Opened in September 2014 in Krakow's Podgórze district, the Tadeusz Kantor Art Documentation Center CRICOTEKA won first place in the Public Utility Architecture category in the 8th edition of the competition for the Stanislaw Witkiewicz Małopolski Voivodeship Award. Below we recall the awarded project.
Combining museum and research functions, the center studying and documenting the achievements of Tadeusz Kantor was to merge with the existing historic power plant in an original way. The winning project, prepared by IQ2 Consortium, assumed a bold form, a horizontal block elevated well above ground level, which has become one of the icons of Krakow's Podgórze district.
Photo: Wojciech Krynski
Located just off the Vistula boulevards, the unusual solid resembling a bridge stretched over a small building of a historic power plant has the form of two interpenetrating spans formed of spatial steel trusses based on two reinforced concrete shafts. The third support of the object is a steel double-branched wishbone support. Not only the original body distinguishes the object from the neighboring buildings, the openwork elevations made of weathering steel and the mirror placed on the ceiling above the square between the building's shafts are also unique.
© Vision
Themuseum building, according to Kantor's creative visions, doesnot integrate with its surroundings, and the existing building does not actualize its existence through identification with its original function, but through a conscious contrast of form and content creates a pretext for conflict and "short-circuiting," thus marking its presence in a hitherto indifferent environment. The goal of creative action is not the identification of the solid as a form, but rather the way it interacts with its surroundings, the authors of the project write.
level 0 projection
© IQ2 Consortium (Vision, nsMoonStudio)
The building, the authors emphasize, is not intended to be a static presentation of the artist's oeuvre, but rather a continuation of his dynamic vision of art that destroys conventions, seeing its value not so much in the autonomous nature of form, but in the creative process.
cross sections
© IQ2 Consortium (Vision, nsMoonStudio)
The Center for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor CRICOTEKA - a symbol of the search in art for an individual path for creativity that overturns the boundaries between actor and audience, creator and viewer, draws all participants into an action - a game - a common play. The public space of the city is a stage and an audience at the same time, it is a place of continuous performance. Its value lies in the blurring of boundaries between inside and outside, the space "flows", it is shared. Creators, artists, residents and visitors together participate in the process, the action, the creation of the environment, which they shape with the help of selected objects, buildings, means, methods. Kantor's art center is to emit this message," reads the project description.
You can read more about Cricoteka here.
