A column by Jakub Glaz from issue 09|2021 of A&B
Do a lot, think little - this is a beautiful Polish motto. And if someone already has to think, let him think charitably. A zloty per project. Because imagination is not at a premium, and very well. That way we won't die of boredom.
Inflation is gaining momentum? No exaggeration. Single-family house projects have just become cheaper. One zloty for a house of up to 70 meters, the Prime Minister announced. Who would have guessed. It's not even the bowl of rice he kindly perorated about a few years ago. But after all, we didn't imagine many other things either. No one floated visions that soup would be carried home to us by cyclists with a cube on their backs. Nor did the futuristic forecasts include streets cluttered with cabinets - known as parcel trucks. Nor was a Chernobyl minister envisioned. Well, unless in code - in the Apocalypse.
Nor was there anything about people using cars instead of closets or basements. In any case, in the Jetsons we didn't see that. Meanwhile, small-footed Poles are keeping baby carriages in their trunks, and cars are becoming extra utility room. That's what August's "Wysokie Obcasy" reports in a good conversation about housing with sociologist Marta Olcoń-Kubicka, PhD. As housing prices jump further, we'll be living in cars altogether. In Silicon Valley, this is already typical, yet the neighborhoods there are avant-garde. Architects will remember the days of projects for a zloty with a touch of tenderness. Any projects at all.
So we can bask in the pride. Enough grumbling that Poles are not famous for foresight and long-range visions, and planning on an everyday scale. They are not famous, and that's fine. It is apparent that all this foresight is a dud, one Lem happened and that was enough. The lack of a plan is a confetti of surprises and surprise; a trimming of boring everyday life. All those: well, who would have thought, how could this happen? And, verging dangerously on the search for meaning: what did the creator want to tell us through this?
That's why, rightly, before the start of most activities in Poland, the key question "what for?" is not asked. And the derivatives: "for whom?", "what purpose should it serve?", "for how long?", "who will take care of it?". First of all, this is how children ask, and we are very mature. "What for?" - how do you even put it on the form? Zero seriousness. Second, it's a roadblock to action, a stick in the spokes of economic growth. "Now, quickly, before it reaches us that it's pointless." - this maxim of King Julian we love to put into practice on par with the cargo cult. We fly ahead, chickens with our heads cut off, and let ourselves be surprised. Concrete squares. The crumbling city. The felling of trees. Cost overruns. Waterlogging. The result of an architectural competition or commission whose terms were not thoroughly thought out.
If the principals had more accurately answered the question "why" when giving an architect a job, they would have taken away their entertainment. Suffice it to cite an excerpt from a valuable interview with Catherine and Matthew Kuo Stolarski (A&B, 07/08 2021) about endless design revisions. Clearly outlined boundary conditions would yield, perhaps, one apt result. Boredom. And yes - the architect can entertain the client with successive versions - within the same budget.
Then, when we see what this or that investment has turned into, we give expression to our emotions, because we are a nation fond of - as Bochenski put it in "The History of Stupidity in Poland" - "the politics of feelings." Anger, annoyance, disappointment - great engines to run again with our heads cut off and tinker with what has surprised us. There is something to kill time with. Because, it is known, when a person has too much time, stupid thoughts are born. About wise thoughts folk knowledge is silent.
Besides, thinking can't be seen and is cramped. Not what a prolonged labor of sweat. It is seen, it commands respect. Ass-hours. That's probably why as many as 90 percent of Polish employers want subordinates to return from remote work to offices. Another model is beyond the imagination of the Polish economist.
Exactly: imagination. Since we don't ask "why?", we won't exercise imagination. We won't generate alternative solutions and scenarios. If we did, it would be possible to look for solutions to crises before they occur. Climate, refugees, demographics, housing, the Saxon Palace, the Central Transportation Port. The queue of threats is long, but what fun is that? We'd rather extinguish than prevent. The guys like it. A firefighter has a cool helmet and a haystack.
This is why Poland doesn't give a damn about research, analysis, think tanks. And even if, by force of tradition or momentum, universities and institutes are researching something and publishing, without translating it into decision-makers and reality. Hence the lack of methodical measures, algorithms, clear procedures and a language that describes them. Everything that facilitates, for example, the design and management of space. Most cities also lack a place to learn about well-communicated plans and intentions. Mockups and visualizations. Anything that stimulates the imagination and makes you think about the surrounding reality. That there would be at least one site in the city's vacant lot where a passerby could look at the projects and think about them.
But maybe it is unnecessary? Maybe there are no more problems with the earthly space. After all, it's been more than a decade since there was an MP space team in parliament. And - which already indicates a complete lack of problems - the Parliamentary Smile Group collecting smiles drawn by the hands of famous people. Although it really happened, it is difficult to imagine - well, just imagine.
But that's what expert reading is for. In 1977 came out "Introduction to Imaginescopy" - about the method of expanding imagination. The author was Herring Otrembus Podgrobelski. Unfortunately, it was just a good joke by the Cracow scientist Stanislaw Moskal. So was the imaginescope described in the work - a device for expanding the imagination, i.e. "any hole punching a hole through any solid substance, formed in such a way that perhaps one straight line can be passed through it." In short - a hole in the whole. Anyway, a valuable thing: looking for such a hole in projects and intentions is also a useful contribution to answering the question "what for?" and - to perspective thinking.
But it is known, perspective - a deceptive thing. Everything eventually converges on one small point. However, courage!, in principle there is nothing to lose.
And so we are already deep in the dots.
