column from issue 10|2021 of A&B
If anyone is surprised by what has been going on in Polish politics and society for the past few years, don't pretend to be surprised. The space of this country has foreshadowed this for a long time - its form, logic and aesthetics. If the Poles' tormented land had anything to say, it would have howled through crooked teeth: "dear friends, didn't I tell you?"
As one thinks for a while, it becomes clear that the layout and form of what we live in is a mapping of the logic and thought patterns developed in the collective Polish mind. The same one that has been providing us with more socio-political attractions lately. Including, of course, the competition for free designs of typical houses.
The architectural community is hanging dogs on the cottage competition. Protests, warnings not to participate. Wrong strategy. Instead of thanks - complaints. And yet it is enough to change the point of view. The glass is only half broken, so, hey ho, let's rejoice, because we finally have a clear situation. Here, with the competition for a cheap house, the authorities are telling architects where their future place is. Well, as in the case of doctors, teachers, nurses and other professional forces - nowhere. A great relief, because the worst thing is to be stuck in uncertainty and to delude oneself that one is needed by someone and begrudgingly solicit attentions.
It must be admitted, by the way, that the message was given gently. Following the example of one politician, after all, the authorities could have thrown to the architects that "they will hang" or, more subtly, "let them go." Or, following the example of billboards about judges stealing sausage, the National Foundation for Throwing Taxpayers' Money Away could have fashioned banners about a degenerate caste of designers. All it would have had to do would be to show on billboards some of the more interesting houses from catalogs or some neighborhoods with the comment "they're the ones who made you this way."
After all, if one thinks more carefully, architects have earned their present situation heavily. To be on the easy road to "nowhere". In recent decades, one did not hear in the environment crushing criticism and attempts to drive out catalog houses made for the public, signing ready-made designs of architects or designers who only followed the orders of the free market in the form of various investors. Yes, there were murmurs, complaints and regrets, but none of the bodies of architects' associations effectively moved to the ministries with concrete and comprehensive proposals to resolve the situation.
No wonder, then, that in addition to the market for ready-made single-family homes, we also have increasingly swollen catalogs of wedding houses, retirement tabernacles, hotels and boarding houses. They didn't design themselves. Most of equally high quality, like nostalgic houses "in lilacs", "in magnolias" or - on the other foot - fascinating designs in the spirit of mutant modernism. Nothing to do but wait for catalogs of typical hubby's castles, the construction of which has resounded in the New Deal alongside announcements of houses without permits. Surely there will be architects who will gladly do even the design of typical ruins.
Thus, Agata Twardoch is one hundred percent right, who - commenting on the New Deal and the competition for typical houses - writes that "theinvolvement of an architect in the construction process guarantees ABSOLUTELY nothing - neither on the side of the quality of the architecture itself, nor, even more so, on the side of spatial order." And that good typical projects make a lot of sense if put in decent urban and infrastructural notches, for which Twardoch cites apt evidence. He also asks, recalling a 1990s competition supported by the architectural community for an accessible house: "are type houses good or not good?".
The answer can only be twisted. Both yes and no, it depends. In doing so, one must lean into the phenomenon of the catalog or pattern book. As such, a catalog is, in principle, innocuous: an album for photos, a clasper for a collection of stamps. What matters is what we put in it and how we use that content. It is not the catalog that "dumbs down the context," but its user and the offices, laws or policies that allow it. A catalog in the hand of an informed designer or decision-maker is in turn a catalyst for success. Suffice it to mention the pattern books of the Renaissance. Who knows if the Poznań City Hall would have looked as good if its author, John Baptist Quadro, had not made heavy use of the Serlia pattern book.
Worse, on the other hand, were the catalogs of systemic elements used by designers of large slab buildings. There were so many types of walls, cantilevers and ceilings to choose from that it would have been possible to make estates much better than what was built. Except that the catalog was to itself, and reality was to itself. The house factories were unwilling or unable to produce shorter, more difficult series of fancier pieces. So we put up the blocks.
Thecatalog and the type house are therefore like a knife - it depends in whose hands they end up. If the realization of serial projects will be handled by the same collective mind that has been furnishing our space for the past decades, then there is nothing to do but wait for the Central Transportation Port and blow as far away from it as possible. But, there is still a chance - both for the space and for the architectural community, which can make its presence and expertise stronger. Once we see the results of the government's cottage competition, it will be worth launching a broad educational campaign. One that will raise awareness of which projects from the final hundred are the most valuable, or how to choose a building type and fit it into the landscape, traditional or modern development.
SARP and the Chamber should also support local governments in preparing areas for the construction of typical houses, so that, as Agata Twardoch postulated, they form a sensible whole. On the other hand, a boycott of the competition could hurt, because if the government fails in the competition, it won't look for a scapegoat for long. The well-known foundation will go after names. It doesn't have to be about sausage thieves at all. I can already see the billboards:
"Stelmach makes designs with crayons", "JEMS draws projections in Painta", "Kurylowicz sticks mockups with plasticine".
The public will tear up. Are you sure this is what you want?
