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 this 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.
Dominika Wilczynska, Barbara Nawrocka and Dominika Janicka on hits and putts in 2021
FromA&B issue 01|2022
In 2021, we tried and tried to shake off the big pandemic shutdown and get back to socializing. The big events were able to take place in real life again. At the same time, it is gratifying that our new normal is, among other things, to record panel discussions and make them available online. This makes it very easy to reach residents of other cities, as well as people with disabilities who would have trouble getting to a stationary event.
After a year's break, the big industry events also returned, including Milan and Venice. Design showed that you can go for quality, not quantity. The Biennale proved that social and ecological contexts now dominate the discourse, and we can confidently count this phenomenon as a hit.
And in Poland? In Poland, we want to rebuild a tasteless tenement and call it a palace, develop a patchwork urbanism and call it the New Deal. After these two ideas, quite misguided, there is a third, the most despicable and filthy, and it is called the wall on the Polish-Belarusian border. Thus, 2021 is dominated by the architecture of power, chaos and oppression.
Ambivalent feelings were aroused by the competition for typical single-family houses for PLN. The idea of socializing projects seems noble, but it won't compensate us for the deepening suburbanization. As if that weren't enough, the houses of families of the future were to be decided by an all-male jury. Outrage grows with the realization that, statistically, men spend far less time than women in suburban homes.
Coming to the gender issue, it's worth noting that we released the 2021 Women Architects' Ball to the world, and we consider the success, not so much ours as the industry's, a very warm reception to it. We will not hide the fact that, despite the awareness of the need for such an initiative, it also involved a lot of stress. In the country we live in, a feminist coming out might as well have been an image shot in the foot. For the time being, indulgent comments are probably being made, but behind the scenes. On the forum, no hater has yet mustered the courage.
By proclaiming the end of the archdiagnosis, we unwittingly became the police guarding gender equality in panels and industry conferences. Our inboxes were first bursting at the seams with emails from female students and young female employees complaining about gender discrimination manifested in sexist comments, among other things. More recently, however, we have been receiving denunciations of more contests, panels or conferences attended and sponsored by men themselves. We are very saddened by the fact that someone is still trying and throwing the slogan "the future" with a picture of guys alone. Dear building materials manufacturer, dear conference organizers, in honor of the New Year, take a little hint from us: The future is female.
Even the SARP recently confirmed this, awarding the first Honorary Award in forty-three years to a woman. Now we are waiting for SARP, following the example of its German counterpart, to expand its name to the Association of Women Architects of Poland.
