could be otherwise... If I have any doubts myself, I withdraw from such a body. Unfortunately, it happened to me, it was not an easy decision, but, in my opinion, necessary.
Wojciech Fudala: When did you join SARP and why?
Ewa Kurylowicz: Right after I graduated, that is in 1977. Membership in SARP was a great honor and privilege at that time. At that time I myself asked Prof. Adam Z. Pawlowski, the reviewer of my diploma and later dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, to be my introducer.
Those were the days of the communist era and there was a lot to do. As young architects affiliated with SARP, we could realize ourselves. We wanted to build our identity and we did it based on an elite professional association.
Wojciech Fudala: Today young architects are not so eager to join SARP. What could be the reason for this?
Ewa Kurylowicz: I noticed a turning away of young people from SARP around 2000. At that time they recognized that it was an organization that did not help them in any way. However, I myself urge young architects in my studio to sign up for SARP and build the Association with their own hands. If they want changes, let them work to make them themselves.
Wojciech Fudala: How do you assess SARP's activities today? Does it fulfill its role well?
Ewa Kurylowicz: This is a difficult question, because we are in difficult times. It's easy to criticize, and it's even easier to give advice. However, I see that the Association itself has become very quiet. In the past, SARP used to be a center of life, with lectures, architecture salons and other activities. When you walked into the courtyard, there were announcements and posters hanging everywhere. Meetings were held all around, and people entered the building all the time. When I enter the Association's headquarters today, I am struck by the sad silence.
The Kurylowicz & Associates studio team during a tour of the World War II Museum in Gdansk, 2017
photo: Ewa Kurylowicz
Wojciech Fudala: Why didn't you ever run for president of SARP to try to put things together on your own?
Ewa Kurylowicz: Five years of activity in the Coordination Team of Competition Judges cost me a ton of commitment. At the same time I was managing the studio, working at the Technical University and running the Stefan Kurylowicz Foundation. I found that I could not cope with all the tasks and resigned from active participation in the Association, giving way to the young. I believe that for such activities you need to have energy, which is what the younger generation has.
Wojciech Fudala: What is your opinion on the young generation of architects?
Ewa Kurylowicz: Every generation is different, and this changes about every ten years. The otherness of the modern generation is that they are people who are extremely interested in their own development. It is not the position that is important to them, but the realization that where they are, they can grow and learn something. They try to do those things that will internally enrich them.
Wojciech Fudala: You had contact with young people for many years, working at the university. What are your priorities in educating future architects?
Ewa Kurylowicz: First of all, I believe that you can't teach something that you don't do yourself. Especially teaching architecture must be based on practice and confronting beliefs and views with those of others, because that's what practice is all about. There are a whole lot of things that affect design, and knowledge of them comes from the battlefield of doing and agreeing on projects, writing and publishing, and organizational activities.
It is impossible to learn everything during six years of study. I believe that architecture schools are mainly to teach young people a creative and searching attitude. You have to be empathetic, but also look for the best possible solution. No two designs are alike, nor are two buildings alike.
For example, someone once had a block that he needed to enter, so he came up with a door. Later he found that he needed to let in light and air, so he started making windows. Then he started thinking of ways to ventilate. A few hundred years ago, people lived in henge huts, and the fact that step by step something slowly changed is due to asking ourselves, what can be done better?
In architecture, there is no single ready-made recipe. After graduation, a young architect should have a workshop and know how to do something. For this, however, the knowledge of the teacher is essential, to tell the young man: "Now you already know how to look, so go ahead and look!".
Paulina Kowalczyk and Krzysztof Kuczynski and excerpts from the engineering diplomas they presented (supervisor Prof. Ewa Kuryłowicz), Warsaw University of Technology
Photo: Ewa Kuryłowicz
Wojciech Fudala: Are there any students who are particularly memorable to you?
Ewa Kuryłowicz: I am proud of very many students. Many of them are working and are now competitors for us. That's the order of things. If I have to name someone in particular, I have very fond memories of the team of students (Marcin Bombalicki, Zofia Kurczych, Maurycy Olszewski and Monika Węgierek) with whom we participated in the international Schindler Award 2018 competition for the architectural development and development of the "East Quay" in downtown Mumbai. Despite the fact that we worked in conditions unmatched by foreign schools of architecture, we won one of the awards. Later, as part of the so-called travel grant, these students were able to personally travel to Mumbai to receive the award and visit India. I consider this my greatest didactic success. I was able to motivate people in such a way that they gave the project very modestly and yet in kind. They won against three hundred other works from all over the world.
Wojciech Fudala: What are you most proud of, considering your entire architectural career?
Ewa Kurylowicz: There is not one such thing. Of course, I'm very proud of the buildings that have been built and the formula of the studio that is in operation, which is now led by the younger generation and is successful, with my stepping down, necessarily, as an advisor. I am proud of the fact that we have been able to launch and are running the Stefan Kurylowicz Foundation, which is gaining more and more renown, and of our activity in the international forum within the UIA (International Union of Architects).
Inauguration of the Stefan Kurylowicz Foundation, 2013
© Stefan Kurylowicz Foundation archives
However, I cannot escape the fact that I come from a family of teachers. My father was a professor at the Warsaw University of Technology and the business of educating others has always been very fascinating to me. In all my years of teaching at the Department, I have never done the same subject with students. I have promoted more than one hundred and fifty graduate students and nearly twenty doctoral students. The pretexts and examples always changed, and the emphasis of the problems had to be different, because the world was changing. I believe that how I taught design and architectural theory, and what I wrote down in my book, which will be published in the summer, will be the greatest testament I will leave behind. For now, however, I'm not laying down my arms and I'm moving on!
Wojciech Fudala: Thank you for the interview.
Wojciech Fudala
Illustrations courtesy of Kurylowicz & Associates studio
