"10 Questions to..." is a series of short conversations with architects and female architects, to whom we address the same pool of questions. In today's installment, we asked Miroslaw Nizio for answers.
Miroslaw Nizio studied at the Faculty of Interior Design and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, majoring in Interior Design. He started his own design business in the 1990s in New York, and since 2002 has been running Nizio Design International studio in Warsaw. He mainly designs public spaces: museums, historical expositions, exhibitions, memorials and scenography.
1 Architecture in three words...?
I will rather suggest in nine, because it depends on many circumstances:
a. Work, passion, beauty.
b. Function, form, perfection.
c. Blood, sweat and tears.
2. The three most important buildings for you...?
I will focus on my own realizations:
a. In first place ex aequo the emerging National Museum "Memorial to the Victims of the Great Famine" in Kiev, and two places that I was lucky enough to co-create: The Warsaw Uprising Museum and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
b. "The Stone Hell of the Gross-RosenII Concentration Camp."
c. The nascent Mausoleum of Martyrdom of Polish Villages in Michniów.
3. the most important book on architecture...?
Juhani Pallasmaa "Eyes of the Skin. Architecture and the Senses" and "Thinking Hand".
4. most inspiring city and why...?
New York, because that's where I started my design adventure 30 years ago.
Warsaw, because here I am, live and work.
5. architect with whom you would like to design something and why...?
Miroslaw Balka - not an architect, but an outstanding sculptor, I appreciate the power and universal message of his works. Both form and content appeal to me: the motif of corporeality, memory and passing, also the themes of the Holocaust present in his work.
Peter Zumthor - like me, the son of a carpenter. My architectural master and unsurpassed role model. His works have it all: a phenomenal sense of form and detail, emotion and sensuality.
6. hand-drawing or computer drawing?
Hand-drawing. The first sketch, as an impression, a reflection of an idea, then subsequent versions. Until the final one. This is the basis of any project.
7. mockup or 3D model?
Mock-up.
8. modernism or postmodernism?
Modernism, neo-modernism.
9. Work after hours or sports?
Sports before work. Work at work and after hours.
10. architecture or business?
Architecture.
Welcome to the episode of Awakenings, whose guest was Miroslaw Nizio:
