The last 30 years have seen the construction of a whole range of outstanding and unusual buildings in Poland, our domestic architectural icons. In our new series "Revision", we remind you of the most interesting Polish realizations created after 1993 - so it is hard to imagine a better opportunity for the opening article of the series to bring the history of the creation of the Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow, which is just celebrating its round thirtieth anniversary. We refresh archival materials, reflect on the role of "Manggha" today, and talk with Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden about Arat Isozaki, the author of the concept of its headquarters.
The origins of one of the most important museums in Krakow and certainly the most important Polish museum institution dealing with Far Eastern culture can be traced back to the beginning of the last century. The creator of the collection (and the source of the name!) that gave rise to Krakow's Museum of Japanese Art and Technology was Feliks "Manggha" Jasieński, whose resourcefulness and fascination with the Orient resulted in the accumulation of a rich collection of Japanese art. In 1920, nine years before his death, he donated his entire collection of more than 15,000 pieces to the National Museum in Cracow. Among them were 6,500 objects with Japanese themes, including numerous woodcuts, screens or ceramics. For decades to come, the collection was part of the collection of the National Museum in Cracow, which was unable to fully exploit its potential. A great change and new opportunities for the Jasienski collection were to come at the end of the twentieth century.
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow
photo: Kamil. A. Krajewski © shared by courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Krakow
far eastern fascination
The second piece of the puzzle that went into the creation of the Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow was the work of Andrzej Wajda. His fascination with Japan began in 1944, when, as a 19-year-old, he first saw Feliks Jasienski's collection of Japanese art on display in the Sukiennice. The deep fascination with Japan continued over the years, with Andrzej Wajda visiting, filming and painting Japan, as documented in the collection of the Krakow museum. When the Kyoto Prize was awarded to him in 1987, he and Krystyna Zachwatowicz decided to donate the total, amounting to $450,000, to build a new museum for the Jasienski collection. This initiative was quickly followed by further funds, raised thanks in part to the activities of Mrs. Etsuko Takano, who for six years led a collection in Japan with the participation of the East Japan Railway Workers Union.
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow
Photo: Krzysztof Ingarden © provided courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Krakow
a Japanese architect for a Japanese collection
The entire collection still lacked a suitable headquarters. It happened that its design was donated to the Kyoto-Krakow Foundation, founded by Andrzej Wajda and Krystyna Zachwatowicz, by Arata Isozaki, a prominent Japanese architect, winner of the 2019 Pritzker Prize, author of such projects as the buildings of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Fukuoka Prefectural Library and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Gunma.
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow
Photo: Krzysztof Ingarden © provided courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Krakow
From his design, on the Vistula River in Krakow, opposite Wawel Castle, arose a timeless, highly distinctive object, yet modest and intertwined with the riverside landscape.
When designing in different countries, each time I look for an original form that corresponds to the place where it is to be built. When I chose the site on the Vistula River for the Japanese Center 6 years ago, when I looked at it from the Wawel hill, I already saw in my imagination a wavy mass, inscribed in the bend of the river. I realized that the building would mostly be viewed from above, so the roof should provide a sculptural accent to the view
- said Arata Isozaki for Architecture & Business in April 1995.
The undulating mass of the new museum has become part ofthe topography of the Vistula riverfront for good, and is now an integral part of its landscape. Although the architect came from distant Japan, his work is thoroughly local, taking advantage of the found terrain conditions, harnessing local building traditions, and finished with sandstone quarried in our country. After several years of design work and 15 months of intensive construction, it opened its spaces to the first visitors on November 30, 1994. Today, more than 30 years after its opening, and despite its form, full of respect for the local context, "Manggha" remains an icon of Polish architecture and an integral part of the panorama of Krakow's right bank of the Vistula River.
Buthow did it come about that it was Arata Isozaki who designed the headquarters of the "Manggha "Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow?
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow
Photo: Kamil. A. Krajewski © shared courtesy of the Museum "Manggha" in Krakow
How did it happen that a prominent Japanese architect designed a museum in Poland?
We ask Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden, who, together with the JET Atelier office, collaborated with Arata Isozaki on this project, about how it came about that Arata Isozaki designed the Manggha building, the challenges of construction and what role Andrzej Wajda played in the entire design process.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: How did it come to pass that out of many outstanding Japanese architects, it was Arata Isozaki who designed the building for the "Manggha" Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Cracow ?
Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden: It's a long story. After graduating from university in Krakow, thanks to a scholarship from the Japanese government, I went to the University of Tsukuba for a doctoral internship. When the doctoral internship ended, I stayed in Japan and started working in the Tokyo office of Arata Isozaki. I worked there until 1985, got to know the office very well, and became friends with Isozaki himself. In 1987 I went to New York, where I started working in the office of J.S. Polshek & Partners, with whom Arata was collaborating on the development of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. There a copy of the Tygodnik Powszechny came into my hands, in which I read an article announcing that Andrzej Wajda had been awarded the Kyoto Prize of the Inamori Foundation. In the publication, Andrzej Wajda declared his desire to build a museum in Krakow, where the collection of Japanese art by Feliks "Manggha" Jasieński would be housed. I thought at the time that the building for this collection should be designed by an architect from Japan. Since I considered Arata Isozaki to be the most outstanding Japanese architect, I decided to ask him, through his assistants whom I happened to meet in New York, if he would be interested in designing such a building. He very quickly replied to me that by all means. In a short time I received from him a set of publications presenting his architectural work, so that I could give them to Andrzej Wajda.
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow
Photo: Kamil. A. Krajewski © shared courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Cracow
Przemysław Ciępka: How did Andrzej Wajda accept this idea?
Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden: I didn't know Wajda personally at the time, I only knew that he worked at the Stary Theater in Krakow - that's how I addressed the letter: Andrzej Wajda, Stary Theater, Krakow. A letter with a proposal to design the Manggha by Arata Isozaki, written by a young architect working overseas, found its way into Andrzej's hands. In retrospect, I can see and appreciate how open-minded and courageous Andrzej was, he was not afraid of risks. He believed a young man, whom after all he did not know, that this concept was serious and invited me to a meeting. I flew in from New York at the time and we met, I presented Isozaki's works, which Wajda liked very much. He decided that this was the right direction, he became convinced that it was Arata Isozaki who should design this facility. About two months later, during the presentation of the Inomari Foundation Award in Kyoto, there was a meeting between Wajda and Isozaki that I arranged. Arata was extremely moved and inspired by the idea of building a museum for Jasienski's Japanese collection, which Andrzej had seen as a teenage boy at an exhibition in Sukiennice in 1944. In view of this, he pledged to donate the architectural concept to the Kyoto-Krakow Foundation, which Wajda founded with Krystyna Zachwatowicz.
The "Manggha" Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow
photo: Kamil. A. Krajewski © shared courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Krakow
Przemyslaw Ciępka: How did the further cooperation between the professor and Arata Isozaki proceed? Did any problems arise in connection with the construction authorizations?
Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden: We started with programming - we had to create a functional program for the building. We did this in Krakow, and it was the late 1980s. Based on the guidelines, programs and maps that were created at that time, Arata created a concept for the layout of functions and massing. I also participated in this, having traveled to Japan for a month for this purpose. Then our office in Krakow, where we worked together with Jacek Ewý, a friend of mine since my college days and office partner, took care of developing this concept into a construction project. We got a building permit, well, and eventually the detailed design was created. So we did the work that required professional licenses in Cracow under the banner of our office.
Przemysław Ciępka: Offices on two different ends of the world working on one project - that must have been a challenge. How did you deal with it?
Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden: It was a very interesting period, the first computers began to appear in architectural offices. I remember how exciting it was to create a visualization of the mass of the Manggha museum, it was then a much slower process than today, but already very helpful in design. I remember that spatial modeling allowed us to see and solve some details of this geometrically complex solid. Communication between Krakow and Tokyo, on the other hand, was by fax. This worked so well that we worked during the day and faxed the drawings to Japan in the evening. There, in turn, the day was just beginning, so Arata Isozaki with his office could immediately check the effects of our work, add new solutions and send them back to Krakow, so the work proceeded very efficiently, as it was basically around the clock. Despite the distance separating us, we tried our best to ensure that our activities here in Krakow reflected and developed Isozaki's concept as much as possible, and it worked out quite well.
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow.
Photo: Krzysztof Ingarden © shared by courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Krakow
Przemysław Ciępka: What was the chronology of work on the design and then construction of the Manggha?
Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden: It seems to me that there were three main stages of this work. First, preparatory, programmatic work, this was 1988. Based on their results, Isozaki made the first sketches, which he sent to us in Krakow. This was a preliminary conceptual design presented in the form of watercolors.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: You can see them now at the exhibition in "I Like It" at the Manggha Museum in Krakow, right?
Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden: Yes, that's right, together with later mockups they are presented at the exhibition. The building in this first version was slightly smaller. However, from the very beginning you could see Isozaki's basic idea, which was to give it a wave form, referring to the famous Great Wave of Kanagawa from Katsushika Hokusai's ukiyoe. These sketches were badly needed by the Kyoto Krakow Foundation in order to prepare informational brochures, start promoting the project and launch a fundraising campaign. It should be made clear that at the beginning this money was scarce. Andrzej Wajda's Kyoto Prize, although high at around $450,000, was only less than 10% of the amount needed for construction. The fundraising process took more than three years. Once the Foundation had already raised roughly half of the needed budget, Isozaki, seeing that the whole endeavor was progressing well, decided to begin the next phase of design based on a more detailed program. This was the second phase of work that would eventually lead to a building permit. The third phase was, of course, the detailed documentation and the erection of the building itself in 1992-94. During this time Isozaki came to Krakow several times and visited the construction site.
Przemysław Ciępka: What situation from the work on the project for the Manggha is most memorable to you?
Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden: At a certain point, when the project began to take shape and the first physical models appeared, Andrzej Wajda came to the office. It was evident that he was thinking hard about the roof model sent from Japan, the form of which at the time consisted of three interconnected wavy tracts. The middle flattest part clearly bothered Andrzej, and he asked himself: why did Isozaki decide on a horizontal skylight? In our climate it generates a lot of problems, dirt settles on the horizontal glazing, moreover, there is a high probability that flat skylights will leak. In view of this, Andrzej Wajda decided to propose a correction. He wondered for a long time whether it was appropriate for a director to propose such a change to a great Japanese architect. Eventually he wrote a letter to Isozaki, which I translated, and together with Andrzej's sketch outlining the suggestion for the new shape of the skylight, we sent it to Japan by fax. A reply came in no time, saying that Isozaki thought it was a great idea. He added a dynamic central wave to the original design and changed the position of the skylights from horizontal to vertical, as suggested by Andrzej Wajda. It was an example of a beautiful dialogue between two artists, the director and the architect.
Przemysław Ciępka: Thank you for the interview!
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow
Photo: Krzysztof Ingarden © shared by courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Krakow
A bridge between Europe and the Far East
The year 1994 was not the last in the architectural history of the Manggha. At the turn of the millennium, a tea pavilion was erected at the rear of the museum, facing the Vistula River, enabling the SENSHIN-KAI Association, founded by the popularizer of Japanese tea culture, Professor Etsuko Yamaguchi. More than two decades later, in 2015, a second building was erected at 28 Konopnicka Street to help expand the institution's activities. It was designed by the Ingarden&Ewy office, but this time without the participation of an icon of Japanese architecture. Right next to the wavy Manggha building stood an object with diametrically opposed forms - opening to the square in front of the museum with a minimalist, rectangular facade, silent in stillness. Made of concrete, steel, glass and granite, the block completed the museum's foreground, compositionally enclosing the plot on the north side.
Europe-Far East Gallery
Photo: Krzysztof Ingarden © provided courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Krakow.
At some point I realized that we cannot refer to the Manggha's style That it should be opposed to it. Trying to look for inspiration in wave shapes, in sine waves and parabolic hyperboloids would lead to an effect that could turn out to be a pastiche. There was no point in continuing something that was finite. However, I perceived the principle that in the Manggha building we are dealing with two types of shapes and geometries: one is the wavy form of the main body, and the other is the geometry of the small architecture. It seemed to me the only sensible solution to inscribe the building in the geometry of the Manggha's foreground - those ramps, stairs and walls made of gray sandstone. By this I wanted to reduce the building to one of the elements of the foreground's composition, so that it would not be dominant and would only create planes that limit the space in front of the Manggha from the north
- explained Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden in an April 2016 interview with Architecture&Business.
The interior of the Europe-Far East Gallery
Photo: Krzysztof Ingarden © shared courtesy of the "Manggha" Museum in Krakow
Most important, however, were the possibilities offered by the new facility - due to the specific nature of Feliks Jasieński's collection, the historical exhibits required a specific exhibition space with severely limited access to light. Such are the rooms of the Manggha's main building. However, the institution did not have adequate infrastructure for the presentation of contemporary collections, which, in accordance with the current paradigm, were exhibited in universal white cube spaces. The Europe - Far East Gallery offered such halls, making it possible to bridge another "cultural bridge," as its co-author, Prof. Krzysztof Ingarden, described the gallery.
Museum of Japanese Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow
Photo: Kamil. A. Krajewski © shared courtesy of the Museum "Manggha" in Krakow.
What is the Manggha today?
Manggha today is first and foremost a unique, thriving institution, which with its exhibition program and wide range of accompanying activities carries out projects unprecedented in the field of Polish museology. It is a "little Japan" in Krakow, from which the culture of the cherry blossom country radiates to all of Poland. It is a bridge between two countries, located on opposite ends of the world, and a space for dialogue, visited by the Japanese imperial couple, people of culture, residents of Krakow and tourists who happened to wander to the other side of the Vistula River. In turn, for Polish architecture, it is a prominent example of how a building whose form modestly gives precedence to its surroundings can become a timeless icon.
Przemysław Ciępka
