After years of dormancy, Poznań has recently been holding quite a few architectural and urban planning competitions. To the well-received competitions for professionals it has recently added student competitions. Opening up to the young has advantages, but something has gone wrong.
It hasn't been this good for a long time. After a multi-year drought, over the past five years Poznan's magistrate has held thirteen competitions. Both for buildings and public spaces: from squares, to footbridges over the Warta River, to entire neighborhoods. The results? From good to almost perfect. Some of the projects are already underway, others, after signing contracts with the winners, are waiting to be refined, while the fate of others is in limbo. Only one work went permanently into a drawer.
architectural competitions
For the past four years, most competitions have been held under a two-stage formula imported from Belgian Flanders - thus bearing the nickname "Flemish." In the first stage, studios send in a portfolio and a description of their vision. In the second - a few selected offices develop a detailed design and - importantly - get a lump sum reimbursement for this work. The new formula does not convince everyone, but it is getting increasingly favorable reviews. Especially among the finalists, who during the final stage receive not only money, but also extended feedback from the commissioners. This allows the works to be chiseled to real expectations.
new trends
However, something is beginning to rattle in the accelerated competition machine. The magistrate or city companies and institutions announce more competitions for important areas of the city, but these are competitions for students. The first case of the new trend is a competition to develop part of the Poznań International Fair, which dreamed of erecting skyscrapers. The competition, dubbed the "Skyline Challenge," was decided last June, at a time when work on revising the plan for the fairgrounds was in the final straight anyway.
The awarded works were mature, but the prize pool - fractious: seven and a half thousand zlotys. Thus, for example, the award of five hundred zlotys went to the hands of a team of five. This did not escape the attention of those gathered at the post-competition discussion:
For a few thousand zlotys you got works worth much more," Stanislaw Sipinski, one of Poznań's more enterprising architects, turned towards MTP representatives.
He is echoed by Wojciech Krawczuk, president of the Poznań branch of SARP:
The ordering parties, not knowing why, assume that students, instead of appropriate gratifications, may receive awards that are downright symbolic. This is a very unethical practice," he says.
more student competition
The controversy over the fair competition has not subsided, and the city has announced another student competition. The object of the operation: the Wiosny Ludów Square - one of the most neglected parts of the Old Town. Once a compact square, after the war an amorphous space supplemented by buildings at the rate of one building per decade. The tone here is still set by stalls, advertisements and wild parking lots. Years of neglect and a complicated ownership structure make it difficult to make decisive changes.
Wiosny Ludów Square
Photo: Jakub Głaz
An urbanistic competition for the development of the square has already been held once - in 2004. The winning design by Eryk Sieinski's ESPLAN studio was to form the basis of the local zoning plan. However, due to minor property divisions and the unwillingness of one of the owners to make any investments - the assumptions of the winning work could not be realized.
The winning competition concept for the development of pl. Wiosny Ludów (2004),
design: ESPLAN, Eryk Sieinski, Marcin Sałata, Anna Sieińska
© ESPLAN
Only now, sixteen years after the competition, a new plan - based on different assumptions - has been passed. It provides for the designation of the most troublesome plot of land for a public purpose (the plaza slab) and the associated expropriation. By the way, it will greatly facilitate the investment of an efficient and effective developer, who owns the adjacent land.
Meanwhile (again, while the plan is being advanced), the city has announced a student competition for the area in the fall of 2019. The goal?
To obtain background material for further planning work[sic! - editor's note] on the area covered by the competition, to educate widely, and to identify and promote young, talented architects.
The boundaries of the study concerned not only the arrangement of the square's slab, but the planned development and Szkolna Street leading to the Old Market. The prizes were funded by Orpea, which is currently converting a former hospital on Szkolna Street into a senior care center. The prize pool was astonishing this time too: six thousand zlotys. The city did not contribute a zloty. Vice Mayor Bartosz Guss explained: students are supported by their parents anyway.
The competition was decided on February 19 - six (!) days before councilors passed the plan. Sixty-four works were evaluated, but the competition was disappointing: there were no prizes. The jury awarded two first-degree and three second-degree honorable mentions. They appreciated projects that were very correct, tailored to the expectations of the developer and the provisions of the plan under preparation. On the other hand, works that dealt with unusual space in a more creative way were off the podium.
The result, therefore, satisfied no one, because the competition was announced too late. The developers of the plan could no longer be inspired by creative and unrewarded works, and the winning concepts, which met the organizer's strict requirements - did not bring much new.
First there was a competition for professionals, then the provisions of the local plan, and now, moments before the approval of the draft plan, students are asked what they would see there too," Krawchuk is surprised by the order adopted. He adds that it is inappropriate to omit the voice of professionals, although - on the other hand - he is not against student competitions. - This is the right thing to do, provided they are conducted in the early planning stages. They can then give the contracting authority a fresher perspective, generate public discussion, make the architectural community think, and attract investors," he explains.
How to use the potential of students?
So maybe abandoning professional competitions is an idea for municipal savings? With a budgeted competition it is easy to shut the mouths of those who consider municipal competitions a necessity, and then carry out the investment in a shape far from the results of non-professional competitions. After all, with a student competition, it is difficult to obtain quality that will later allow easy implementation of the project. It is not surprising, then, that - already after the outcome - Piotr Sobczak, director of the Urban Planning and Architecture Department of the Poznań City Hall, considered another, this time professional competition.
The specter of cheap and strange competitions, however, is not going away. A competition intended only for students was also recently announced for the Jeżycki Square, one of the squares that make up the center of Poznan's historic districts. The idea does not please, among others, neighborhood councilors. All the more so since the city has wooed the main square of a neighboring district - Rynek Lazarski - with a professional competition. The Jeżyce Estate Council therefore demands that the magistrate organize an open and well-prepared competition. It is echoed by Chairman Krawchuk and suggests a Solomon solution:
In order not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, it is worth reaching for Western solutions. There, professionals and several teams of inexperienced architects, or even students under the supervision of an academic with the appropriate design credentials, are often invited to competitions, she says.
There is another, simpler way. Students can be engaged for advanced conceptual work during classes at the university. This is what happened recently at Poznan University of Technology. Seven student teams prepared in-depth term papers on a section of the walls of the Old Town and the adjacent Wilhelmy Square by the Estrada Poznań building. Perhaps the works will be presented outdoors to generate discussion among residents and professionals.
And this could be a very good starting point for launching a professional competition," concluded the supervisor of the semester-long project, Prof. Slawomir Rosolski.
