The end of December - because that's when we finished preparing the January issue - is the best time for all kinds of summaries. And like every year, we ask practitioners and architecture critics to write what they consider a success and what they consider a failure in a given year. We do it in the convention of Kits and Hits. We give our Authors and Authors total freedom of expression and exceptionally we do not moderate this discussion. We are just very curious about it. For us, the biggest setback of this year was a marked decline in interest in the competition procedure. The large number of tenders for important spaces in Polish cities testifies to the fact that it is not quality that is most important, but cheapness. This is a very disturbing trend. We consider the pandemic-enforced interest in ecology, the climate crisis and the social relations resulting from the use of architecture to be a success. There is still much to do, but the accuracy of the diagnosed problems makes us optimistic. 2020 has already made history, so we look to the future with hope!
- A&B editors
Jakub Glaz on putty and hits in 2020 architecture
HIT - Forced acceleration
What happened - to use Gehl's term - between buildings can be considered a hit. In parts of Polish cities a bit by accident, also due to the epidemic, there was an accumulation of phenomena that affected public space by leaps and bounds.
First of all, the pandemic caused changes that had previously been dosed in apothecary doses to accelerate in many places. Suddenly it appeared that it was possible to widen sidewalks and make them car-free in a fairly short period of time, paint bicycle lanes or contraflows, fill in the greenery in spots, lay out long bus lanes, and calm traffic. All this to enable social distance. This sanitary argument has greatly dampened the traditional voices of protest in such situations, especially from people who can't imagine getting around other than by car. As a result, city authorities have sometimes managed in one stroke to introduce solutions that would have previously put them at risk of falling ratings at the polls. Sometimes it was enough to pull concepts out of drawers that made sense years ago, and pedestrians and cyclists immediately voted for them with their feet.
Secondly, previously intended larger-scale projects were also implemented, such as the spectacular narrowing of John Paul II Avenue in Warsaw, similar but half-hearted measures on the capital's Górczewska Street, or the equally important but less spectacular and less expensive civilization of the old city's Garbary Street in Poznań. Together with the changes undertaken in "pandemic mode," this has a critical mass effect - residents are beginning to appreciate the comprehensiveness of the transformations and, it seems, are starting to favor them more, especially if they involve greenery.
Because, thirdly, also through the pandemic and the associated restrictions, Poles have begun to appreciate nature even more strongly, which ceases to be, in the popular perception, a decoration of the urban landscape and an unnecessary cost, and moves into the category of "profit" as a guarantor of maintaining health and as such mental stability.
Of course, we can complain that we have not experienced changes on the scale of Paris or Vienna, which responded to the pandemic in a more radical way, but even so, we have just passed the point from which there is probably no return to the old thinking about shaping cities. So maybe we won't have to wait another decade for an above-ground crossing of Warsaw's Dmowskiego traffic circle and the repair of hundreds of similarly dysfunctional places across the country.
KIT - Silver disaster and castle
This year has been fraught with so many kits of a non-architectural nature that - in fact - it's hard to find a spectacular firework. There is, however, a problem that has been smoldering for years, but it was the past year that drew attention to it. Poland's aging society (a "silver tsunami" or "silver revolution" is coming) has been thrown a lifeline during the pandemic in the form of in-store "seniors' hours." However, no one knows how to comprehensively answer the question, what about the days, months, years and decades of senior citizens? After all, their functioning in Polish buildings and spaces is not easy or pleasant. We are talking especially about the increasing number of "fourth floor prisoners" - grounded in their apartments in houses without elevators. Younger citizens locked up during quarantine and lockdown have only had a foretaste of what awaits them in the future, if long-term and serious thinking does not begin about seniors.
Problems abound. Lack of elevators, comfortable and wide sidewalks and access to buildings, heavy and non-functional doors, kitchens and bathrooms not adapted to the needs of people with disabilities, lack of decent day care centers, assisted living facilities and the ability to easily convert units that are too large or too high to smaller and first floor units. It's also the scarcity of little things that make life easier for people with poor eyesight or perception: proper lettering, colors, clear intuitive information. Seniors are also deterred from leaving home by the inadequate number and availability of public toilets. In small towns, where there is no public transportation, there is the added difficulty of accessing services and health centers further away. In principle, this is no longer an architectural problem, but without a holistic approach even the best-designed house will be just a golden cage.
The lack of comprehensive programs to solve these problems is frightening. But it also hurts the paucity of creativity and a sensitive outlook, so that certain issues can be dealt with almost immediately. A case in point is Sweden, where there are folding chairs for seniors in the elevators of high communal blocks. Seats and shelves or bag hangers are located on mezzanines and at entrances to houses. Lacking even such simple solutions, Poland is decidedly not a country for older people. "Live fast, die young" is the motto that should replace the "god-honor-fatherland" - the slogan recently pressed into our passports.
Instead, Poland is a paradise for the rich and insolent. For among the age of putty of the foul year, the scandal of the December legalization of the construction of a castle in Stobnica near Poznań should not be passed over in silence. The now-famous castle with a hotel and recreational function is being built on the basis of a permit issued in violation of the law, in a nature protection zone, disturbs the landscape, and will affect the surrounding area even more strongly once the project is launched. The PIS governor's decision to legalize this investment is not only a spit in the face of less wealthy and law-abiding investors. Above all, it is another mockery of the law, the idea of planning and sustainable development. In fact, Stobnica is a very visible symbol of the approach to planning and investment in the last thirty years, as well as of the variety of capitalism adopted over the Vistula. Like the banks that contributed to the 2008 crisis by not exercising proper control over space, we have grown a castle too big to fail. Who can prohibit the rich?
Jakub GŁAZ
architecture critic, publicist, architect by training, lives and works in Poznan
