We talk about creative breakthroughs, creative paths, conceptualism and racing against the world with Robert Konieczny, an architect from the KWK Promes studio. The pretext for our conversation (there is no shortage of tough questions!) is the Polish-language version of the book created in collaboration with American architecture critic Philip Jodidio, recently published by Pascal. "buildings + ideas" tells the story of the groundbreaking buildings of the KWK Promes studio, is it the perfect story for a time of breakthrough?
The ideas expressed by Robert Konieczny are quite radical and surprising. The unexpected forms of his objects are not so much a style as an intellectual construct
- Jodidio writes.
Ola Kloc: On the cover of the book we can read such a sentence: "Architect, thanks to whom Polish architecture came out of the shadow". What do you think about it?
Robert Konieczny: I didn't want this sentence on the cover, I wanted this book to be clean, like the English-language version. However, due to the fact that we had already done the "Archiguide" with Tomasz Malkowski, I somewhat understood the publishing house, which publishes a book that is quite specialized and gives it to the normal sales network. They pointed out to me that people outside our professional bubble might not even pick up the book because they would be completely unaware of what it was about. When Tomek came up with the slogan, we had a big discussion in the office about it.
The cover of the English-language and Polish-language versions of the book "buildings + ideas"
© Images Publishing | © Pascal Publishing
Ola Kloc: Why?
Robert Konieczny: Because it's the kind of slogan that can get our architectural community into a so-called piss-up.
Ola Kloc: It can.
Robert Konieczny: We talked about the fact that objectively it piles up, but when you write such a phrase, people in our industry get upset, they even specifically won't take the book in their hands. However, the deadline chased us, there was not enough time and the decision had to be made. This slogan - despite being the least neutral of the ones we came up with and causing this screw-up - came through, because we realized it was cool for "normal" people. When we listed to ourselves our foreign awards that we were the first and often the only ones to date, when we looked at all the things we had tramped through, the magazines we had been to first, the exhibitions we had been to somewhere in the world first too, it was objectively ok, but looking at life - not really. In the end, we decided that architects who want to buy this book will buy it anyway, because after all, it will give them a lot, and the "ordinary Kowalski", whom we want to reach with it, because it is about broad education, it will help, make him take it in his hand at all.
People from the Pascal publishing house said: "Robert, the middle is yours, but the cover is ours."
Ola Kloc: What about the back cover? There, on the other hand, the sentence appears: "A book that will make you understand what contemporary architecture is all about".
Robert Konieczny: In the original version on the back there is Jodidio's argument, a beautiful one, but he talks about such things that would put off the average viewer of architecture - about intellectual constructs, about the Polish context, about forms. A critic's argument can be daunting, so we started thinking about how to put the emphasis on the fact that the book is friendly, that even if you don't know anything about architecture, it can draw you in. Hence the slogan, which I think Tomek also came up with.
It's well known that with this book you won't understand what modern architecture in the broadest sense is all about, that's a bit of a mental shortcut. If you pick up an album of Foster's or Snohetta's buildings and there are no captions in it, you won't quite know what it's all about a particular building, but if you have an approximation of the way of thinking, of creating - and here it is explained - then you begin to understand where it came from in the first place and why it is like that.
the book is aimed not only at architects
© Pascal Publishing House
Ola Kloc: You are eager to appear and talk about your projects, of which this book is an example - what is the reason for this need to tell, or perhaps explain, architecture?
Robert Konieczny: Not long ago, someone in a comment made me realize that I get involved in telling stories about architecture in a similarly strong way as in designing itself. I devote a lot of time to it. For me it has always been important that people understand our buildings. If you tell someone about a building and they say: "I understand, I don't like it" - I don't have a problem with that at all, it's worse when you hear simplistic discussions, spoken opinions that stem from ignorance. We experience this all the time. For many years I've been tired of this lack of understanding of architecture, sometimes including ours, so I started thinking about a book that explains it in an easy and accessible way. I wanted it to be a global book, because after all, our projects quite often appeared in foreign magazines or portals, but the experience of my lectures, showed me that the audience only then began to understand our buildings. Despite the fact that they had previously seen them many times in various places, even on our website. Conclusion - architects mainly watch, not read. Just what would such a book look like and how to publish it? And then came Philip Jodidio, who wrote a message: "Robert, I went on your Instagram and although I have posted your projects before, I didn't know there were so many. It's time for a monograph". And this is written by a guy who has created such books with Foster, Calatrava, Kuma and other great masters. Super! But Jodidio makes beautiful albums, and I was left with this idea of a book that talks to you in my head. Then we came up with the idea of not turning Philip's idea upside down, to combine the beauty of his albums with my narrative running underneath the illustrations. One of the biggest challenges was to convince him to do it. When he got a sample with a chapter about the Ark, after one day he wrote back like this: "Robert, this is really good. Keep the kind of subtle humor that comes across here. I'm in". Because this book, like my other architectural translation activities, is not just aimed at this narrow professional bubble of ours, but at a wide audience, because I believe that architects also have such a role and mission. That's why I was previously involved with Tomek Malkowski in creating "Archiguides" to Poland and Europe.
The monograph also describes the 8 paths followed by KWK Promes
© Pascal Publishing House
Ola Kloc: In addition to your narrative, the book also features 8 paths followed by KWK Promes. Tell us about them, please.
Robert Konieczny: The appearance of the paths was, in a sense, determined by professional plea. One architecture critic accused us that the design of the Przełomy in Szczecin (CDP) was a rip-off of Koolhaas' Casa da Música. When I read that, I didn't know what it was about. This critic sent me a photo showing that Casa da Música stands on a bent square. I had never been there, and the photos only show that distinctive, sturdy block. I didn't know that there was a bent piazza there, and in that bend was a hidden store. It's easy to understand, Koolhaas probably squeezed extra features under that square so that it wouldn't spoil his solid. I thought at the time, stupid to write: "no, that's not true, I didn't see it". So I did the first analysis, I wondered how it is with these our Przełomy. I've always been fascinated by buried architecture, ever since I was a student - hiding it somewhere in the field, blurring the boundaries. This analysis took me back to the second year of my studies, when the late Jurek Cibis brought to class some Scandinavian magazine, which showed a research station hidden underground, covered with grass. I didn't know something like that could be done! It was such a discovery for me that I couldn't get it out of my head later. This fascination made me realize that it was possible to do more in this architecture. That's how it started, the first projects: a square in Verona, where we hid many functions in the ground, then Governors Island, also a prize in a competition, where we hid everything underground. Then the design of the Temple of Divine Providence very much inspired by Dominique Perrault - I liked his stuff because he buried a lot in the ground. In this project we had the whole area solved like a French library: all the buildings hidden under a big square, which you climb up the stairs. At one point Marlena [Wolnik - editor's note] said: "I don't want to do it, everyone will see that this is Dominique Perrault". I was already working in architectural offices at the time, as it is in Poland, unfortunately, where after browsing through the newspapers you say, "this is how it must look like". And you absorb such a way of designing - gawking. For me it was normal. Marlena objected to this, and a while later she came up with a brilliant thing that made the project come together - a curved square, referring to our design idea - the rainbow, as the main theme. That was the turning point. Then we started to go only our paths, to look for our own solutions. The next project was an embassy in Germany with a gentle square over the fence, so that one side and the other would make an effort to communicate - the difficult past forces us to make some effort to meet, hence the idea. Then there was still the project of the house in Biały Bor, where we hid everything in a gentle artificial hill, on which stood small houses - bedrooms for each of the eight brothers of a large family of forty people. I loved that project. And then there was CDP - the resultant of such thinking. After that analysis, I made the first entry, showed the whole path, and from then on I started looking for connections between our projects. After a number of such analyses, these paths began to clarify, we began to define them more and more. And when we defined all these connections, design became even cooler.
Marina in Bialy Bor
© Pascal Publishing
Ola Kloc: And don't you have the feeling that defining them so strongly might be some kind of limitation for you to explore new paths?
Robert Konieczny: We are conceptualists, to the marrow of our bones, we sit down with this proverbial blank sheet of paper. However, years later I realized that you don't get away from your own thoughts and that one does not exclude the other. I had the same problem in my head as your question: how now to talk about the fact that we are on the one hand classified by critics as conceptualists, and on the other hand we talk about evolution, about paths, about the fact that these projects stem from something. I had to work through this in my head and understand that these things are not mutually exclusive and that the discovery of further paths is possible. Satellite projects are emerging that we can't pin down to anything, and perhaps they will be the beginning of some further solutions. With fresh ideas and experience, we are moving forward more consciously.
Andrzej Duda, my design guru who taught me at school in Gliwice, said: "Robert, a good artist paints one picture all his life". I thought to myself "how boring!". It was terrible for me! Only with time did I realize that in the best offices you see this evolution of solutions. They come up with some fantastic things, which then evolve into even better things. Sometimes you have some satellite thing, and sometimes you have an expansion of certain themes again. And in the weak offices you have designs as different as chalk and cheese - the fashionable thing is cut-up balconies in residential buildings? That's what everyone is doing them. We're bored with it. I don't even know what's trending now. Sometimes we joke in the office that we draw from ourselves.
19 projects are presented in the monograph
© Pascal Publishing House
Ola Kloc: You chose 19 projects for publication - why exactly these?
Robert Konieczny: We talked for a long time about which projects to choose. Some were very sentimental, like my parents' house. But then we decided that if we were to show it to the world, let's rather bet on things that have been widely published, awarded, that people associate with. The purpose of this book is that when someone picks it up, they will think: "this I know, this I also associate, and this I also saw", and then, by the fourth thing he will ask "this was done by one office?". I myself am sometimes surprised when I find out that some projects were done by the same studio. To cross the line where everyone associates that a particular project is by this studio or this particular architect is cosmic. There are few such recognizable offices.
The book was supposed to be written right after the awards for Przełomy and Ark, time passed, there was a pandemic, a climate report and we also began to think differently in our heads. Philip from the beginning wanted two more unrealized projects to be added to the realized buildings. So in the end we set our sights on such projects, which more or less matured in our heads at that time and were an attempt to answer how to build now. The conversation in the latest issue of A&B is supported by even more analysis and new experiences. We opted for projects that would give people something to think about. Even if someone thinks this is some futurology, childishness, or utopian assumptions, and many times that's what was said about our projects, our dream was to inspire someone, to show that there is an idea, someone will simplify it somehow, maybe it will lead to some universality of the solution. Not individually - that 's pointless now - but looking for solutions that you can replicate, use on a mass scale. We should all be looking for such solutions now.
Ola Kloc: I will risk a question: which of these objects is your favorite?
Robert Konieczny: I like such projects in which, besides the fact that they work cool and are sensibly put into context, you managed to come up with some universal principle, which you can later transfer to a completely different reality, independent of the form.
Certainly, in the context of your question, I like my Ark, but not because I live there well or that it has often been published because of its form and integration into the landscape. For me, the most important thing is that we implemented an unusual technology that we are testing. We wanted to simplify the construction as much as possible. The structure is at the same time the facade, and the insulation is already a simple job done inside. The innovation is that the wall is ventilated, and I did this out of fear, because I didn't believe the building physicists who calculated that if you foam from the inside it would be fine.
I likened the Przełomy to when the jurors in the CCCB Best Public Space competition in Barcelona made me realize with their verdict that we had created such a first innovative urban solution that connects the building to the public space.
I could mention more buildings, but I would also like to mention the Plato gallery. I like this building because I believe in its ideas - the democratization of art. I myself come from a Silesian family, in which not only was no one an architect, but also, due to history and life context, it was difficult to finish higher education at all. And it was only by chance that I became an architect, which in total later became my passion. That's why I believe that the fact that these walls are opening up will make maybe someone who has a similar story to mine will look there and come into contact with art and culture in general, and it will change his life.
the publication does not lack architectural details
© Pascal Publishing House
Ola Kloc: You write about yourself in the book directly: "I am a conceptualist", what do you mean by this?
Robert Konieczny: By chance, I came across this conceptualism in a rather unusual way. Duda and Zubel, who, when I was in my second year, came back from the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, from Hertzberger, the cradle of Dutch conceptualism, translated this way of thinking to our Gliwice school. But before I came into contact with them, I met by chance a student who was two years above me - Janek Kubec. I saw his project in the showcase, I liked it graphically, but I completely didn't understand it. When he explained to me: "Robert, I'm doing this music center, I'm supposed to connect people from different parts of the world, who often don't speak the same language, but are connected by music. So I did it on a stave and this arrangement pulled the whole building together" for me it was Eureka! Just like with that grass roof, which I also saw in the second year.
Ola Kloc: A breakthrough year!
Robert Konieczny: Yes [laughs]! That's when I understood that architecture is not just walls, but something more, that something cool can start it. It was the beginning of thinking not yet conceptual, but I knew that this idea was something that was an added value, that could set the whole project. Over time we developed this, the ideas got better and better. When we designed with Marlena, we screwed around in such thinking, sometimes naive, but beautiful, sincere, as a result, cool projects were created. Anyway, I think Marlena still designs in the same way.
I think this is the most difficult way of designing one can choose. The thing with a good idea is that it sets up the whole project, it is the answer to all the issues, problems, wishes, context, impossibilities in the project or conflicting aspects to reconcile. When you have a good idea, you "only" have to focus on not messing it up, you have to consistently bring it to completion. If it doesn't work, it means it wasn't a good idea. You have to break away from your formal habits, everyone has them, everyone likes circles or squares more, and when you go after an idea that logic imposes on you, for a moment you have to forget about them and follow this force of logic. You can then arrive at something completely new, which surprises not only the other side, but also you.
In my opinion, conceptualism is a recipe for coming up with designs when you are not a brilliant architect - I am no brilliant architect! But I believe that this way of designing leads you precisely to such surprising, often new solutions, which you then have to catch in some aesthetic framework.
When Hans Ibelings, in his book, counted us as part of the conceptual trend that arose from this Dutch school, we began to talk about it directly, because to say about yourself that you are a conceptualist is a bit weak, but when you cite critics it's easier.
Book spread presenting the Unikato building in Katowice, Poland
© Pascal Publishing House
Ola Kloc: In your interview with Philip Jodidio you talk about how at the beginning of your career you decided for yourself to "race against the world". How do you assess that race in retrospect?
Robert Konieczny: It stems from my nature as an athlete. Thanks to this approach, a lot of energy was released in a person, when against all sorts of adversities, difficulties, such and not other conditions, because we are still a lot short of Western countries, where architects are well paid for their work, are treated completely differently, it was possible to bring about realizations of high architectural quality, to convince people of certain solutions. This was sometimes a bloodbath, but out of this ambition and desire to pursue I did not say screw it, I cared to prove something to this world, to show that we Poles are not geese, that we can also be good, have great ideas.
When you compare yourself to the direct competition, you kind of rest on your laurels, you think you've managed to do something cool, maybe it's better than your colleagues' housing and that's it. But if you look at the masters of architecture, at the best ones, and compare yourself to them, to them you want to strive, then even if you don't jump over that bar you set high for yourself, at least you will fly high.
And it stayed in me, maybe I calmed down a bit, but this desire to show that as Poles we can do something cool is still in me. But now I think more as a team, because after all, we are in a time of breakthrough in architecture and we need to look for new solutions, share ideas and support each other. I was very happy to hear that the team from the SARP in Katowice reached out to us to come and talk a little bit about the greening of the Silesian Museum area, because they want to support us in this. We said that we needed this support, that planting these trees should be an architectural civic project that everyone would sign on to. That made my day.
Ola Kloc: Thank you for the interview.
