Professor Witold Ceckiewicz, the doyen of Kraków architecture and creator of the iconic "Cracovia" hotel, among others, has died.
Witold Ceckiewicz was born in 1924 in Nowy Brzesko. After the war, he studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology. He received an honorary degree from his alma mater in 1995. Professor Ceckiewicz was a long—time member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1955—1960 he served as Chief Architect of Kraków. He was also for many years Director of the Institute of Urban Design of the Faculty of Architecture at the Cracow University of Technology. He received numerous decorations, including the Officer's Cross of Polonia Restituta, the KEN Medal or the Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. He was also a soldier in the Home Army.
His most famous realizations include the Polish Embassy in New Delhi (in cooperation with Stanislaw Deńko; 1975—1978), the modernist "Cracovia" hotel (1960—1965) and the "Kiev" cinema (1962—1967) or the Podwawelskie and Mistrzejowice housing estates. The monument to the Victims of Fascism (1964), located on the site of the former concentration camp in Plaszow, turned out to be an iconic realization for Kraków. He was also the designer of the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Kraków's Lagiewniki (1997—2002).
In 2015, a two—volume monograph on the architect was published by the Institute of Architecture. In late 2017 and early 2018, an exhibition devoted to his work was held in the building of the former "Cracovia" hotel, one of Cęckiewicz's most famous buildings. Professor Cęckiewicz was a respected doyen of Kraków's architectural community.
Cracow's iconic Cracovia Hotel
photo: Zetpe0202 | © CC BY—SA 4.0
