Today let me greet you with such a small joke. What does the construction company that was previously commissioned to build the fountain in the square say to the local government as a farewell?
- See you soon.
Ok. Now that we've had a rusk, it's time for a delicious coffee, which is about to bring you to your knees on this depressing November Monday. With this oh so nimble way we move on to the main topic, the unusual: five thousand three hundred and eighty-second isolated case of a fountain being smashed by a car in our country, or more precisely this time in Cracow on Axentowicz Square, a portrait painter, landscape painter andgenerally a genius rivaling for the name of this place with the square named after the Prisoners of the Holocaust Camp, which functions here in parallel, but as if for unknown reasons, less frequently accented in the media.
Cracow - fountain at Axentowicza Square
photo: Aleksandra Kloc, Paweł Mrozek
The fountain at Axentowicza Square in Cracow
photo: Izabela Solecka
As usual, in a situation like today, for those who are not - as they say - familiar with the issue of uncommonly smashed fountains, I recommend that you do yourself such a googling exercise and type into the search engine, in whatever language you can think of, the phrase "car in a fountain." I guarantee that the results of this experiment will certainly give you unearthly amazement. Well, while in all other languages that have descended from the Tower of Babel construction site, you will find at most eccentric instances of pretentious art installations, so in Polish our eyes should be revealed a real slaughter of the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex, an innumerable gallery of veritable masochism in space and mass murder on park installations of water pleasures. I must admit that as the first daredevil to undertake this experiment on myself, I initially did not believe in its empirical results. However, "sajens is sajens," it turns out that merrily vandalizing fountains with cars is a one hundred percent Polish-endemic species occurring in large numbers in the urbanized area of our entire country during theperiod, mostly in autumn and spring, while the main characters in this drama, apart from us of course, i.e. the tragic national collective hero, are most often a police car, an ambulance, municipal services, or less often some lazy courier, or just the so-called proverbial gentleman in an Iveko who just wanted to make a short cut.
The fountain at Axentowicza Square in Cracow
photo: Dawid Solecki
However, that's not what's really important in all of this, who entered, where they entered and what they did there. All these micro stories are just quantum noise and, from a scientific point of view, an irrelevant element with hundreds of similar events, at the same time unexplained causes common only to the area within the borders of our country. The most interesting question that can be asked in such a situation is "What is wrong, ladies and gentlemen, with us chicken faeries?" Today the question, today the answer so I answer. We've probably got a lot scraped up and, as they say, a lot behind our bosoms, but my conscious theory is that we are a borderland country with a world of poverty, misery and low standards and a world of wealth, progress and high culture. At the same time, we are just at such an unfortunate point of this equilibrium that from the former we take low standards, and from the latter we are only interested in wealth, and thus hocus-pocus we have become a country unique in the world, which invests massively in glitz andsplendor of public spaces, because we can afford them and we like to splash capital into such excesses, and at the same time, when it comes to their boring daily use, we behave like a bunch of wild people who have just come down from the mountains where they have been hiding so far in caves for the last 20,000 years. years.
But ok, let's ask ourselves, is there any hope for us yet? I will also answer briefly, so as not to keep you in suspense, there is no hope, of course, but there may be some solutions that, although unsatisfactory, because we are not going to hang anyone after all, arenevertheless perhaps enabling us to stop this unfavorably costly phenomenon and play a tinkering game titled design, build and renovate then at our expense until the Lord comes. Therefore, on this occasion, in order not to strain your patience, I have analyzed all the possibilities for remedying this misery and eliminated from my thought process all those measures that I considered impossible to implement in Poland. Let's start with what is "insupportable."
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Traffic enforcement - there is not much to explain here. We all know that such a thing does not work in Poland and will never work, especially with regard to sidewalks. However, even if it were to work, after all, the introduction of this increased social oppression further called standards of normal coexistence in more civilized countries, in order to limit this motorized affirmation of freedom in public space would surely murder our poor tormented GDP of this country like a boom-bust and lead to cruel unemployment and bankrupt public finances. Forcing people to think and obey laws, especially the laws of physics as we know them, does not usually make them happier or more willing to make sacrifices.
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Changing the laws and completely banning moving, parking or levitating cars in the area of sidewalks and generally off the road surface, which is designed for this, as opposed to the sidewalk surface, which is not designed for this and therefore most often looks like an early period archaeological survey in Pompeii - does not. Rebellions, riots, national identity crises and partitions. Something seems to me that this is also "aintgonnaheppen".
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Instructing all the services, budget establishments and municipal and cooperative companies, which usually taking advantage of the fact that they have a flashing light on the roof and do "glow-in-the-dark", would most willingly drive into the crypt under Wawel Castle if they could fit on thestairs by car - well, that's impossible too, after all, there are fourteen billion such people and they are still being born, and it's impossible to reach everyone with an educational message, because who would supposedly do it? The Greenery Board? Pfff.
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Then maybe changing the way fountains are designed and returning to more traditional forms with a separate basin for water - yym. This, too, is absolutely impossible, because every architect who takes on the task is firmly convinced that if he designs a fountain along the lines of the wolf pits with sprinklers that have been massively trotted out in this country for only 30 years, he will climb to the heights of progressive modernity, join the elite and make his monumental mark in the history of the art of landscape architecture. On the other hand, if he designs something normal, it will be beee, fuuuu, PRL and how can it be so, who has seen it. Well, and his colleagues will laugh at him. Believe me, I know architects, baa, I am one myself. I guarantee you this will not happen.
It is bad, but let's not panic yet. So you can see for yourself that the spectrum of rescue and prevention measures, out of this or that, out of a very abundant assortment, is slowly starting to look dramatically poor, like the shelves of a bakery before closing for a long weekend. So what else can we do in such a situation in a public space armed only with a kilo of breadcrumbs and the last survivor of the pogrom tempered tactical baguette? Well, we are left with only one option. The last resort of the shrewd local government, namely an art installation. In this case, I will direct you right away to the right kind of artistic installation, so as not to sometimes get lost in this capacious phrase. I mean, of course, a permanent spatial form in the form of a concrete anti-tank barricade. But not the kind of limey ones like the ones the Russians hailed from the construction market on the front line in Donbass, because that's what any Romek and Stefan will calmly move with a bumper. Let's be serious. In order to stop the charge of the Polish heavy motorized hussars, we need a real park-like Atlantic Wall or another Maginot line invaded by anti-tank dragon teeth and a flaming moat in which heat-resistant alligators will swim, well, and only maybe, maybe we will avoid some of these accidents. Hence, my tentative proposal to start with the method of design thinking to implement such prototyping.
The fountain at Axentowicza Square in Krakow - author's proposal for a military-art installation to protect the fountain
© Paweł Mrozek
Fountain at Axentowicza Square in Krakow - author's proposal for a military-artistic installation to protect the fountain
© Paweł Mrozek
Fountain in Axentowicza Square in Krakow - author's proposal for a military-artistic installation to protect the fountain
© Paweł Mrozek
Fountain in Axentowicza Square in Krakow - author's proposal for a military-artistic installation to protect the fountain
© Pawel Mrozek
I know, I know, you may have felt surprised by this concept, but it should not surprise anyone that I had already made preparations to create this text long before today's players from Krakow, standing up to their waists in rubble, realized that they had just covered themselves with immortal fame. In conclusion, one more thought. As Albert Einstein once said, "It is madness to do the same thing over and over again, but to expect different results," and with this wise aphorism today we greet the Board of Urban Greening in Krakow, which in its quick and decisive response to the situation declared that the fountain on Axentowicza Square will be repaired soon. Let me tell you a secret dear local management. No one cares if the fountain is repaired quickly so that it can be smashed again next year, only if you can do it better this time.
