We publish more student works selected in the preselection in the competition for press reportage on architecture. We invite you to read Kamila Golabek's text entitled. "Game for space".
Kamila Golabek - a graduate of the Second High School in Rzeszow, currently a third-year student of Architecture at Rzeszow University of Technology. Interested in the architecture of public space, psychology and sociology. Author of the competition reportage "Game for space", in which she raises the issue of littering public space with advertisements.
Game for space
I am walking down one of the main streets in Rzeszow: Jozef Pilsudski Avenue. Like a white flag, a torn banner flies in the wind. However, this is not a sign of surrender. After all, a fierce battle has been going on here for many years. The fight for every inch of the facade, for every square meter of the square, roof, roadside, anything that creates potentially favorable conditions for a large-scale sheet of advertising banner, sign, poster, city light. Ideally, there would also be room for a few flags, just in case, so that no one doubts what is inside.
Jozef Pilsudski Avenue, Rzeszow
Photo: Kamila Golabek
Pstrokatosis, chaos, total excess of form over substance. For a long time there has been a game about the space of the city, a game of conflicting interests. Everyone wants beautiful architecture, people-friendly places... Why then do we clutter it all up with advertising junk? In such a brutal way. And why hasn't anyone done anything about it yet? Where did such a big problem, which is still growing, come from?
Europa II gallery, Rzeszow
Photo: Kamila Golabek
I remember Rzeszow from many years ago. The advertising was clear, uncluttered, designed with taste and flair. It invited customers inside, exposed what was worth seeing. It did not impose itself, but interacted with the architecture and its details. Today it is everywhere, it doesn't care about context or place. It can appear in a store window, but also in the middle of a square or occupy the entire facade of a shopping mall. From afar it shouts to us with its colors and imposes itself with its format.
Freedom Square, Rzeszow
photo: Kamila Golabek
Meditating - I continue walking along Pilsudski Avenue, looking at historic tenements, new office buildings. Everything is speckled with colorful information chaff. It's hard for me to grasp the purpose of the whole enterprise. Such action has a detrimental effect not only on the appearance of architecture, but also on the effectiveness of such advertising. The ubiquitous visual chaos reduces the effectiveness of the message, looking at the walls of the tenements, I do not see individual banners, the premise of which is to encourage me to buy. For me to a colorful conglomeration that on a daily basis only causes me irritation. Advertising attacks from all sides, appearing in odd places, causing a sense of chaos and clutter in the city. What is the point of all this? I have the impression that the problem is so pervasive that we have grown accustomed to it. There is a numbness, no apparent desire to change. Beautiful buildings clad almost from the foundation to the roof. Malls mottled with malls, billboards overwhelming in size, roadsides saturated with advertisements, creating traffic safety hazards in the city's public spaces. Visual and spatial chaos is growing. It is difficult to find one's way around such places. A photo from a few years ago that circulated the Internet comes to mind - Rejtana Avenue compared by many to Asian cities.
Several buildings being the backdrop for the spilling advertisements. A visual mess, distorted proportions, coincidence and disorder. This is how it is... and how it could be? I took the liberty of preparing a few suggestions:
Plaza Rzeszow, Rejtana Street, before and after
Photo: Kamila Golabek
Dabrowskiego Street, Rzeszow, before and after
photo: Kamila Golabek
Intersection of Dąbrowskiego and Wincentego Pola streets, Rzeszów, before and after
photo: Kamila Golabek
Jozef Pilsudski Avenue, Rzeszow, before and after
photo: Kamila Golabek
Which reality do we want to live in? I decide to ask at the source: how do Rzeszów residents assess the state of public space in their city? Does advertising make Rzeszow look good in their opinion? I approach a family with two children:
Take a look at the city center. You can hardly see Europe (shopping mall) from under those ads. It looks funny, but what can I do about it. We have what we have.
This is the answer I get. I talk to a few more people I meet, opinions are divided. Most residents don't agree with this state of affairs, they would like a change, but don't know how they could make a difference. There is also a group of people who think that a well-done advertisement could actually add to the city's charm, without taking away architectural values or creating chaos. But for years the ads have only been increasing, and unfortunately the trend is still upward.
What then is the legal issue? Does such a veritable "arbitrariness" have no limits? It turns out that the source of the problem also lies in the regulations, or more precisely in their absence. The laws currently in force (the Construction Law of July 7, 1994 and the Law of March 27, 2003 on planning and spatial development) do not comprehensively regulate issues related to the placement of advertising in public space. As I found out, four years ago the "Landscape Law" came into force, which gave municipalities the tools to clean up urban space and protect it from visual clutter. Admittedly, the law gave municipalities the opportunity to enact a local set of regulations, called an advertising code, which sets rules for the location and appearance of all advertising media in the city. However, creating a code is not an easy matter, work is ongoing and changes, so far, are not in sight.
Does this mean that we are doomed to the aesthetic sense of advertisers? Investors? Developers? It is so difficult to have a clear definition of "good taste"... I do not want the appearance of our public spaces to be a matter of chance. Rzeszow is a beautiful city, with amazing architecture. Why are we forced to view it from behind a colorful layer of advertisements? Maybe it's time to take matters into our own hands... Let's fight and win the game for our space! For our city.
Kamila GOŁĄBEK
Alufire was a partner of the contest
