In 2002, it became an example of how to adapt existing architecture to the challenges of modern times. Today - less than a quarter-century after construction - it is slowly disappearing. The Rainbow Office Building in Krakow, designed by Romuald Loegler and nominated for several awards, including the European Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Prize, is slated for demolition. A new building will be constructed in its place.
What is the building's expiration date? Although the 19th-century tenements, of which there are plenty in Cracow, show that a hundred years is just the beginning for good architecture, it is also hard not to notice that we are dealing with the increasingly intensive demolition of existing buildings in places where the construction of a new building may prove economically justified. It is not only buildings that remember the previous system that are being demolished - paradoxically, with a growing number of admirers, social-modern architecture is holding up quite well. The situation is slightly different in the case of buildings built in 1989, for which sentiment and appreciation have not yet managed to take root for good. As a result, it turns out that brand-new buildings that were built thirty or even twenty years ago are being earmarked for demolition. One of these is the rainbow Solidex office building, which is slowly disappearing from the landscape of Krakow's Bronowice.
Solidex's rainbow office building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
Solidex office building in Bronowice
The Solidex office building was built in 2002 to a design by Romuald Loegler at 124 Juliusz Lea Street in Cracow. It is an elongated building, which is an amalgam of two volumes - a strictly rectangular, three-story volume, to which on the northeastern side "grows" a modern, slightly curved and rounded in the corners, fully glazed form with a height of five stories. The two volumes, which seem to come from two different worlds, were visually "connected" by means of colorful lamellas, which obscured the large-area glazing in the more futuristic part of the building. At the top of the building, in addition to the technical installations, still towers the large logo of Solidex, one of the most important Polish companies in the IT market. Its demise, which coincided with the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, began a difficult period in the history of the Bronowice office building.
Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
A sauna, a fitness room and a stripped floor
Functionally, the Rainbow Office Building was a good example of early 21st century work space. In addition to offices ranging in size from 1-bedroom to large spaces of 2,000 thousand square meters, the Solidex building also offered training rooms and meeting rooms, and even an entire conference center, accommodating up to 120 people in total. Communication was solved with two elevators and a staircase, and the whole thing was free of architectural barriers for people with limited mobility.
Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
A wood-lined terrace was arranged on the roof of the lower part, accessible from the height of the fourth floor and facing Kosciuszko Mound and Sikornik. As befits an "A" class office building, built at the beginning of the new millennium, the Solidex building offered employees a little more than spaces to fulfill their official duties - there was a sauna, a fitness room and a catering area.
The Rainbow Solidex office building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemysław Ciępka
The Solidex office building also utilized construction and technological solutions that were modern for the time. Office spaces could be freely arranged - companies renting space had the opportunity to create places both in the form of offices and open space, celebrating its first triumphs in Polish office architecture. The freedom to customize the space was supported by a system of double floors, under which installations swirled. Depending on current needs, access to them and changes in the course of installations were made possible by easy removal of the floor panels.
Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
Rainbow Office Building
The most important distinguishing feature of the Solidex office building, however, was its rainbow-colored facade. The colorful light-breakers in the form of aluminum ribbons, stretching across the entire width of the building, distinguished it from the office architecture of the time, which was built in shades of gray of steel and concrete, beige of marble slabs or plaster, and deep blue of glazing. The facades looked particularly impressive at night - as the colorful strips obscuring the windows of the office building were illuminated. However, the building did not exude the nostalgia of colorful Las Vegas neon signs; this was prevented primarily by the greenery, including tall trees, among which the office building was erected. The rainbow laths not only added to the building's charm, they also helped to visually tie its modern, western part to the slightly older, blocky block on the eastern side.
Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
demolished, yet appreciated
The Rainbow Office Building was among seven Polish buildings nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2003. In addition to the information pavilion of the EkoPark housing development in Warsaw (designed by Kuryłowicz & Associates), which was conceived from the beginning as temporary architecture, the Solidex office building at 124 Lea Street in Cracow is the first building among the nominees for which a demolition permit has been issued. Being nominated for an international award is not the only time an office building designed by Atelier Loegler has been recognized - in 2002, the SARP Main Board nominated it for the SARP Year Award, and a year later it received the Third Degree Award from the Ministry of Finance. Romuald Loegler's concept seemed attractive even a few years after its completion, when the office building was included in the list of buildings nominated for the 2008 Krakow Architect of the Year award. However, all these awards turned out to be nothing in the face of the plans its owners have for the building. Decisions have been issued, and the Rainbow Office Building will most likely go for demolition.
Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
millennium update
In 2003, the Solidex office building was probably awarded not only for its modern form. An important feature of the realization was also something the new owners of the Rainbow Office Building had apparently forgotten - the use of existing structures. After all, Romuald Loegler's office building was not the first building on the plot at 124 Lea St. Previously, a small, three-story and two-and-a-half tract building from 1965 stood there. Instead of demolishing the building, the Atelier Loegler team decided to incorporate it into the structure of the new office building. Today it can be seen in part of the front elevation and at the rear, facing Armii Krajowej Street, as a rigorously cuboidal volume, slightly lower than the rest of the building.
Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
What will be built instead of the Rainbow Office Building?
Back in October 2022, a permit was issued for "Demolition of an existing office building and construction of a new building for hotel function." With the end of the following year, the applicants received a building permit, which revealed that on the plot of land at ul. Lea 124, it is planned to "Construct a new building for use as a hotel with a conference and catering area and a student house, with an underground garage, with a driveway and surface parking." It is worth adding, however, that the permits obtained allowed for both demolition and modernization of the existing Solidex building. The former, however, is indicated by the demolition of the modernist portion of the Rainbow Office Building, while requesting a reduction in the biologically active area and maintaining a similar paved surface ratio.
Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
The twist came just before this year's Easter - on April 15, the Bureau of Architecture received an application to change the use category included in the 2023 PnB from a hotel building to a building of the 16th and 17th categories, defining "office and conferencebuildings" and "buildings for trade, catering and services, such as: stores, shopping centers, department stores, market halls, restaurants, bars, casinos, discos, station buildings, garages over five stalls". What intentions does the current investor have? This is not known, the investment is being handled by the mysterious company EAS5003, about which it is vain to find information on the web.
Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow will be demolished? - design: Atelier Loegler
photo: Przemyslaw Ciępka
building's expiration date
What is known, however, is that we are most likely dealing with another example of irresponsible "replacement" of buildings that are far from the end of their useful life. In Krakow alone, we reported on the demolition of the Energoprojekt office building, a lot of demolition is also happening in Wroclaw, where the Arkady Wroclawskie shopping center went under the pick, inGdansk, where the Zlote Kamienice will disappear from the landscape, and finally in Poznan, where shopping malls and other post-modern buildings are being demolished at will. And although in the case of Solidex's Rainbow Office Building in Krakow, part of the structure is already years old, the whole has been transformed into a relatively modern building, which is unlikely to live to see a quarter century.
If we keep building instead of using the existing fabric, no amount of green roofs, photovoltaic panels and energy recovery systems in modern buildings will be able to negate the impact that architecture has on the planet. Positive examples, such as Group 5's revitalization projects or the use of demolition materials, as in the case of Votum Alexa, are of course gratifying. Still, they are a drop in the hot sea of climate needs.
