Although large Polish cities are increasingly eager to use the competition formula when planning new investments (with the capital leading the way), Krakow is still shying away from competitions. In the coming years , however, the "decade of tenders" is expected to come to an end - according to the declarations of Janusz Sepiol, elected last year as Chief City Architect, Krakow is expected to announce at least a few international competitions in the coming future. What will they be about and will they solve the problems facing Krakow's architecture?
The real testing ground for Cracow to test the competition formula is to be the development of the Wesoła district. As a reminder, this is the land that the city acquired from the University Hospital for more than 280 million zlotys - as of 2019, the huge area is basically lying fallow. Among other things, the Design Pharmacy runs its business here, and the whole area is managed by the Krakow City Development Agency. So far, however, no construction work has started on the area purchased by the city, and, as the Chief Architect of the City of Krakow Janusz Sepiol announced in late October/early November last year, it will not start anytime soon.
Kopernika Street in Krakow, running through the middle of the Wesoła district
Photo: Zygmunt Put © CC BY-SA 4.0 |Wikimedia Commons
This is not an accusation - although six years of inaction is a long time, caution is never too much. Wesoła is an extremely valuable area, so actions carried out hastily could have unfortunate consequences. Expectations have apparently become too much, however, as Janusz Sepiol has announced several competitions through which Wesoła is expected to change significantly in the future. In the meantime, a master plan is being developed for the district to become a quarter of culture - the document is expected to be ready this March.
Urban lab, theater and library in Wesola
The first of the competitions, which we can expect around March, will be for the adaptation of the building of the so-called "old kitchen" at 17A Kopernika Street, which serves as a facility for St. Lazarus Hospital. The 19th century brick building is to be transformed into an Urban Lab, which will house a center for urban research, the headquarters of the City Architect and the Cracow branch of SARP or the Małopolska Regional Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland.
The current headquarters of the Groteska Theater at 2 Skarbowa Street
Photo: Mach240390 ©CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
The next competition will be for a new headquarters for the Groteska Theater, which is currently located in the Stanislaw Kostka building of the Union of Industrial and Handicraft Youth at 2 Skarbowa Street, designed by Waclaw Krzyzanowski.
We are a theater that is not friendly to people with disabilities. These people, of course, appear with us, but then we carry wheelchairs up the stairs. We want to develop a theater for the youngest, but getting into the theater with a baby stroller is not easy, the stairs start already from the entrance from the street. Grandparents accompanying children to performances also have problems, and I am not just referring to the highest dome hall, but our main stage
- Karol Suszczynski, director of the Groteska Theater, reported for Gazeta Krakowska.
As recently as last year, consideration was given to placing the theater and the new headquarters of the Krakow Library under one roof. Today it is known that most likely the buildings will be two, connected by an underground tunnel. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, the competition for the edifice of the first institution is to be held in the middle of the year, while in the case of the Library of Krakow it will be the end of this year. Back in October, Janusz Sepiol revealed his vision for the dream building, which would be a vertical extension of the nearby Botanical Garden, made with wooden technology, functionally and artistically similar to the Bibliotheque de Krook in Ghent (RCR Arquitectes; Coussée & Goris architecten) or the University Library in Delft (Mecanoo). The final shape of the facilities will, of course, be decided by the submitted concepts.
TU Library in Delft, proj. by Mecanoo
Photo: Not Aders © CC BY SA.3.0 | Wikimedia Commons
In addition, a new park is yet to be built in Wesola, and the architect is also planning a competition for a footbridge connecting Dabie and Zabłocie.
krakow is at a loss when it comes to competitions
Krakow is on the loose with competitions - in recent years the construction of several schools, kindergartens and nurseries has been announced, and more and more green spaces are being created in Krakow. However, all city investments are carried out on the basis of a tender formula, although the architectural community has been talking about competitions for a long time. The results are not among the best, which may not be surprising, given that in tenders the deciding factor is usually the price of the completed project and its implementation.
There is also no doubt that architectural competitions are more costly undertakings for the city and risky - for architects, who are not sure that they will receive any fee for their project. However, they are also a chance to choose quality solutions from a much larger number of proposals. As Janusz Sepiol, Architect of the City of Krakow, said himself, it is the competitions that are the best guarantor of the emergence of good architecture. Many of Krakow's best buildings are the result of winning a design in a competition formula - this is how Cricoteka, the ICE Congress Center or the MOCAK building of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, among others, were built.
The winning concept in the competition for the Planet Lem project
proj.: JEMS Architekci
Unsuccessful architectural competitions in Cracow
There were also competitions in Cracow that ultimately failed to result in implementation. Still unsolved is the case of the competition for the Planet LEM project, which was won by JEMS architects. As Pawel Szczepanik, the mayor's plenipotentiary for culture, reported last December, the city has withdrawn from the project for the moment. The most notorious case of a competition without implementation was the construction of a new facility for the Cracow Academy of Music in 2017. The competition was won by Frank Gehry's concept, but the whole project was abandoned due to the excessive fee demanded by the architect.
Stanislaw Wyspianski Museum in Krakow - The Wyspianski Museum is another of the unrealized projects selected in the Krakow competitions
proj.: Heinle, Wischer und Partner Architekci
Will it be different this time? According to a summary prepared by Katarzyna Jagodzinska in 2020, none of the competitions held by the city since 2013 without the participation of SARP has led to a happy ending. There have been many more successes in the group of competitions conducted by the Krakow branch of the Association. So far it is not known whether the competitions announced by the Architect of the City of Krakow will be held in cooperation with SARP - if Janusz Sepiol resigns from external help, the competitions prepared by the city will have to draw on best practices and gather jury teams consisting of the best experts. Otherwise, no amount of competitions will guarantee a positive transformation of Krakow's architecture.