POV: You arrive in Upper Silesia in the second half of the 1950s. A few years have passed since World War II, and Poland has begun to be ruled by Gomulka, who took over as secretary after the equally colorful Boleslawieruć. Dantean scenes are taking place in the volcanoes, where locals regularly wash with visitors. Representatives of communist authorities from outside the former Silesian province are garnered to regional power, and in schools teachers beat children on the hands for "speaking Silesian." All this is happening surrounded by German architecture and surrogates of modernism and socialist realism, which appeared here with the successive "return of Silesia to the motherland" (or there stepmother). You look at everything that's going on and wonder: what should it look like in 10, 20, 50 years?
Buildings of the Paderewskiego estate - original appearance
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
modernism like a flight into space
The most beautiful journey of our civilization began when it began to reach the broad mass of people that the industrial revolution, which had its beginning three generations earlier, gave the opportunity to create visions of the future. This was also the case in space design. Modernism broke with what had gone before and was a negation of classical forms. In its intention, it led people to light and new thinking about a place for people. However, it could not simply exist and replace everything around it. Sometimes it was too exclusive, sometimes it was unbearable for users, and sometimes it was ahead of the technical possibilities and therefore was sometimes energy inefficient. And yet, it existed, it was appreciated, and there were also empty spaces that had to be re-saved. Such was the case, for example: vacant land north of the market in Katowice.
Haperowiec or K-24
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
the silesian face of futurism
In the 1960s, Upper Silesia was dominated by German buildings from the turn of the 20th century. Eclecticism, Art Nouveau, Neoclassicism superimposed on 19th-century spatial plans. Typically bourgeois buildings, mixed with workers' settlements. To these plans came Modernism, continuing the urban grid that had already been started, and Socialist Realism, which was crawling in the form of small settlements. And overlaying all this space was a mass of people who came from the east for industrial work. These were people who, for the most part, had never lived in a similar environment and were unfamiliar with the bourgeois lifestyle. The newcomers were so numerous that they could not fit into the existing housing stock. The need was great, but for this need, there still needed to be a vision of how it should all look. And it was important to come out with this need to meet the times of space flight, the first computers and the need to create modern man. Among the newcomers was a man who had his own vision of how to make it happen.
Jurand Jarecki in the background of Kasprowy Wierch.
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
heaps are such a different tatra
Jurand Jarecki was born in the early 1930s in Krakow. However, he spent his childhood in Zakopane. It was there that his love for ski jumping developed. He was so enamored with the sport that he decided to combine it with his passion for creating architecture. He found himself in this to such an extent that he designed the profiles of the Medium and Large Rafters in Zakopane, as well as six other hills in Poland. From this, he became the International Ski Federation's expert on ski jump construction in 1964. How easy it is to understand why it was so difficult for him to swap Zakopane for Katowice.
In interviews, he recalled badly the move to the dusty mining town. He went there because of his father, who got a job in Katowice. He himself found employment in the Office of General Construction Projects "Miastoprojekt", as a graduate of architectural studies at the Cracow University of Technology. There he met the people he loved to work with: Stanislaw Kwaśniewicz, Mieczyslaw Król and Marian Skałkowski. And so began an adventure that stayed with him for the rest of his life. His Katowice debut was the realization of the Kosmos Cinema building on the then Marchlewski estate. In the midst of Socialist Realist architecture, a light, modernist building was created, full of glass and aluminum. It stood out very much against its background, being elegant and modern.
Mock-up of the Kosmos Cinema
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
sculptor of space
There were two key people in the history of Katowice who left their mark on its present-day space. The first was Heinrich Moritz August Nottebohm, who created the plan of modern Katowice. He was a German architect, fascinated by astrology and ancient history. He gave expression to this in the city plan, where the street grid is arranged in a kind of astrological clock. The second was precisely Jurand Jarecki, who was one of the most important creators of Korfantego Avenue - an artery leading from the 19th century to modernity. His realizations made him change the city's recorded in people's consciousness forever. The market square, which still held its original closed shape until the 1950s, opened up to Korfanty Avenue, and all that was left of its original buildings was the Silesian Theater and the frontage of tenement houses on Teatralna Street. In 1963 the "Zenit " Department Store was built, a project that was created in partnership with Mieczyslaw Król. It was built on the historically important site of the Hotel Welt, where Johann Strauss the Son performed with his orchestra. The hotel function of the site gave way to a service function. The beautiful modernist building, with its glass bay window and checkerboard of rectangular windows, turned out to be too small despite its size, which determined the need to build another department store.
Jurand Jarecki with a model of DH Zenit
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
And so in 1975 DH "Skarbek", which stands on the opposite side of the market, was put into operation. The building, on a triangular plan with a truncated apex and an inward break, is decorated with aluminum scales in three strips, emphasizing the inner floors. All this is raised on pillars, between which there is a glazed first floor and second floor.
DH SKarbek - view from behind the glass
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
In addition, Jurand Jarecki was the author or co-author of more pavilions such as "Domus" (now DH "Ślązak" on Mickiewicza Street, tarnished to the limit by advertising and random renovations), "House of Books" on Olimpijska Street, just behind the Spodek complex, and a string of pavilions on today's Chorzowska Street, just before the "Blue Blocks" housing development. In this area, another important building was constructed by Jurand Jarecki and Marian Skałkowski - the Haperowiec (named "24-K" in the project). A skyscraper with twenty-four floors, 80 meters high, was built only because the entire land allocated for the construction of the Super Unit was not used. The project moved forward due to its high competition rating.
Happer building or K-24
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
On the way to Stauviers, between functionalism and postmodernism
In 1965, the Katowice Housing Cooperative decided to build a new housing development for 20,000 people. With the help of the winning design by Jurand Jarecki, Stanislaw Kwasniewicz and Ryszard Ćwikliński, the huge Ignacy Jan Paderewski estate was built within the historic boundaries of Bogucice . It is an estate consisting of twenty-two terraced-cage complexes of 2 to 4 staircases. Each of them has 11 floors, and they were built using large-panel technology.
Construction of the Paderewskiego estate
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
Originally, the housing development on the side of Trzech Stawow was to grow with buildings with fewer floors, up to a sequence of eleven-story buildings. This was to give the impression of emerging from the greenery. Retail and service pavilions, educational institutions and clinics were also built. In this housing development, one can see the fascination with Le Corbusier, as the buildings have service units, the free space between the blocks has been adapted for recreational areas, and a wide pedestrian walkway has been created with a huge plaza and the Polish Soldier monument. In addition, each apartment is provided with at least three hours of daylight. Today, however, the estate suffers from an excess of cars and a shortage of parking spaces, which disrupts communication among the buildings.
Buildings of the Paderewskiego estate
Photo: Robert Przeliorz
Nearby was a building that speaks volumes about the times in which it was designed and the changes in thinking about architecture and space. After the political transformation, state design offices were closed. Jurand Jarecki, together with Stanislaw Kwasniewicz and Marek Gierlotka, founded the Architectural Realisation Atelier "ARAR". In 1990 they designed an edifice in a completely new style, which won an architectural competition. This is how the building of the Silesian Library in Katowice was created, realized in the middle of the Council of Europe Square.
Silesian Library from the front
© Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library
It was something unprecedented in Poland and became an example of high-quality postmodernism. In this case, the architects went with the times and moved away from their fascination with modernism to paraphrase historical styles. They also used materials that could not be found anywhere else. The massing is monumental, full of contrasts. Nevertheless, the spirit of Futurism continued to be written in Jurand Jarecki's architectural thought, which he expresses precisely in the building of the Silesian Library.
The main body of the Silesian Library
photo: Robert Przeliorz
absolute memory
A person exists. He exists for a short piece of time as a body. But a person exists for a long time as energy. His memory will last much longer than his body, if he leaves behind a legacy that will fascinate and influence his audience. Jurand Jarecki was just such a person. Growing up in a difficult time, at the same time able to think about the distant future. He defined space exactly as it should have been defined in that place and time, and recognized the great need for timelessness. He himself once said that he liked new technologies, new materials, but was impressed by architecture that was restrained and resistant to fashion. March 14 marked one year since his death. His architecture lives on. Although in places his works are destroyed, disfigured, caricatured, nevertheless their greatest value remains in those who can look at architecture with its whole context. Paradoxically, the musicians of the Spanish band Esplenador Geometrico were so enamored of the cinema building that at one time they released an album called "Kosmos Kino," and put the building itself on the cover. And it may be thanks to these people, infected by the thought of Jurand Jarecki, that we can sensitize everyone to take care of his works.
