The art of bunkers
Jastrzębie-Zdrój is getting rid of a notorious self-build, and at the same time we are facing a rash of other buildings without building permits. Seemingly underground, but - who knows if they won't surface. None of them will come close to the Jastrzębie unique.
The NIK inspectors showed that if there were to be a war in our country, we'd better not, maybe not now, rather ask the enemy to like us or postpone the invasion until later. They did not say this directly, but published a text with the sympathetic title "In a shelter you will not take refuge." They wrote that even that which is supposed to protect us somehow is not much use for anything. They also stated what percentage of Poles would find space in shelters or "places of hiding." Four percent. Only in some cities it is a bit better, in such a city as Gdynia as much as fifteen (!) hundredths of the total population can count on a place in a civilized hiding place.
What about the other extreme of Polish tourism? In Zakopane, like the recently made famous teddy bear, you probably have to pay just for approaching something you can hide under. Even an umbrella. Laughs-giggles aside, however, I don't really want to kick Zakopane lying down. Already twenty-nine years ago I decided that I would not add with my appearance to the ugliness of this city. So I boycotted Zakopane before it was fashionable, and now, out of spite, when everyone hangs their dogs on the bear, all the more reason for me to go there. Especially since for the first time the PKP arrow will skip to Zakopane Faster-Than-Lux-Torpedo-Before-the-War. I'm writing this in mid-March and the record hasn't been broken yet, because the first train set going according to the new schedule, what a surprise, caught a delay.
But maybe that's better. Who knows if there isn't an ancient curse according to which war breaks out in our country when the railroad from Krakow to Zakopane takes less than those two hours twenty. It worked once and that's enough. Anyway, will this train arrive or not, it doesn't matter, because there is not much way to get off in this Zakopane anyway. The platform of the renovated station has already caved in. Unfortunately, many Zakopane sites and buildings from the last three decades, which - despite the boycott - I know from photos, articles, stories and Alexander Gurgul's book, have not followed suit.
Instead, another symbol of spatial free-americanism is going for demolition. Just one that - until I pinch myself that I am writing this seriously - would be worth preserving. In Jastrzębie-Zdrój, years later, they are taking on one of Poland's most famous samowolek - a massive superstructure of a block of flats. I've been there, I've seen it, it's something bizarre, but, damn, it's a shame to dismantle it. At first glance, this nugget has more advantages than many legitimate works, and it sits quite well in space. It also has the merit of being perhaps the most stripped-down monument to the madness of the transition era. And, as Pawel Mrozek recognizes in his meme[cf. p. 58], it is not so different in form from the cherished exploits of global deconstructivism. What is limp here is the quality and mode of execution, rather than the overall idea.
At the same time, the form, history and location of this rooftop megavilla are more interesting and representative of the times of transition than the legal or arbitrary pseudo-castles, gargoyles or the already compacted Black Cat in the capital. Here, on the roof of a block of flats, a symbol of Peoples' Poland, landed without any mode, a space ship - a symbol of transformational Poland. With terraces overgrown with a small youngster, that is, a green roof planted solidly long before the fashion for green roofs. An open form!
And all in Jastrzebie, which even exploded with blocks of flats in the 1970s, doing it wrong, by the way. In this Jastrzebie, where the country's first factory of large-panel houses stood. I regret that I didn't make it to last year's exhibition on architectural arbit rariness at Wrocław's Museum of Architecture. The cosmic superstructure was there, as I read, properly honored. Thus, the hawker will lose one of its two architectural poles. Because for the past two years, the rooftop arbitrariness on the east side of the city has been balanced on its west side by the famous music school concert hall by SLAS Architects, disciplined and ethereal from the outside. Yin and yang. Madness and composure. A symbol of a time of chaos versus a manifestation of progressive stability.
A perfect magnet for tourists, who can also experience the attraction of the lack of a railroad in the more than 90,000-strong city of Jastrzębie. They deleted it in what is, after all, a sizable city twenty-three years ago, and are expected to restore it around 2030. Again, I don't know if this is a good idea. They first brought the tracks to Hawk in 1911. Not three years later, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was hit. Coincidence? What if there's a curse here, too?
And so, with the help of a stilted diatribe, I return to the war, because there is no other way. We are bombarded with news: it's going to explode, it's not going to explode, in a year, in a moment, in five years, it's already underway. Atom, or business as usual? Strange that after the TV weather forecast they don't give a war forecast today. Seemingly no one wants a catastrophe, but who knows, maybe it's also fun. Urban said he had a boring childhood, and then the war came and it was interesting. Besides, war makes us feel better. It's thanks to her that we will wallow in the things we turn our pre-war noses up at today. Those who survive will sigh at the microcapades, squares made of concrete, streets jammed with shiny cars. To the pastelose facades, cheerful advertisements and running water where you could make luxurious Saga tea.
There is only one detail: you have to survive, and there are no bunkers. The only one that seems to have opened recently is Krakow's Bunker of Art, masked, by the way, again by a cafe shed. There is also the newly legally permitted option of backyard shelters without a building permit. I feel that many citizens will first pile up a sizable mountain and build something in it, which, once unearthed, can be
can be converted into a dozen residential cottages, but will collapse from the explosion of a New Year's Eve firecracker. And none of these cosi will even come close to the
the idea to the hawker superstructure.
And just when there seems to be nowhere to hope, I read that in case of war the Norwegians are converting planes into flying hospitals. There is a way out. It's time for flying bunkers.
