One of the greatest honors in Polish architecture is the Honorary Award of the Society of Architects, which has been awarded since 1966. In the pages of A&B, in a series on the professional path, SARP activities and current events from the world of architecture, Wojciech Fudala talks to the winners and laureates of this award. This time his interlocutor is Professor Marek Budzynski, who received the SARP Honorary Award in 1993.
Professor Marek BUDZYÑSKI- architect, urban planner. Born in 1939 in Poznan. A graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, he received his PhD in 1983 and his professorship in 2016. From 1965 to 2016, with breaks, he worked at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology. From 1961 to 1988, he was a designer and general designer in state design offices. From 1984 he worked with Zbigniew Badowski, and from 2004 - with Krystyna Ilmurzyńska. Awarded, among others, the Commander's Cross, the King Stanislaw August Medal for meritorious service in the work of building the majesty of the Capital, the Gloria Artis silver medal. He is a recipient of the SARP Honorary Award. His most important projects include the Ursynów Północny Estate Complex, the University of Warsaw Library and the seat of the Supreme Court in Warsaw.
Wojciech Fudala:I would like to start our conversation with the period of your studies at the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. Your teachers then were the founders of the Warsaw School of Architecture. How do you recall that period?
Prof. Marek Budzyński: My studies fell in the years 1957-1963 and I remember them very well. It was a period when, after Stalinism, there was hope among teachers and students that "people's democracy" would be "ours." There was a great atmosphere, which translated into the relationships of teachers with students and students with each other. There was, of course, competition, but one that motivated development in a positive way. A very important figure for me was Zbigniew Karpinski, who taught introductory design classes. Although he did it in a very straightforward way, he was great at reaching out to students. He graded my single-family house project at 5+.
Wojciech Fudala:However, you did your diploma under Bohdan Pniewski. Why him and not Karpinski?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: Karpinski was very busy designing the East Wall at the time, and Pniewski was just "great". A diploma under his direction was an ennoblement and everyone, including me, wanted to go to him. As a topic I chose a Short Rest Center on a mound of Warsaw rubble in Powisle. My design, however, did not fit at all with the style of Pniewski, who declared himself a historicizing architect with strong ties to Greece and Egypt. This can be seen in his architecture. I covered the mound with a transparent "minimal" shell stretched between high and low points. Later in the same way Frei Otto designed his famous Olympic stadium in Munich, for which he received the Pritzker Prize. I - 5 on the diploma.
Marek Budzynski's diploma work - Short Rest Center on a mound of Warsaw rubble in Powisle district, 1963
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:After graduation, you focused on competitions. Was that an effective way of getting assignments at the time?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: My experience with competitions began as early as my third year at university. At that time, together with Adam Kowalewski and Andrzej Moszczynski, we won a competition for the New Tychy train station. At that time there were no restrictions and anyone could enter realization contests. All you had to do was buy the terms of the contest for 100 zlotys and send in your contest entry. I think this was an excellent way to catch fresh solutions. Today, starting a competition is more difficult - you need to have a construction license, and often several realizations to your credit. This severely limits the number of participants, minimizing the chances of finding innovative ideas and talented young designers.
Model of the train station in Nowe Tychy - the winning competition entry made by Marek Budzyński, Adam Kowalewski and Andrzej Moszczyński, 1960
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:Competitions in the People's Republic were organized better than today?
Prof. Marek Budzyński: In addition to the aforementioned accessibility of competitions, they were decided according to established rules. What we have today is a natural free-for-all. It is often not known why this project and not another won the competition. There are also numerous situations where someone else wins the competition, and someone else then gets the contract and does the project. We have encountered this ourselves in recent years, for example in the project for the European Center for Geological Education in Chęciny. We won the competition, and then it turned out that a completely different studio would do the project [WXCA studio, second place in that competition - editor's note].
Wojciech Fudala:What would you say to young architects who, at the beginning of their professional path, are wondering whether to take part in competitions? Is it worth going down this path today?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: Despite everything, I think it is. I encourage young architects to participate in competitions, because it is still a very developing form. You are given a task and you are completely free in how you answer it. The only thing that is questionable is the fairness of competitions, and sometimes, even if you do the best project, it won't necessarily win, or get noticed at all.
The winning competition project - European Center for Geological Education in Chęciny (non-implementation project), - proj.: Marek Budzyński, Krystyna Ilmurzyńska, Zbigniew Badowski, 2012
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:Let's go back to competitions from the communist period. After graduation, you won a competition that resulted in a several-month trip to Cuba. How did this come about?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: It all started with my cousin Grazyna Boczewska and her boyfriend Andrzej Domanski, who graduated in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts under Oskar Hansen. They suggested that I participate together in the competition for the Victory Monument on Playa Girón in Cuba. Among the judges was a Polish architect, Prof. Jan Zachwatowicz. We won this competition, creating a very symbolic design, showing how the unity of a nation and land freely destroys a great force that tries to strike from outside. At Fidel Castro's personal invitation, we traveled to Cuba to work on the realization project already in place. However, the realization never happened, although with the dollars earned in Cuba I was later able to buy a 37-square-meter apartment in Warsaw.
Victory Monument on Playa Girón in Cuba, designed by Marek Budzyński, Andrzej Mrowiec, Grażyna Boczewska, Andrzej Domański, 1963
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:Was it easier to find your way in the Polish market after your experience in Cuba?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: On the contrary! For a long time I couldn't find employment, because I was treated as a dropout. Finally, my father got me a job at a construction site. I was in charge of accounting for materials there, so that everything matched in the cost estimates. This was at odds with reality, but a year on the construction site enabled me to obtain construction licenses. These, in turn, allowed me to participate in a multi-discipline study on the principles of the most effective model of urbanization and industrial construction in Poland, called Linear Concentration.
Later, together with Adam Kowalewski, we started doing competitions again. Among other things, we won the competition for the Recreation and Sports Center on the Czerniakowski Headland. It disappeared in the competition between old and young PZPR members.
During this period I took on various smaller and larger assignments, until finally, thanks to Henryk Drzewiecki, I received an invitation to a month-long scholarship in Denmark. The rule was that anyone who went on such a scholarship later stayed in Denmark for a year or two. This was also the case for me. I worked in the office of Sven Hogsbro, where I was given a housing complex to design for a workers' cooperative in Nivrod near Copenhagen. I proposed group housing, arranged according to the principle of Linear Concentration. This solution was very warmly welcomed by the city council, moreover, I was able to appear as an author everywhere. The realization fell through.
Linear Concentration, 1968
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:Your first major project in the country was Ursynów Północny. How did it come to fruition?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: After I finished working for Sven Hogsbro, although I had no employment, I decided to stay in Denmark. I found out that the Department of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Aarhus was looking for a lecturer, so I went and was accepted. It was light work, only twelve hours a week, and I was given an apartment - a comfortable room with a bathroom and equipped kitchen. Luxuries that were unthinkable in a "people's democracy." I had a lot of free time, which I devoted to architectural and urbanistic considerations. It was then that I came up with group parcelling, which I consider my greatest urban-planning achievement.
One day, out of nowhere, I received a letter from Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski, whom I knew from the Department of Architecture as a junior student. Together with Andrzej Szkop and Ludwik Borawski, they had won the competition for Ursynów Północny. They were commissioned to design the project, but soon after Ludwik Borawski unexpectedly died. The other two found themselves in a difficult situation. Kraut was just out of college, and Szczepanik-Dzikowski didn't even have a degree yet. To salvage the situation, they decided to invite me to join the team, while sending a photo of the board with their project. I replied that I could join, provided we started the project from scratch and did it according to the principles of the aforementioned Linear Concentration. They agreed, so I returned to Poland. After a few years we realized a housing estate, which is still a great place to live today.
Ursynów Północny neighborhood in Warsaw, designed by Marek Budzyński, Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski, Andrzej Szkop, 1972
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:Nowadays, the notion of a fifteen-minute city, i.e. one in which all daily errands are done within a 15-minute walk from where you live, is very popular. Is it fair to say that you designed the fifteen-minute city in Ursynów before this notion came into circulation?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: One can even say more: it was on the basis of the design of Ursynów Północny that such ideas as the fifteen-minute city were created. All communication here is based on pedestrian routes. Another important thing, unheard of today, was to balance jobs with the number of working people. If we knew that there would be 20,000 working people living on the estate, we designed jobs under them, in specific functions that worked for the residents. We created a self-sufficient city attached by subway to Warsaw.
A housing complex in Nivrod near Copenhagen, 1970
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:How did the authorities of the time react to this project?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: Ursynów Północny had very strong support in party units. I myself never had anything to do with political parties, neither then nor now, but I have to admit that the Warsaw division of the PZPR treated me very well. Today it is said that socialism was an uncooperative and flawed system, but in my professional life this was not the case at all.
Wojciech Fudala:A few years after Ursynów Północny was built, you also designed the excellent Church of the Ascension there.
Prof. Marek Budzynski: When the parish priest came to me and said he wanted to commission me to build a church, I felt valued. However, this was the result of an agreement between the Church and the Communist Party. The essence of things in this project was the connection between modernity and tradition. You can find pre-Romanesque, Baroque or Art Nouveau spatial solutions, which together create the whole establishment.
Interior of the Church of the Ascension in Warsaw, designed by Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, 1980
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:Professor Konrad Kucza-Kuczynski claims that you became a believer through your work on the Ursynów church. Could you comment on that?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: This is partly true. I was a Catholic by family tradition - I was baptized on the sixth day of my life, and at the age of six I had First Holy Communion at Jasna Gora. From a young age I believed in God, only I was indifferent in religious terms. I always believed that there was such a thing as a process of divine creation, and that all the things that were later called evolution did not happen spontaneously. I believe that in every process there is an expressive divine will for something to go in this direction and not another. However, I separate religion from faith: faith is a personal matter, while religion is certain procedures, binding people into groups for social purposes.
Father Jozef Tischner was also a great figure for me during the period of building the Ursynów church. It is a pity that today he functions very little in the public consciousness as a philosopher and as a priest. In the 1970s, he was a person who influenced the interpersonal relations of many Poles.
Wojciech Fudala:Still remaining with the Church of the Ascension, it is worth mentioning that you located the entrance not from the main street (Avenue of the Commission of National Education), but from the back. This created a completely new urban square.
Prof. Marek Budzynski: In North Ursynów, buildings are entered from streets - pedestrian routes. However, I wanted to create a square that would be a stage for various social activities and events. For a dozen years or so, these events actually took place there. Later, however, landscape architects showed up. They found that the square had to be green and planted trees there. As a result, today it is simply a place where old people sit on benches and a few children play in the fountain. Instead of a real urban space, we have an attraction in the form of gushing water. I wanted to organize a discussion on the subject within the Critique Circle at the Warsaw branch of SARP, founded in 2013, but I was denied.
Fair on the square in front of the Church of the Ascension in Warsaw, designed by Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski, 1980
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:When and why did you join SARP?
Prof. Marek Budzyński: Right after graduation, although it was not easy at the time. You had to have introducers and show some seniority. My introducer was Jerzy Hryniewiecki, and I felt very proud to join this Association. Today the SARP has declined severely, but this is primarily a result of the fact that the architectural profession has lost the stature it had before and immediately after the war. Even during the deep communist period, an architect was a "guest," someone important in society. Today, when you say you are an architect, you are a "nobody," a legally enforced impediment.
Wojciech Fudala:What can SARP do about this?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: In my opinion, nothing.
Wojciech Fudala:Why do you think so?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: The arrangement of economic relations today is such that the most important person is the one who invests. And he cares little about architecture, only that the turnover of money is as favorable to him as possible.
Wojciech Fudala:In 2000 you won perhaps the largest competition in the history of Polish architecture, the competition for the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw. Why was this project not realized, and instead a completely new competition was organized, in addition with completely different guidelines?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: This was due to games within the Church. The then-Primate Józef Glemp organized the foundation for the construction of the Temple of Divine Providence. It was his responsibility to raise funds for the construction and then coordinate the entire process. The Episcopate did not want construction financing to be under Glemp's directive. So they limited the powers of the primate's office, and then held a new competition, resulting in the Temple as we know it. Its construction was no longer the responsibility of the primate, but of the bishops.
The Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw, the winning competition entry, 2000
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:And wasn't the problem that the construction of the Temple according to your design was too expensive?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: The construction of the Temple of Divine Providence was a national event, so a huge amount of money could be raised for it. I made my own calculation of the funds that could be raised. I came up with an amount that was five times the real cost of building the Temple. The reasons for not realizing my project were therefore quite different.
Wojciech Fudala:A year ago, the competition for the reconstruction of the Saski Palace on Warsaw's Pilsudski Square was decided. You, on the other hand, had developed your own proposal for the development of this space several years earlier. Do you regret that this project did not break through more widely to public opinion, and in the end the focus was on a faithful reconstruction of what once was?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: I believe that the decision to transform the ruins of the colonnade into the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was correct and socially accepted. The tomb became a national symbol, but caused creative impotence in the reconstruction of the square as an important urban space. My concept was to solve the problem of Pilsudski Square as a living urban space. The primary goal was to respect the monuments that are still there, i.e. the foundations under the ground. I linked these pre-war monuments to nature and culture, using state-of-the-art botanical solutions. The result is a multi-level plaza that combines different layers of history and modernity. I tried to interest the media and the City Architect of Warsaw in this project, but all attempts at cooperation were cut off in advance.
I consider the competition for the reconstruction itself shameful. I do not understand how you can devalue such a symbol as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and suddenly put columns on it.
Proposal for the development of Pilsudski Square in Warsaw, 2019
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:Similar discussions about reconstruction are occurring in other countries. In Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral is being rebuilt in a way that faithfully reflects its pre-fire condition. The Reichstag in Berlin, on the other hand, has a contemporary footprint in the form of Norman Foster's glass dome.
Prof. Marek Budzynski: Both of these buildings have great historical significance and positive connotations. I believe that both the faithful reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral and the Reichstag with a glass dome are apt solutions. This dome, by the way, was designed in such a way that you can hardly tell the difference between the old photos and the present day. Foster did a great job, I appreciate him very much as an architect and businessman. Saski Palace is a completely different story. It is a symbol of the destruction and decay of the Polish state.
Wojciech Fudala:Many people try to pigeonhole you into a certain style. They often describe you as a postmodernist. And how would you define yourself?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: I have no idea who invented the postmodernist. What exactly is postmodernism? If one were to read the name literally, it is something that follows modernism. However, modernism has not ended at all and is still the dominant aesthetic in modern architecture. If I had to find one slogan to define my architecture, it is shaping space for the duration of life. This is, by the way, the title I gave to the book of my memoirs, which I self-published last year, because the National Institute of Architecture and Urbanism ran out of money.
The winning entry - Recreation and Sports Center on the Czerniakowski Headland in Warsaw, designed by Marek Budzyński, Adam Kowalewski, 1967.
photo: private archives
Wojciech Fudala:We started our conversation with your teachers. Now it is you who are looking at the younger generations of architects from the perspective of authority. What do you see?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: First of all, a lot of competition for orders and money. I understand this a bit, because in the architectural profession it is getting harder every year. In the social hierarchy, our profession is going downhill at an express pace, and I am afraid that architects will follow the path of urban planners, who today are practically non-existent.
Wojciech Fudala:What are the biggest challenges facing architects?
Prof. Marek Budzynski: I see two such challenges. The first is to maintain localism in architecture. Modernists from under the Bauhaus claimed to create a geometry that could be placed anywhere in the world. I think architecture is always tied to specific groups of people. A house in the middle of Africa requires something different than a house in Greenland, both socially and climatically. Maintaining this locality while moving forward is the main challenge of contemporary and future architecture.
The second challenge is the question of mastering artificial intelligence. It is the biggest threat when it comes to the problems of shaping space. It is completely outside this space and has no ties to the biosphere, drifting somewhere in the meanders of the universe. Today we only have the initial phase of artificial intelligence, but I am concerned to see the mass of people who are enthralled with the emergence of this formula. Once man, as part of his bio-development, reached the status of self-awareness and the concept of his own self. If this artificial intelligence also reaches such a state of self-awareness, God only knows what will come of it.
Wojciech Fudala:Thank you for the interview.
interviewed: Wojciech Fudala
more: A&B 11/2024 - Soul of Europe, Soul of the City,
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