Who's not here - Berg, May, Poelzig, Kokoschka. They were the ones who designed spectacular visions for Wroclaw of the early 20th century. At the exhibition "If. Unrealized Visions of Modern Wroclaw" we see skyscrapers, residential neighborhoods and public buildings of impressive scale or novelty. Phantom versions of Wroclaw were controversial a century ago. They still electrify today.
Alternative versions of history are generally very appealing. However, the possible variants of historical events tend to be basically pure fantasy based on speculation and ignoring the governing reality of chance. It is different in the case of architecture and space. Here we often have not only general visions, but also clearly outlined designs for buildings and neighborhoods that never came to be.
Hence, it is always interesting to see materials showing what the spaces around us could look like. It is even more interesting to see them in book publications or in well-designed exhibitions. Such an exhibition can be seen for one more month, until April 21, at the Wroclaw Museum of Architecture. It is titled "If. Unrealized Visions of Modern Wroclaw," and is curated by Jerzy Ilkosz, PhD, the museum's longtime director until 2022, and Jolanta Gromadzka. The tempest concerns the first three decades of the 20th century and focuses on the work of four designers. The description reads that:
the most important projects for Wroclaw were created by prominent architects active in the city, who are considered precursors of modern architecture and urbanism of the 20th century: Max Berg, Hans Poelzig, Adolf Rading and Ernst May.
absent most beautiful
The review of the selected visions begins with an architectural shot to the top: a century-old concept for the construction of four Wrocław skyscrapers. Their author, the famous Max Berg, designer of Wrocław's Centennial Hall, decided at the dawn of the 1920s that the urban planning of modern Wrocław should be a well-thought-out synthesis of a traditional European city and skyscrapers of American provenance, integrated into it accordingly. If Berg's visions, controversial a hundred years ago and fascinating today as well, were to come true, a complex of very tall buildings would spring up in the middle of Wroclaw 's Market Square, next to the City Hall. It would be a synthesis of modernity and tradition visible, for example, in the arcaded first floor arcades.
"If. Unrealized visions of modern Wroclaw," exhibition at the Museum of Architecture - proposal for a mid-market development in Wroclaw's Market Square, designed by Max Berg, model
photo: Jakub Głaz
Another spectacular building could have been the magistrate's building on the bank of the Oder River, at today's Powstańców Warszawy Square (in cooperation with Richard Konwiarz). It ended with the project, and the same happened with the result of the competition for the development of the same place, which was held several years later. In the end, the space was filled by a building from the 1930s and 1940s with a conservative form typical of the architecture of Nazi Germany. Today it houses the Provincial Office. This case is perfectly illustrated by a somewhat ambiguous quote from Josef Ponten, cited in the description of the exhibition:
Architecture that has not been built. It is usually the most beautiful architecture!
"If. Unrealized visions of modern Wroclaw," exhibition at the Museum of Architecture - project of the magistrate on the Odra River at Powstańców Warszawy Square, designed by Max Berg and Richard Konwiarz, mock-up
photo: Jakub Glaz
crematorium and trabants
But Berg is not only skyscrapers. He is also the designer of the projects shown at the exhibition , including a concert hall, a water tower, hospitals, a granary and a very original crematorium for Grabiszyn Cemetery. Had the latter work, designed in collaboration with Oskar Kokoschka, been built, Breslau would have had yet another object noted in publications devoted to the architecture of the first half of the twentieth century. This reflection, however, is a comment that may come to mind during the tour. Because the exhibition generally does not impose any opinions, leaving space for viewers to make their own reflections. One of them may concern the formation of residential neighborhoods and efforts to heal the fabric of the city.
"If. Unrealized visions of modern Wroclaw," exhibition at the Museum of Architecture - design of a crematorium for Grabiszynski Cemetery, designed by Max Berg and Oskar Kokoschka
photo: Jakub Glaz
"If..." for it provides many examples of sensible expansion of Wrocław, both in the form of satellite cities(Trabantenstädte in the version of Ernst May and Herbert Boehm) and a concentric city with green wedges. We are looking at designs with a dense, friendly and diverse structure full of nature. When these are compared with how we create residential neighborhoods today, the reflection can be quite grim. By the way, one can also revise the view of early 20th century Breslau described in Norman Davies as a European metropolis of exceptional quality. Well, as the exhibition reports, things were not so rosy:
In the 1920s, Breslau was one of the most urban-neglected major German cities. [...] the city was characterized by a downright tragic situation both in terms of health and hygiene, as well as [...] socially.
"If. Unrealized visions of modern Wroclaw," exhibition at the Museum of Architecture - project of satellite cities of Wroclaw, designed by Ernst May and Herbert Boehm
photo: Jakub Glaz
The perception of pre-war Wrocław as a center widely open to the latest trends in architecture may also change. For as it turns out, and what the exhibition draws our attention to, in competitions the highest marks were earned by projects that were weaker than those that didn't make it to the podium. Anyway, you can make the assessment yourself, because "If..." shows accepted and rejected works. The latter therefore represent an even more vague alternative to the alternative reality that was to materialize according to the awarded concepts.
"If. Unrealized visions of modern Wroclaw", exhibition at the Museum of Architecture - general view, city plan with marked locations of projects
photo: Jakub Glaz
shopping opera
It's also a Wroclaw guessing game to take a look at the path an architect's thought sometimes took. Here, for example, an unrealized Wroclaw factory designed by Hans Poelzig in 1910 is deceptively reminiscent of the chemical plant in Luboń near Poznań of his design, built a year later. It is also interesting to imagine Breslau without the Opera House edifice and the neighboring Monopol Hotel, which were to be replaced by the grand Tietz department store. Hans Poelzig created several significantly different versions of this building, which can be compared by looking at sizable perspective drawings. This, next to the skyscraper on Market Square, is the most easily imagined unrealized change, as the background of the department store shows the still existing church of St. Stanislaus, Dorothy and Wenceslaus.
"If. Unrealized visions of modern Wroclaw," exhibition at the Museum of Architecture - concepts for the Tietz department store, designed by Hans Poelzig
photo: Jakub Glaz
However, it is more difficult to visualize in today's space of Wroclaw the other projects shown in the exhibition, because - and this is the only critical remark about the "If..." - the exhibition lacks contemporary photographs of the spaces where the unrealized buildings were to stand. For Breslavians, this is, perhaps, not such a big problem, but a visitor from outside the city may have trouble locating the concept in a city they know vaguely. On the other hand, it is worth considering it as an encouragement to - after the exhibition - go to the described addresses and run your imagination there. Besides - in the case of the most spectacular projects - they could be shown in the city space, for example, on boards forming a trail of unrealized architecture. After all, a hundred years ago, skyscrapers were not comprehensively designed for every European city.
"If. Unrealized visions of modern Wroclaw", an exhibition at the Museum of Architecture - a presentation of architects' profiles
photo: Jakub Glaz
However, this is only a minor shortcoming of the clear, transparent and communicative exhibition, another interesting proposal of the Museum of Architecture. Conjecturing about the non-existent shape of the city is facilitated by juxtaposing contemporary mock-ups of selected buildings with a large selection of original designs from the MA's resources and imported from several German archives. The sparse multimedia therefore happily serves a complementary function here - it does not interfere with the reception of the exhibition and does not drown out thoughts about it. So, for the next month, it is worth dropping in to Wroclaw, and supplement your viewing of the exhibition with a spring walk through places that might have looked very different.
Jakub Głaz
If. Unrealized visions of modern Wroclaw
18.01-21.04.2024
Curators: Jerzy Ilkosz, Ph.D., Jolanta Gromadzka
Exhibition arrangement and visual identity design: Renata Stahl-Wojtowicz
