Such a journey from one cool place to the next even better one according to a list of recommendations from people who had plenty of time to scout the area for me is easy. But I'm looking for something more.
Riding my bike, out of the corner of my eye I notice and appreciate the lump of the Baltic skyscraper (proj.: MVRDV) next to the MTP grounds. I am well aware of the excellent Old Brewery (proj.: Studio ADS). I've always liked this place for its different approach to art than anywhere else. Exactly: art. I consider contemporary art one of the most interesting, most valuable of the city's sculpting forces. There is a lot of good art in Poznań in urban space and in publicly accessible interiors. I like it, I respect it, I will search according to this very key.
The Baltic building is classy and looks different from each side, proj.: MVRDV
photo: Slawomir Szady
I am not yet familiar with Posnania shopping mall (proj.: RTKL). There, according to the plan, I am to visit a place called "Save the planet". This place stimulates my senses; it's neither a pub nor a store, rather an original concept combining several parallel functionalities: here you can rent a conference room, take a shower, eat well, work in a grazing coworking standard, do organic and responsible grocery shopping, stroll among works of art, contemplate good design or buy responsibly made furniture. Everything you see here ties together one common denominator, as in the name. "Save the planet" tells the story of saving the world with every object present here, with information about recycling, the origin of the materials used to make them, people's working conditions and the place where they were made taking first place in the descriptions. Open Eyes Economy in full swing and in practice.
The entrance to "Save the planet" - you can spend all day here, all the while saving the Earth; a very cool place
photo: Mateusz Zmyślony
We immediately catch a common language with the team working here. Pre-Christmas period, a lot of customers, there is no time for a quiet conversation, but this place talks about itself. Everything on the menu is eco and healthy, I really like not only the comprehensive descriptions of "what it's made of" and that the eggs are from happy hens. Even better are the calories listed with each dish.
I buy, before leaving, a "Save the planet" T-shirt with a graphic by a certain Noriaki [Poznan visual artist, street artist, creator of the figure of the man-periscope, present, among other things, in the urban space of Poznan, not only on walls, but even - in the form of tattoos - on some residents of the city - editor's note]. and I leave with a tentatively confirmed conclusion. I grasp slowly what I was looking for: what Poznań is special in, what makes it stand out, what makes it better than other cities.
I walk through the Posnania Gallery, quickly grasping the omnipresent here... works of contemporary art. A monumental sculpture-installation piles up in front of the main entrance. A small (though large) girl with a pony and a bird on her shoulder draws her sunny future in space.
The installation in front of Posnania Gallery
photo: Mateusz Zmyślony
Inside, the same girl - albeit on a different scale - is now older, flying with her grown-up flying friend toward that previously drawn future, or so I read. These kinds of installations are all over Posnania, art is all over the place here. I like it, it signifies something, it results from something, it somehow influences something.
Working in the coworking area (still in the same gallery), I observe the people working around me. A young girl asks me if I'll take a peek at her computer and bag as she leaves. She is very polite and friendly. When she returns, I ask for a pen and paper - I don't have one, and I need one. She hands me a pen, but no paper. After a while, a smiling, nice boy gets up from behind a table two booths away with a piece of paper, which he hands me. Seemingly nothing, but everyone is so polite and eager to help each other. I have plenty of such observations from Poznań, including from the past. But now I am tuning my senses to this very thread. I stop concentrating on the urban fabric and focus on observing people.
One of the many performances during the Malta Festival Poznań - personal culture does not come from nowhere
© Poznan City Hall
People in Poznań are different. Somehow less tense, less nervous. They relate to each other culturally. (Almost) no one here will hastily honk at another driver, if only after a long while, in a situation that really calls for it. The way people standing in line at the post office relate to each other, how they give way to each other when it gets crowded, how they smile eagerly at each other - to me this is endearing.
After a few days of experiencing Poznań in just this way, I already know. Poznań is the most western Polish city. There is none of the tense tension you feel in the capital, in general in other cities too, instead there is a high level of personal culture. There is the age-old Poznań work ethos, which is easy to spot everywhere if you want to see it. There is a kind of peculiar calmness in this city. It stems, in my opinion, from the genius loci. There is continuity in Poznan. Historical, architectural, but above all social. Here there was no migratory upheaval as there was in the Recovered Territories. Here there was no such spectacular exchange of a significant group of residents as in Lodz, Warsaw or even Krakow. From this perspective, Poznań is such a much larger Cieszyn: a city full of those who are "stela." Families that have been doing business here for generations, educating themselves, producing certain traditions, habits, skills. Finally, Poznań is really a city of know-how.
Old Brewery, here art is everywhere, the 50:50 idea is that half in it is commerce and half is culture
photo: Wojciech Siekierski
Poznan's cultural gene, passed from generation to generation, is that of a pragmatist who has absorbed the right lessons from contact with German culture. This stereotypical solidity is a fact, order must be. Combined with high personal culture and greater sensitivity to art than elsewhere - WE HAVE IT! Because, after all, in any city the most important thing is... the people. And these Poznan has on the level and in abundance.
That's why the Malta Festival Poznań is one of the most ambitious modern cultural events in Poland, yes, in fact, even in Europe. When such a modern festival has a counterbalance in the city in the form of a distinguished, prestigious event, such as the world's oldest violin competition - the one named after Henryk Wieniawski - a picture emerges of a city with something really important to say from the perspective of event culture.
Another snapshot from the Malta Festival Poznań - such events build new quality and prestige of the city
© Poznan City Hall
And what does this Poznan not have? What should it have? A real congress center would be useful. What is missing - as in Warsaw and Wroclaw - is a large year-round concert and performance hall. You can't patch everything up with the infrastructure of the Poznań International Fair - and without such facilities, the city won't play in a league higher than today.
