Utopia House - International Center for Empathy - is a heavy load of important and lofty words for the name of a single institution. The weight of these slogans, however, did not frighten the initiators of the idea for this unique place - the creators of the Łaźnia Nowa Theater, Małgorzata Szydłowska and Bartosz Szydłowski.
TheUtopia House is somewhat hidden, shyly tucked away in the heart of Nowa Huta, located in a wing of the Electrical School Complex building on the Szkolny estate, unused for many years. Its body, rebuilt, expanded and adapted to new needs, symbolically refers to the history of the Nowa Huta Combine, among other things through the steel elements used in the building (the author of the adaptation project is architect Marek Dormus, the concept was created in cooperation with Małgorzata Szydłowska). These newly developed walls house an artistic and educational center, a meeting place, a place to build interpersonal relations, a space that invites people to seek the links between art and everyday life.
The Utopia House 
Utopia House is located in the former wing of the building of the Electrical School Complex on the School estate
photo: Maciej Lulko
Utopia House is to become a kind of laboratory of new aesthetic values, attitudes and relationships. To introduce elements of everyday life into contemporary art, in such a way that these two spheres permeate each other, " explained Malgorzata Szydlowska* in an interview with Malgorzata Wach.
The upcycled 2,200-square-meter edifice primarily houses rooms for artist residencies (ranging from comfortable apartments for one person to spaces for artists visiting with their families) and craft studios - including ceramics or tailoring, as well as multimedia and workshop rooms, a fitness room and sauna. However, there are no exhibition spaces, because the idea of this place is not to create art to be seen, but to go beyond the walls with it, to the residents.
The 
comfortable apartments are meant for artists
photo: Maciej Lulko
Together with residents of Nowa Huta, we will seek answers to the questions: what role does art play today, does man still need it? If so, how should it look today, so that it can become part of everyday life? - adds Malgorzata Szydlowska.
Lukasz Trzcinski, an artist, curator and co-creator of, among other things, the research-based "Metropolis Project" presented a few years ago at the Silesian Museum, one of the largest contemporary art exhibitions on the current image of Upper Silesia and the Dąbrowa Basin, is responsible for the issues of artistic residencies at the Utopia House. This program, like Utopia House, focused on activities with local communities and, according to its creators, inviting contemporary art to places where it may not have been before. There are more similarities - the artist residencies at the House of Utopia are also more about process than effect, going beyond top-down scenarios.
The 
the art and education center primarily houses artist residencies and craft studios
photo: Maciej Lulko
The walls of Utopia House are, Trzcinski says, an open-access facility for these activities, and the initiatives planned there are intended to help engage a variety of groups, including through programs for people in crisis of homelessness or lack of work (as in the Lukasz Surowiec's "Black Diamonds" project , in which the artist invited unemployed miners from Bytom to create more than 230 diamond-shaped sculptures out of coal, activating them professionally and drawing attention to the problems of Silesian miners).
Alicja Patanowska's objects on the roof of the House of Utopia
photo: Malgorzata Szymczyk-Karnasiewicz
More initiatives, events and workshops are announced through the International Empathy Center 's website and Facebook page. Undertakings are currently being carried out under three main projects - "Archaeology of Everyday Life," an initiative focusing on exploring everyday life and searching for new meanings and senses in itmeanings, "University of Looking at Theater," a project aimed at people who want to expand their knowledge of theater, and "Cooperative of Good Practices," which is a support zone for Nowa Huta initiatives and activities. The Utopia House is also home to "Lotny Dom Wydawniczy", a project by Lukasz Trzcinski, which is about finding alternative ways to distribute knowledge.
The 
"Kombinat 2.0" is a publication authored by Dorota Jędruch and Rafał Woś, published by Dom Utopii i Lotny Dom Wydawniczy}
photo: House of Utopia
On the roof of the House of Utopia, which overlooks Nowa Huta, peeping into the courtyard of a neighboring school or observing the Nowa Huta Reservoir, residents are already creating a communal garden, watched closely by a bright green figure of a peeing Lenin - the "Fountain of the Future," an installation by Małgorzata Szydłowska and Bartosz Szydłowski modeled on a monument to the USSR leader by Marian Konieczny.
A community garden on the roof of the House of Utopia
Photo: Malgorzata Szymczyk-Karnasiewicz
TheUtopia House is intentionally not fenced, it invites and encourages people to cross its threshold and feel at home.
I am committed to making Utopia House an open place. One where Nowa Huta residents will be able to stop by during an ordinary walk: sit on a bench, enter the building, read a book, drink coffee, talk. Such a visit will not necessarily involve a specific activity or workshop. The fence is a barrier of sorts. By definition, it is a physical barrier, but in some dimension it also becomes a mental barrier. It signals that the building has a strictly defined function, and is therefore only accessible to a select few ," explains Szydłowska.
Turbo Bags created as part of the Good Practices Cooperative workshop, during which participants sewed bags from used banners of cultural institutions
photo: Malgorzata Szymczyk-Karnasiewicz
Utopia House is thus an open, accessible place, hungry for the creation of interpersonal relationships, creative visions and joint activities. And all this under the banner of what never loses its value - empathy.
Ola Kloc
* all quotes are from a conversation between Malgorzata Wach and Malgorzata Szydlowska available on the Utopia House website: domutopii.pl/updates/artysci-beda-uczyc-empatii-w-nowej-huta
