A new skyscraper-hotel designed by PRC Architekci studio has sprung up in the center of Lodz. The form of the edifice is restrained and elegant. Simple, cubic solids. Facades covered with evenly spaced lisens. Reduced detailing. Associations with the style of official architecture of the Second Republic seem most appropriate. What is so unique about the aesthetics of the 1930s that it still seems a tempting design solution nearly a century later?
A hotel in the center of Lodz by HRC Architects.
Photo: Błażej Ciarkowski
Just a few years ago, Grzegorz Piątek together with Jaroslaw Trybus argued that the time of ostentatious "power architecture" had passed.
In a democratic country (...) references to monumental classicism can be questionable," they wrote1.
In spirit, I admitted they were right. I did not believe that the designers would succumb (once again in history) to the charm of the concrete colonnade.
Bruno Zevi believed that in light of the tragic experiences of the 20th century, columns, colonnades, monumentalism and symmetry had become the architectural language of repression. The equals sign between the column and totalitarianism is certainly an exaggeration, but there is no denying that for centuries it has been a symbol of strength and power.
The discreet charm of fascist Rome
When Polish architects combined simplified classical motifs with modernism as early as the late 1920s, they created an image of "Mediterranean Poland." They emphasized the links of the reborn Republic with the West. They joined the current of state policy of building the image of a modern country with superpower ambitions. Only a few years later, designers were enthralled with fascist Italy. Jerzy Hryniewiecki proposed that, following the Italian model, the budget for monumental buildings should obligatorily guarantee 2 percent in plastic decoration. Stanislaw Brukalski stressed that in plans for the reconstruction of the capital "we will not be forced to decide on untested experiments "2 and pointed to an unmatched model - Rome's Via dell'Impero. Architects looked with envy at their Italian colleagues under the protection of state patronage.
Today, after years of complete stagnation, the Eternal City is returning to its most splendid times, having found in the person of Mussolini a protector above all an initiator, throwing contemporary architects the boldest ideas into reality," enthused Piotr Bieganski3.
The concrete colonnades of Rome seduced a whole host of designers....
