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Bazaar is a living organism - about Aleksandra Wasilkowska's projects

04 of February '25

From tin jaws to fungarium market halls, from Vietnamese bars to eco-feminist markets, Aleksandra Wasilkowska designs bazaars, but they are far from the concrete squares with stalls that everyone knows.

The theme of bazaars has finally become an important architectural subject. Just a decade ago, most architecture students' diplomas were museum buildings or concert halls. Today, most is everyday architecture, such as community activity centers, schools, senior citizens' homes, kindergartens or just bazaars

- says Aleksandra Wasilkowska, to whom we owe much of the change in thinking about the bazaar as an equal part of urban space.


Wasilkowska took up the subject of bazaars early on, as it was to them that she devoted her thesis at École d "Architecture de Bretagne in France, and that was almost two decades ago. The theme that inspired her were, in some circles today considered iconic, then rather embarrassing "jaws," the metal boxes used for trading at the Parade Square bazaar in Warsaw and many other marketplaces. "It's the architecture of everyday life, in the shadow of buildings," the designer says of the bazaar spaces. Objects necessary for everyday life were until recently completely overlooked, excluded from reflections on architecture and the urban design debate. They were considered a necessary evil, ugly, littered, chaotic, standing in the shadow of public buildings and on the edge of urban spaces. Local authorities were eager to strike them from local plans, remove them from good locations, or even liquidate them if the opportunity arose.

projekt Bazaristan, Wrocław, ul. Ptasia

Bazaristan project, Wroclaw, Ptasia Street

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


Was the change in their perception brought about by the "big-city hipsterism" so eagerly criticized by the right, which rediscovered the charms of bazaars as such, but above all appreciated the opportunity to buy fresh produce directly from their producers? Is the renaissance of vegetable and fruit markets evidence of shopping fatigue at discount stores? To a growing awareness of the goodness of eating healthy, but also reaching for local, rather than imported from the other side of the world, produce? In large cities, the change in the perception of bazaars has certainly been influenced by the coupling of these phenomena. In small towns, where bazaars are an everyday occurrence, the new outlook on their aesthetics and convenience may be related to the changes we have seen since Poland joined the structures of the European Union. Thanks to European funds, most of Poland's medium and small towns have radically changed their appearance: they have been flooded by a veritable wave of renovations and "aestheticization." In addition to new roadways and sidewalks or modernization of buildings, new public spaces, small architecture, and greenery were created. Even if criticized and not always successful, they showed that space can be arranged in a friendlier, more functional, but also simply prettier way.

projekt Bazaristan, Wrocław, ul. Ptasia

Bazaristan project, Wroclaw, Ptasia Street

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


Krakow Plaza, Galeria Malta, Arkady Wroclawskie - these are just some of the large urban shopping centers that have been slated for demolition or have already disappeared from the landscape. The reason for their "death" is, of course, the competition (in the last two decades similar facilities have simply been built too much), but also the huge changes that are taking place in the way we shop. Today, fewer and fewer people want to spend all day in shopping malls, wandering from store to store, we prefer to spend this time on pleasure, entertainment, relaxation, culture. It is estimated that by 2026 e-commerce will account for about 20 percent of retail sales in Poland. The percentage of Polish Internet users who buy online is already 79 percent. We are increasingly buying clothes, electronics, cosmetics and household goods without leaving home. But fresh and quality food "can't be put in a parcel machine". - Therefore, as confirmed by the merchants Wasilkowska spoke with, bazaars will still be needed. Particularly those with a local flavor and reach, so that shopping can be done quickly, conveniently, close to home, from well-known vendors. An additional lure, according to both researchers of this economic sector and the merchants themselves, is the opportunity to eat on the spot - food zones at marketplaces are extremely popular. Isn't proof of how well such a model can work provided by Krakow's Kleparz or Poznan's Lazarski and Jeżycki markets, which are also important and protected elements of local heritage?

targ miejski w Błoniu

city market in Blonie

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


Changing habits is not everything. Aleksandra Wasilkowska sees primarily a class difference in the perception of bazaars. For people from the lower middle class, especially women, but also for young people, artists or poor people, they are a boon, something in the city natural, desirable, colorful and practical at the same time. People from the upper middle classes, especially men with certain aspirations expressed, for example, by a branded car, judge marketplaces as chaotic places, are ashamed to be there, are even afraid of them or attribute to bazaars the characteristics of pathological phenomena. The architect recalls a debate related to the redevelopment of a market located in the center of the city, near the cemetery, and the proposed addition of a residential function. "Who would want to live next to a bazaar," one of the participants in the discussion, a middle-aged man, was said to have said.

He is a representative of a group that thinks of architecture primarily in terms of prestige or investment, rather than everyday needs. After all, the life of most of society consists of work, meal preparation, grocery shopping and caregiving, and living close to the bazaar makes it easier to organize the daily routine

- notes Wasilkowska.

Adequate planning of the delivery zone, parking, greenery, good pedestrian and public transportation, a diverse range of offerings and the open nature of the market - these are just some of the elements that can make it a friendly place for residents even outside trading hours.

targ miejski w Błoniu

Błonie city market

archive of Aleksandra Wasilkowska


A prototype of just such a bazaar, which is convenient for merchants and aesthetically pleasing, and can also be used in many other ways after hours, is the market in Błonie near Warsaw. Recognized last year with the Architecture Award of Polityka and nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Prize, the realization was commissioned in August 2022. The market, designed in cooperation with the local government, but above all with merchants, is expected to offer more than just new stalls and a roof overhead. Previously, trade at the site took place directly from cars; when these left it became an empty, paved parking lot. Aleksandra Wasilkowska persuaded the investor to experiment with combining the bazaar with a park. She designed twelve simple pavilions with a picturesque structure of irregular interlocking canopies and counters, and complemented everything with wild greenery (easy, even self-sustaining in terms of maintenance). She incorporated into the market's space a small play garden, seating areas and also left some parking spaces, where one can still sell farm produce directly from the trunk.

targ miejski w Błoniu

Błonie city market

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


Trading at the market in Blonie takes place three times a week. This is normal, because sellers - they are also producers and need time to take care of the crops on their farms. For four days a week and in the afternoons, therefore, the market is not used. Wasilkowska designed it so that residents could stay there then, young people could meet here, and city outdoor events could be held here. One of the pavilions has a bar with kitchen facilities, and in the future it will be possible to hold a birthday party or wedding under the roof.

Today it may seem hard to imagine to hold a family event at a bazaar, but if not today, maybe this idea will surprise in Blonie in a few years. At some bazaars this is already working

- explains Wasilkowska.

For now, the Blonie market, although accessible, is empty in the afternoons. It will probably take more time to convince people of the idea of the multifunctionality of such a place. "At the moment, after the market closes, the space simply becomes a park, a mass of birds flocktoit,"shesays. - says the architect. There is a lot of greenery at the market, there are trees, meadows, shrubs, and bowls with water flowing off the roofs. Some merchants are not happy with the plants and retention system at the market, they don't like the fact that rainwater is not drained into the sewer system, some merchants would prefer to have more space to park cars closer to their displays.

Compromise in a marketplace is difficult to achieve, it's easy to make a mistake, as in the Tower of Babel there are a lot of voices, sometimes contradictory, that need to be taken into account. And I admit: it's not easy to make decisions there

- he adds.


A modernized marketplace combined with wild greenery and rainwater retention, according to Wasilkowska's design, was also built in Biała Podlaska. Babski Rynek combines round, wooden canopies shading stepped displays and a market hall, which was created as a result of the conversion of a former community store. Babski Rynek is located adjacent to the main city square and is an important place in local tradition.

Babski Rynek, Biała Podlaska

Babski Rynek, Biała Podlaska

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


Aleksandra Wasilkowska designs bazaars, but her thoughts on urban markets are much broader. So is the (as yet unrealized) idea for bazaar machines. Following the model of devices that collect fees for parking cars, Wasilkowska proposes a municipal system of street trading posts equipped with similar machines for paying the market fee. This would make street trading legal, as it would be taxed, the venues designated by the City, and these small stands could be used by both professional and "one-time" vendors, florists or buskers. Wasilkowska is also the editor of a series of books on street and bazaar trade titled "The Architecture of the Shadow. "Architecture of the Shadow," conducts workshops on designing marketplaces, prepares urban strategies for the city related to the market function, and is sometimes the curator of exhibitions (including "Architecture of the Shadow" at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Bazaristan at the market on Ptasia Street in Wroclaw or "Claw" at the Bakalarska market in the capital).

Babski Rynek, Biała Podlaska

Babski Rynek, Biała Podlaska

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


Wasilkowska puts her ideas for the city's trade spaces into different contexts. In Chrzanow, she designed a market hall with a flexible first floor and a public greenhouse and fungarium on the roof. "The system of local, urban production of fruits and vegetables has already proven itself in the peripheral neighborhood of Romainville, where Europe's first urban greenhouse was established," says the architect, and tells how well the idea has worked socially in a neighborhood populated by migrants. Paying taxes in the neighborhood entitles one to buy food produced in the greenhouse at low prices; in addition to professional staff, the building employs residents from the area.

Chrzanów - projekt hali targowej ze szklarnią i fungarium, widok na zielony dach i szklarnie

Chrzanow - design of market hall with greenhouse and fungarium, view of green roof and greenhouses

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive

In migrant or impoverished neighborhoods, community integration and development is supported in various ways, such as building a community center. In Romainville, this role is fulfilled by an urban greenhouse, where children participate in courses and lessons related to healthy food education, residents can spend time while gaining access to healthy, inexpensive and fresh food that was previously difficult to obtain

- explains the idea to Wasilkowska.

At the same time, she stresses that an urban greenhouse with a specific owner and manager is different from open community gardens, which unfortunately rarely work in Poland. Healthy food production and redistribution in the city must have a specific organization and budget. We are very accustomed to ownership, and distrustful of community action, hence the failure of "nobody's" community gardens, with the huge popularity of allotment gardens. Urban greenhouses alongside food banks should be managed by municipal organizations or NGOs, and could be included in the education and culture budgets of local governments on a par with community centers or theaters.

widok na Halę Targową z targowiska w Rzeszowie

A view of the Market Hall from the Rzeszow marketplace

archive of Aleksandra Wasilkowska


The market could be a local neighborhood center and a point around which neighborhood life is organized. Such a model could be created in Rzeszow, where the revitalization of a section of the city center is planned. The area has buildings that are diverse in form and function (there is even a cemetery), but its heart is the Jutrzenka market and market hall on 8 Marca Street. And it is its transformation according to Wasilkowska's concept that could be the first stage of a multi-year investment.

"The ecofeminist plan around the market hall is an idea for a course correction in Rzeszow," she says. - explains the architect, who designs buildings, streets, squares and the bazaar to be safe and comfortable for pedestrians, and especially women, children, young people, the elderly and migrants, groups so far overlooked in urban design. The proposed concept includes: A modernized market hall, a marketplace with market pavilions, widened sidewalks and shared streets, greenery and maximum rainwater retention, active first floors with services to increase the feeling of safety for female walkers, dormitory andapartments friendly to young mothers, play gardens with tables for parents and caregivers who work while taking care of children; the cemetery could be opened up as a park intermingling with the renaturalized banks of the Wislok River. Any statue in the area dedicated to men would get its counterbalance in the form of an artwork honoring women. The bazaar, in turn, would be the vibrant center of the entire urban setting. The project sounds like a phantasmagoria, but the architect confirms the great openness of the city authorities to the developed concept. The Rzeszow project was developed in cooperation with EY Parthenon and financed by the European Investment Bank.

projekt bazaromatu

bazaromat project

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


Is there any point in creating experiments and visions bordering on utopia for objects as mundane as bazaars? Wasilkowska believes that they are the perfect place for both prototyping everyday life and forming healthy eating habits.

Eating, acquiring products, preparing, cooking and consuming them are the most basic human activities around which communities have gathered since the beginning of time. It is worth revitalizing the community nature of food by putting the kitchen and bazaar in the spotlight. With easy access to cheap and fresh food, society becomes healthier and more equitable

książka „Architektura Cienia”, wyd. Fundacja Inna Przestrzeń

book "Architecture of the Shadow," published by the Other Space Foundation

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive

Although these projects contain an element of influencing our habits and standards of operation, the architect is far from social engineering. Rather, her projects - are responsive proposals to social, economic, political changes on how the environment can be changed in the face of them, so that it becomes a better place to live. They are somewhat ahead of their time, but are not created in a vacuum. A bazaar where you can hold a wedding, or a greenhouse in the center of the city, are part of the trend, popular after all, of designing flexible, multifunctional, hybrid buildings today. By the same token, they are not very different from the concept of a building that combines the functions of an office, an apartment, a store, a hotel and a school (and such have already been created). Rather, they surprise us in that they involve areas that we have pushed to the margins and forgotten how important they are.

targ Bakalarska, Warszawa

Bakalarska market, Warsaw

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


Reshaping spaces brought out of the shadows does not always have to involve utopian visions. Proof of this is the redevelopment of the Bakalarska Street market in Warsaw, which Aleksandra Wasilkowska considers her best, yet most challenging project to date. Since 2014, she has been working with dozens of national groups associated with the facility, which was built in the Włochy district after the liquidation of Jarmark Europa, a bazaar in the now-defunct Decade Stadium. Nearly a decade ago, the Bakalarska merchants' association asked the architect to help modernize the market. Commissioned by a number of communities, including Vietnamese, Chinese and Indian, a project was created to clean up the bazaar's space, improve its functionality, convenience of use, as well as enrich the market with numerous food and beverage outlets. Work on the redevelopment of Asian Town at Bakalarska Street is still underway - new market halls and service establishments with travel agencies, manicure salons, catering are to be built at the market.

targ Bakalarska, Warszawa

Bakalarska market, Warsaw

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive

"This project is a constant learning experience," Wasilkowska stresses, adding that working with the charismatic members of the merchants' association is both a way to tame the architect's ego.

A big part of my design work involves drawing the merchants' vision. They are resolute, perfectly aware of their needs, watch the budget and their own interests, and leave little room for my original ideas or purity of form. This is a great lesson in humility for me. The marketplace lives its own life outside my design control

- and she says she learned there not only to cooperate with many nationalities, but also to design as efficiently as possible, as cheaply as possible, circular, functional and rational.

targ Bakalarska, Warszawa

Bakalarska market, Warsaw

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive

I'm not happy with all the forms and changes that have been created at Bakalarska, but seeing how phenomenally the space works, I don't regret submitting to the merchants' decisions. The bazaar is alive 24 hours a day, despite pandemonium and inflation, trade continues, the Alley with Claws, Pho bars and vending lounges have become cult places, on weekend evenings Asian Town turns into a meeting place for multinational communities who come to enjoy Vietnamese weddings and karaoke. A K-pop disco is just opening next to the merchant stalls. There is no more colorful place in Warsaw

targ Bakalarska, Warszawa

Bakalarska market, Warsaw

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive

Thanks to the fact that the place is shaped and built by the merchants themselves, it has avoided typical gentrification. In 2022, the Bakalarska market received the Architectural Award of the President of the City of Warsaw in the category "New Life of Buildings" (it was also nominated as commercial architecture). In the same year, it won a nomination in the prestigious competition The European Prize for Urban Public Space, which evaluates the best European public spaces. "Aesthetics are most often not a priority for bazaar workers. In this case, the expectations of users and designers were reconciled. The quality of the space at the interface between the private and the public has improved." - noted the jurors of the competition for the Architectural Award of the President of Warsaw.

projekt Bazaristan, Wrocław, ul. Ptasia

Bazaristan project, Wroclaw, Ptasia Street

Aleksandra Wasilkowska archive


I used to think I knew a lot about bazaars, but the more I design them, the more I become convinced that each bazaar is a separate microcosm, and I have to be very vigilant not to fall into the trap of using carbon copies, because something that worked great in one place may turn out to be a failure in another

- Wasilkowska concludes.


Anna CYMER

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