Note: In the following column, I’ve raised questions that are absolutely crucial for architects and interior designers—not just in Poland, but everywhere in the world. Put everything else aside, because at this historic moment, there’s nothing more important.
We have a rough idea of how different people live—even those most distant from us, those three degrees of separation away. Like the Bushmen, Indian street vendors, British beneficiaries of a dying welfare state, or American programmers, who are just discovering life in multigenerational families because, after AI took their jobs, they had to move back in with their parents. Thanks to glossy magazines, we can guess how the wealthy wives of Konstancin, Miami Beach, and Rublevka near Moscow live. We also know how members of the global upper-middle and upper classes—served by architects—live. Indeed, we even know the residences that architects build for themselves as showcases of their capabilities (or, though this is increasingly rare, as experiments). You look at such a “manifesto house” and you know right away: this one is a posthumous descendant of modernism (it certainly wears Le Corbusier-style frames), and at the same time a sentimental yet principled purist. That one is a romantic regionalist in jodhpur boots who melts at the sight of hollyhocks by the gate. Another is a narcissist with a knack for charming wealthy women: he has Italian SLR cameras in gold frames and a convertible. In fact, we can assign virtually every type of person—sometimes at first glance—to a certain “formal language.” A small-town businessman to an opulent manor house and a luxury apartment on the Costa del Sol bought with surplus funds. A retiree to a cooperative studio apartment in a Gomułka-era apartment block, which her granddaughters from the cultural sector have their eyes set on. Or an ambitious female executive living in a sterile apartment with a SMEG refrigerator and a “turbo mixer,” nestled among other prosperous female executives—admittedly, for now in an impersonal new suburb, but one day it will be a prestigious high-rise in the city center, straight out of the American dream, with a view, a pool, and a rooftop lounge area. We look at someone and can almost certainly tell where and how that person lives. Or conversely: we glance at the symmetrically arranged cushions on a beige Alcantara sofa, and a clear picture immediately forms in our minds of their “comme il faut” owner with her “cul serré,” pearls, and pumps. With a little practice, gained through working in architecture (or in intelligence), we can determine with a high degree of certainty the lifestyle and material aspirations of most people we encounter. Their dream possessions or hard-earned treasures, ranging from fake beams glued to the ceiling in a apartment block kitchen (complete with a bunch of garlic) to a jacuzzi on the vast terrace of a lavish villa. In short, to the trained eye of an architect—and especially an interior architect—people are a piece of cake. We can also easily imagine where and how various other organisms live. You don’t have to be a biologist to picture a luxurious tree-dweller’s nest, a bear’s den, or an African bee’s tree-top hive.
Meanwhile, ever since the U.S. president declassified documents detailing close encounters between the U.S. military and UFOs, I’ve been tormented by this question: how do aliens live? Don’t try to brush me off by tapping your forehead and saying that, since we live on one of the planets in our galaxy, we ourselves are aliens. You know who I’m talking about. Not Jeffrey Epstein, from whose connections Mr. Trump is trying to divert our attention with UFO revelations. I’m talking about genuine visitors from beyond Earth—those whose vehicles, resembling oversized white pills, spinning saucers, or octagonal stars—have recently flooded the internet and American television, including the CBS news program “60 Minutes.” There are far too many problems with assessing the material aspirations of aliens. First of all: have American airmen and sailors, as well as the Brazilian infantry, encountered only one type—or race—of them so far? Maybe they were the “Grays” from the TV series “The X-Files,” and that’s it? Or perhaps we’re lumping everyone we’ve somehow managed to see emerging from their vehicles into one category, just like the Japanese do with “gaijin,” or non-Japanese people? It doesn’t matter what color your skin is, whether you live in a fairy-tale cottage near Rovaniemi or in a high-rise in Bangalore—to a decent resident of the Land of the Rising Sun, you’re simply an outsider. So if, for whatever reason, various “others” visit us, who are they? Where are they from? And finally—how do they live there, and what are their lives like in general? Do they have trash chutes in the stairwell and hang their laundry on the balconies? Ha , you’ll say, that’s nothing new— science fiction writers have been asking themselves such questions since the late 19th century. True, but no one has yet tackled these questions from the perspective of social customs, interior design, and home appliances and electronics! Well, maybe with the exception of the creators of the TV series *The Jetsons*, as well as the movies *Blade Runner* and *The Fifth Element*—though those were, in essence, stories about ourselves in some future.
Architecture—yes, there has been no shortage of speculation here, and visions of extraterrestrial buildings and infrastructure are the most important visual motif in many spectacular films. In these same films, we encounter only sparse but evocative sets —such as the slimy interiors of the xenomorphs’ ship from the *Alien* series. Incidentally, we usually see interiors precisely in vehicles, rather than in the ordinary huts of aliens weary from their daily drudgery. And if it’s a female alien—or some other gender unknown to us—would she live any differently than a male alien? Could we imagine her (?) living environment based solely on the interior of the vehicle she flew here in? It certainly wasn’t easy for the Galápagos lizards to guess how Victorian Londoners lived after inspecting the interior of Charles Darwin’s cabin aboard the *Beagle*. After all, it is highly likely that we find ourselves in a similar, albeit interplanetary, situation...
If we—as architects skilled in evaluation—were to encounter an alien on the street, would we be able to guess how it lives? Logically speaking, we should now begin by asking questions about the physics of the celestial body from which the creature originates, and then immediately move on to its biology. Gravity, pressure, the nature and stability of physical and chemical conditions—or their variability— the evolution of life, the species from which the visitor originates, and the beings living in its environment, and finally, the level of technology, customs, and culture—all of these can influence the standard of daily life for an extraterrestrial being. And what about the economy? Do UFOs buy furniture or gas clouds on installment plans, or do they immediately scramble to put together entire sets for newlyweds from what their families gave them at the wedding? Or perhaps, as in the case of bees, bears, and garden dwellers, do they live exactly like the rest of their species? Because, for all we know, the societal advancement necessary to create the technology that brought them to us might not translate at all into the laws of economics—including the inequalities we know all too well from our own vale of tears?
If we found ourselves in a stranger’s apartment, would we even be able to understand the relationship between him and his everyday surroundings? After all, we ourselves write dozens of books, posts, and articles about our own apartments, explaining where the wainscoting and antlers in prefab concrete blocks come from, why Poland is the world’s second-largest (after Russia) market for fold-out corner sofas, or why on earth Spaniards would want porcelain tile floors that mimic oak parquet. I’m almost certain that a visit to Janusz and Grażyna from planet 73092200692 in the Alpha Centauri system, the closest to us, could leave us thoroughly bewildered. This is because our limited perception and communication would stand in the way of our understanding their customs and way of life. Despite the hospitality of our hosts and their genuine efforts, we might fail to understand even the most basic things. For example, why does Grażyna, in our presence, insert her gnuktrsh into the ctrtywu slot (to the left of the dtysvß opening), and why Janusz, every so often, pats the surface of his jtyęc$h with a strange smile, while brushing our lower leg with his tentacle-like tongue. Much like in a conversation with Czechs, we’d constantly fall victim to the illusion that we’d finally figured out what our hosts were getting at, only to commit some disastrous faux pas a moment later. We’d forget to politely slurp the broth served to us from the hjyøtść fruit we’d waited in line for and let ourselves be bitten by rvöótfs, their beloved pet. We wouldn’t have complimented in time the gslćfś architecture proudly presented to us (high-gloss and emitting a repulsive smell of hydrogen sulfide) or the verse sung in our honor by their little one. And anyway, it would have been one disaster after another, and when it was all over, Cosmo-Janusz, closing the śfgójk partition behind us, would have said to his wife, “Oh my God, what an impertinent Yttrdifian.”
I find myself thinking that maybe this is precisely why aliens aren’t exactly eager to make our acquaintance, let alone invite us into their homes. After all, geez, no one wants awkward situations and cringe-worthy silences at the table. For this reason, my dear friends, I’m almost certain that cosmic interior design styles and trends will remain an unsolved mystery of the Universe for centuries to come.
Jakub Szczęsny
more: A&B 7-8/2026 – Single-Family Homes,
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