Be yourself - have been shouted for years by the media, self-help books, advertisements and the dried-up flower children of today. Okay, but which self? A sleepy one? Hungry? Dressed or naked? Me when I pretend to be one or when I play the other? Being yourself is really for the lucky ones with a stingy choice of options.
Be yourself - has also been heard for a century in architecture. Don't pretend, don't paint yourself, don't disguise yourself. You don't have to be nice. Show the rods, the guts, the pipes; you have something nasty inside, then don't hide it. Don't bristle, be honest. The architectural villain, however, often wants to go into disguise and make for a fancy set of people's lives, because this has been one of her traits for centuries. So is the desire to please and even knock down the view. For such being yourself, however, say the principals of architecture, especially residential architecture, to yourself, dear reader, don't allow it, after all, it's on our dime that you'll make a deity of yourself. Architecture is therefore littering, pissed by those from being itself, and those from pretending; sincere or insincere one hundred percent can therefore be about as much as. As far as at all.
And just when it seemed that today in architecture sincerity is a pipe dream, relief arrived. It used to be that some architects would do one thing and quietly say another. We know what housing should be, the designers said, but they don't let us, and we make barracks. We don't want to densify the city, tightness is bad, but, you know, bad authorities and investors. We would like trees in the street, but the network manager is a very unpleasant person. And - on the other hand - we know what a wick we have come up with, but we will drown it in a syrup of poetic descriptions and maybe no one will know.
That's how it was, that's how it sometimes is, but more and more often architects are going into honesty. They have finally rewashed their brains stained by once-imposed obligations and have slipped into hyperrealism. What some of the younger ones have never even rubbed shoulders with these social and cultural duties native to other times. So they honestly speak with one voice with the authorities and investors. They make a dick move under their dictates and behind the scenes, even after a deeper one, they claim that it's good, it's the right thing to do, the times are as they see them, and they accept them enthusiastically. They sincerely believe, for example, that with scaled-down blocks of flats on the river they are making a spatial revolution, revitalizing, pioneering. No longer chasing bread money explains putting up a castle on the edge of the wilderness, but a sincere desire to build a castle - from their early youth. Maybe they are not even building a hotel on the beach cynically, but out of sincere hatred for the blue, cold Baltic Sea.
On Internet forums, too, designers are quizzing each other about patents to circumvent regulations, local plans and ordinances, not at the dictates of investors, but out of a deep conviction that this is fine. Put them on a lie detector and they'll be in the clear. No more doublethink and beaker sweats when you have to twistedly explain something. We like to do wrong because it feels good. It's a relief like after a coming-out. Being yourself in such an unambiguous way is perfect for the psyche.
By the way, with this healthy honesty, some architects are part of a worldwide trend. In politics, every third or second type no longer certifies himself. He wants to kill painfully, he says he'll kill painfully, and he does; he'll say something about democracy and disarming the atom rather for a laugh, because it's, hehe, funny. It always has been, by the way, but finally there is no need to pretend. Stable and predictable life thus goes to the dustbin. From the world level to the municipal and municipal level, decisions are increasingly being made on their own, without our participation. Local notables, such let's say, the mayor of my city of Poznan, are already acting like little Trumpkins, scolding, mocking, going on a rant, insulting themselves and insulting others. If they could, they would probably, following the example of their idol, build ballrooms with the city company in the offices, only they do not have so much sincere(!) gold. They would find an architect convinced that this is the right thing to do in a microsecond. Vox populi? The president mentioned here ruled to "Wyborcza":
If [...] I were to indicate who will be the next president [of Poznań], I would remind you that such decisions are made at the national level. They are made by the party chairman and the national board.
Not a word about the voters' votes. We could be appalled and appalled, but what will it change, why spoil the already poor mood. Not every city of Krakow, over which the vision of a referendum realistically hovers like a dove ready to drop a missile on the establishment.
And suddenly, against this swaggering backdrop, other domestic architects appear; those who have not given their brains to the laundry and are striving to enact a Polish Architectural Policy. Kneel down, nations! At a time of general dismantling of principles, this is a revolutionary gesture. Once, the professional Polish community seems to be getting its act together. It can't be. And two, it's not with a stick to strive for order when the world is falling apart and flying into chaos. What can come out of this, we will probably find out in May, during the Congress of Polish Architecture, whose organizers are saying quite sensible things. Mayhem in the announcements are words about the far from hyperrealistic, unfashionable duties of architecture and their execution. Of course, nothing new, during the last congress, in Poznan eighteen years ago, many declarations were made and - nothing. Well, but now you can believe that it's not empty words, because they say architects today, and those - as I have shown - are already speaking frankly.
The only question is what the Polish authorities will do with the effect of the Congress. What they will do, let's emphasize, not what they will say. In 2008, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a.k.a. Donald Tusk, wrote to congressmen, among other things:
The state is obliged to create conditions conducive to the development of good architecture [...], legislative foundations for building a high value of professional effects.
Paper is patient, but architects are already less so, and towards such authorities they should be even a little silent. After all, honesty is related to self-expression, which has been promoted for years. Express yourself, put into the heads of psyche specialists, although from a young age I heard so much about not expressing yourself, especially in company. Well, but if need be, I will, with apologies, express myself: this Congress is a rare opportunity, so, hello!, let's not fuck things up.
Jakub Głaz
Read more: A&B 4/2026 - Architect of the city,
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