On Friday, December 20, 2024, we got to know the winning design for the expansion of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw by the Warsaw-based studio TŁO, founded by Michal Sikorski. The concept has become the hottest topic of the last few days - paradoxically, the form that the discussion around the "Lapidarium/Vivarium", as the work was titled, is currently taking is not only not conducive to the realization of this vision, but is also an infamous testimony to the level of architectural debate in our country. Fortunately, there are some exceptions - so what is being said about the design of the new Architecture Museum buildings?
The space for discussion of architecture has barely had time to cool down after the storm created by the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. When the dust settled, a new, no less exciting topic appeared on the wallpaper - the expansion of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw. Once again, throngs of social media users felt compelled to express their opinions on the project selected last Friday in an international competition organized by the Museum of Architecture and the SARP Wrocław Branch. Seemingly, this is a phenomenon that can be viewed in a positive light - the public is becoming more and more involved in the discussion on the shaping of space.
Unfortunately, once again we can speak of a phenomenon similar to that which took place in the context of the new Warsaw museum - a wave of blunt comments (hejt?), which are often the result of a very superficial view of an extremely complicated issue. In the avalanche of statements, however, there are those whose authors lean a little deeper into the controversial project. Below we compile some of the most interesting statements from those involved in architecture. What do architects and architects, critics and critics write about the TŁO studio project?
why background?
The first statement on the project for the new building of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, with which we had the opportunity to get acquainted, was the justification for the award of the first prize, being the result of the work of a 12-person committee, which spent dozens, or even hundreds of hours on thein-depth analysis of the works submitted for the competition, and consisted of a group of specialists and experts such as Maciej Miłobędzki, co-founder of JEMS Architekci studio, Roman Rutkowski, designer of important Wroclaw spaces, and Bogna Świątkowska, founder of the Bęc Zmiana Foundation. This is the first part of the justification of the jury, which awarded the work first prize:
The first prize was awarded for accurately fitting the project into the Museum's mission, plans and needs - both functionally and symbolically. Weaving together in one gesture a reinterpretation of the past with a reflection on the present and the future, the designers consciously decided to use recycled materials, minimizing the facility's carbon footprint and reducing the consumption of natural resources. And all new elements will be designed according to the principle of design for disassembly - that is, assuming their reuse, bringing into the discussion a reflection on the full life cycle of the building. The project is a clear signal in the city space marking the existence of the Museum of Architecture, the only such institution in the country, one of the few in Europe. By proposing to move outdoors, to the urban space, to the façade of the building an exhibition composed of elements and details of architectural objects that no longer exist. He introduces this solution as a strategy, a curatorial project to be carried out in cooperation with the museum team.
You can read the entire verdict and a presentation of the other awarded works on the page presenting the results of the competition for the expansion of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw.
Project for the Expansion of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw
© BACKGROUND | Courtesy of the competition organizers
reduce, reuse, recycle
It's hard to resist the impression that what was most decisive for the choice of the project of the TŁO studio is, above all, the answer the architects gave to the challenges of modernity, aptly defined in the description of the competition work.
When teaching students about the high carbon footprint of construction, we usually point out possible fields of progress: healthier materials, reducing dependence on installations, recycling or reusing materials and minimizing the production of new ones. At the same time, we continue to open award-winning edifices made of new concrete. It's as if one generation is telling the next generation "this is the last time we do this, you guys don't do this anymore." In fact, in a few years "business as usual" will no longer be possible with the tightening of European legislation on reporting the carbon footprint of new buildings, which will probably coincide with the expansion of the Museum of Architecture.
That answer will become the use of demolition materials in the construction process. The design of the Museum's new edifice involves the use of raw materials found in situ, such as steel sections from the interior of the Bernardine Church or planks of the platform, now part of the exhibition architecture. The facades and other areas of the building, in turn, will include elements from as yet undefined demolitions. Their origin will probably be determined in further stages of the project's development. The building's structure will be constructed from recycled concrete, formed so that the individual elements can be dismantled and then used in future structures, in accordance with the principle of circular economy.
a building submerged in history
However, the solutions proposed by the architects have another, symbolic dimension, which fits into the context of Wroclaw's post-war history. Its specificity and the place that the rebuilt Museum of Architecture can occupy among Wroclaw's buildings is noted in a post on his Facebook profile by Kuba Snopek:
"We have [...] 99% decent 'background architecture': solid, functional, planned to the line. And against this background: bam - the largest concrete hall in the world. Next to it - the Spire, so that the hall would be more comfortable. An estate in the shape of an eagle. WuWA estate. Atrial houses. Two (not one, but two!) houses-igloo. A museum completely covered with vines. The follies of Mrs. Hawrylak and Mr. Jarząbek. A tenement where the windows and walls are in reverse. A skyscraper built from top to bottom. If you think about it, there's really a lot of that. Much more than in any other city in Poland.
The expansion of the Museum of Architecture is another project in this series. Completely crazy, unexpected, leading architecture to its limits, inscribed in modernity before it happened. And yet I am absolutely convinced that if we let it be built, it will be an extremely warm and welcoming place.
Michal Sikorski's design is part of the Wroclaw-Dolubian tradition of collecting things from the past and using them. I look at these renderings and am reminded of.... a post-German stove that my grandfather bought from some farmer and put in his summer house. Or my grandmother's garden, where some unidentified, moss-grown old stones lay between the fruit trees. Or even... The years-long search for Neptune, which ended with the spectacular success of Tomasz Sielicki. There are many such Neptunians hidden in the facades of the building designed by Michael.
Project for the Expansion of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw.
© BACKGROUND | Shared courtesy of the competition organizers.
Zygmunt Borawski, architect and critic, speaks in a similar tone about the project of the TŁO studio:
[...] the competition work of TŁO is more than just an example of material reuse. It is also the art of "re-configuration" as I prefer to call it - i.e. the ability to use existing architectural elements of historical value, both structural and ornamental, in a way that gives them a new meaning. In this way, they become pillars of an architectural lapidary - a place that celebrates the past while inspiring the future.
For a half-Italian like me, lapidaries are an everyday occurrence and one of the more romantic sights I know. As I wander through Italian cities, I pass plenty of them, and I know how inviting they are for contemplation and reflection on history. In his project, Michal brings back the spirit of contemplation, putting it in the context of contemporary Polish architecture. What's more, he does it in a particularly significant way in the "recovered"/"post-German" lands, where the tension between what has been lost, preserved and added to over the years is particularly evident. Ideologically, too.
However, the Background project is not purely nostalgic - quite the opposite. The patchwork aesthetic that defines it also takes into account the reuse of building materials of a more mundane nature: ordinary bricks, cut blocks, forgotten stone blocks. In this respect, Michal and his team draw not only on the aesthetics that have dominated the Benelux countries for a decade, but also on our native patterns - the rural architecture of Mazovia or Lodz (this may sound to somelike a joke, but already Corbusier in the 1930s saw the potential in such architecture, not to mention arte povera and a whole host of post-war - prominent - architects and architects who made rurality their life motto). There, limited resources forced people to supplement brick houses and farm buildings with materials that happened to be on hand: silicate bricks, hollow blocks, fieldstone. A similar practice can be seen in Tuscany, where since the Middle Ages peasants have built their houses with whatever they had at hand-pietra serena, pietra forte, Roman bricks or pottery, etc.-creating a landscape that still delights today.
Ningbo Museum in China, design: Wang Shu
Photo: Siyuwj © CC BY-SA 3.0 | Wikimedia Commons
spolia of the 21st century
The project by the studio TŁO by Michal Sikorski takes the direction that today's architecture needs. However, it does not take it first - both those commenting on the winning work and the authors themselves note that there are contemporary realizations in which architectural spolia are both a means of expression and an attitude towards the climate crisis. One of the most important buildings created in this spirit is arguably the Ningbo Museum in China, designed by Wang Shu, winner of the 2012 Pritzker Prize. Like the authors from the TŁO studio, Wang Shu chose to cover the museum's facade with a patchwork made from bricks and tiles reclaimed from demolition villages in the Zhejiang region.
Ningbo Museum in China, pro: Wang Shu
Photo: Siyuwj © CC BY-SA 3.0 | Wikimedia Commons
The works of Jožef Plečnik, a Slovenian architect active mainly in the 1st half of the 20th century, who used architectural elements from now-defunct buildings in his practice, were probably also a point of reference. The flagship example of his work is the National and University Library building in Ljubljana, completed in 1941, in which the architect made extensive use of archaeological finds to finish the facade.
Building of the National and University Library in Ljubljana, proj.: Jože Plečnik
Photo: Sebastian Bergmann © CC BY-SA 2.0 | Wikimedia Commons
gallery without tickets
On the southern façade, which serves as an outdoor gallery, the architects placed objects that could become part of an outdoor exhibition already at the visualization stage. They are material witnesses of the past and the processes that led them to become matter torn from their original context. With his project, Michal Sikorski reminds us that the fate of many buildings that seem to be architectural icons or symbols of their time is never quite certain. That's why, in addition to the detail from the unlamented Emilia, the unexpectedly demolished Votum Alex, or the crazy Solpol, the visualizations depicting the southern wall of the warehouse building include fragments of buildings that have more than once faced the specter of demolition - the mosaics of Wrocław's ZETO pavilion or the ladder from Ciechanów's swimming pool, designed by Romuald Gutt.
We design the Collections Building as a large-scale "shelf" for exhibits - fragments of demolished or modernized buildings that are already - or will be in the future - in the Museum's possession. Designed in this way, the building is both a backdrop for the exhibition and becomes part of the collection itself. The exhibition may transform over the years, reflecting the changing nature of the collection and the Museum's research interests; or it may remain unchanged, becoming a permanent part of the spatial identity of downtown Wroclaw. The exhibition will be a curatorial project, drawing on Wrocław's rich history of spoliation and borrowing, the shape of which will be influenced by Museum staff.
- write the authors about their project.
Project for the Expansion of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw
© BACKGROUND | Courtesy of the competition organizers
if you criticize, then criticize constructively
In the online media space, there have also been statements that constructively note the weaker sides of the winning project. It is hardly surprising, as the work of the TŁO studio is an extremely bold concept, full of unconventional solutions, and a substantive discussion gives a chance to "polish" the project, which, after all, as the authors themselves write, is more of a "recipe" for expansion than a finished work. Objections are levelled at the urban planning solutions - related both to the overshadowing of the southern elevation of St. Bernardine's Church and the accompanying monastery buildings, and the methods of shaping space by the newly designed block.
The vast majority of works - including the winning one - propose a STILL corner of Slowackiego/Bernardinska Street - but I hope this will change in the course of further design work. This is a serious mistake - we are talking about the strict center, a place where there is a lot of pedestrian traffic, and city-making corners are a MUST. Several teams proposed a great, lively, accessible from the street, city-creating form, drawing in the interior, locating on the corner a cafe, a bookstore - applause. Too bad it's not the winning project.
- writes Lukasz Szymanowicz, a Wroclaw-based architect and architecture critic.
At this point, however, it is worth noting that the spatial solutions adopted by the designers are as deliberate as possible and related to the function the building will serve. As the authors of the project write:
When designing the Collections Building as an urban exhibit shelf, we are responding to the dilemma of a building with the rank of a public building, located in a key urban location, which, however, programmatically does not offer many functions of a public nature, and the translucency of the facade is even undesirable for most functions.
A kind of compensation is to be the exhibition function of the southern elevation, described above. Perhaps also the competition jury, which during the presentation of the results stipulated that none of the works fully responded to the competition's problems, saw some shortcomings in the consistently implemented concept of "closing" the building from the Słowackiego Avenue side. Indeed, the post-competition recommendations included comments on access to light in the studios of the inventory department, photography, digitizing and stained glass studios.
Project for the Expansion of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw
© BACKGROUND | Shared courtesy of the competition organizers
voice of reason
Perhaps the most valuable opinion, however, seems to be the one posted on her Facebook profile by Monika Arczynska, co-founder of A2P2 ARCHITECTURE & PLANNING, the studio responsible, among other things, for the revitalization project of Freedom Square in Lodz, hailed as the best public space of 2024.
I hope that the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw will soon organize a post-competition discussion, with a presentation of the competition guidelines, a presentation of the winning work and the obligatory recording/transmission. You can look at the charts, but without knowledge of the assumptions and conditions it's still incomplete information - the selection in the competition of a concept for realization is a process that cannot be easily summarized. Critically evaluating the winning competition entry on the basis of a few visuals and quotes from the description, which is what is currently happening in social media, is on the one hand a nightmarish misunderstanding, and on the other hand an opportunity to discuss what architecture should be and what it is about to be. I hope that the Museum and the architectural community will take advantage of this opportunity, but full information about the project is needed.
The chance will certainly come, as we will hear more about the project to expand the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw in the second half of January 2025, when a post-competition discussion is to be held. Already now, however, we encourage you to keep a close eye on the dialogue that is taking place around the winning work, and above all to take a longer view of this extremely bold project.
