This is the next edition of the Krakow SARP Award, honoring outstanding architects and architects active in the capital of Malopolska. The winner of the Krakow SARP 2025 Award is Professor Piotr Gajewski! What is his definition of architecture? And is he sure he knows where the top is and where the bottom is?
The award ceremony took place on March 12, 2026 at the headquarters of SARP Krakow Branch on Szczepanski Square in Krakow. This year's laureate was selected by the chapter working under the leadership of Prof. Magdalena Kozień-Woźniak, which included Piotr Lewicki, Marcin Brataniec and Prof. Urszula Forczek-Brataniec, winners of the SARP Krakow Prize 2024. Prof. Vladimir Šlapeta was also present during the ceremony.
Prof. Piotr Gajewski is the winner of the SARP Krakow Prize 2026
photo: Przemek Ciępka
architect with a vocation
The content of the laudation, delivered by Marcin Brataniec, read:
The award was given to honor an artist who combines the paths of practice, science, teaching, social activity [...]. The chapter appreciated the laureate's diverse collection of significant projects and realizations, from Krakow's single-family and multi-family houses, through public buildings, including a kindergarten on Strąkowa Street, to industrial realizations. The jury also recognized important realizations of public spaces - Karmelicka Street, Zwierzyniecka Street and Avenue of Roses in Krakow, which restored thinking about the street and square as common spaces. He is the author of the books "Records of thought-space" and "Model", which summarize practical experience, making it useful for other artists. Educator of several generations of architects. Indefatigable organizer of "Towards Architecture" expeditions, joint trips and discussions, memorable architectural exhibitions and successive editions of the International Architecture Biennale in Krakow. All these creative activities of the laureate find in his person proof that, as he himself says, the name architect does not mean a profession, but a vocation.
After reading the laudation, Magdalena Buczyńska, president of the Cracow branch of SARP, traditionally presented Prof. Piotr Gajewski with a medal, diploma and rose.
Prof. Piotr Gajewski is the winner of the SARP Krakow Prize 2026
photo: Przemek Ciępka
what is not architecture?
After receiving the award and a joint commemorative photo, Prof. Piotr Gajewski gave a lecture on the definition of architecture. Starting from the premise that architecture is not a profession, he searched for truths and, above all, falsehoods in commonly quoted understandings of the term. Is architecture just a play of solids in light, as Le Corbusier would have wanted? The Blur pavilion, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, consisting mainly of steam, in the words of the laureate, contradicts the necessity of constituting architecture through the presence of solids. The definition coined by Alejandro Aravena, winner of the 2016 Pritzker Prize, which speaks of architecture as a discipline that gives form to places inhabited by people, on the other hand, seems to forget silos, hangars and storage halls, as well as stud farms, shelters or vineyards and ships.
Prof. Piotr Gajewski is the winner of the SARP Krakow Prize 2026
photo: Przemek Ciępka
As Prof. Piotr Gajewski said during his lecture, for him architecture is the art of shaping an environment in which the subject is a human being. But can one be sure of the accuracy of this definition? Perhaps architects themselves don't know what architecture is, or don't even have a clue where the top is and where the bottom is? This bold thesis was illustrated not only by numerous dictionary definitions, but also by paintings by Prof. Dariusz Kozlowski and Prof. Wlodzimierz Gruszczynski.
Blur pavilion in Switzerland, 2002
proj.: Diller Scofidio + Renfro photo: Norbert Aepli © CC BY-SA 2.5 | Wikimedia Commons
The winner of this year's Krakow SARP Award ended his lecture with a recollection of the 11th Krakow Architecture Triennale in 2009, when he invited Peter Cook to the opening of an exhibition presenting the work of the Archigram group. At the time, the British architect was said to have stated that architecture is above all a way of thinking about life.
SARP Krakow Award for Prof. Piotr Gajewski!
Prof. Piotr Gajewski is an architect associated with Krakow since the beginning of his professional path. Educated at the Faculty of Architecture at the Cracow University of Technology, he studied under Romuald Loegler, Jacek Czekaj, Marek Piotrowski, Tomasz Mańkowski, Wojciech Buliński and Wojciech Obtułowicz. Although he has run his own design studio since 1989, he has devoted much of his life to his academic career and teaching activities, working at the Cracow Polytechnic for 44years, as well as serving as a visiting professor at Knoxville Tennessee University of Technology, the IUAV University of Venice and the School of Architecture in Muenster, Westphalia.
Prof. Piotr Gajewski has also been actively involved for years in the organization of the International Architecture Biennial in Krakow and the activities of the SARP Krakow Branch:
Longtime member of the SARP Krakow Branch Board and Vice President, President of the Board for two terms from 2006-2012, Chairman of the SARP Main Audit Committee for one term. Currently a member of the Council of the Malopolska OIA.
- reads the announcement on the website of the Association of Polish Architects Krakow Branch.
Reconstruction of the square on Avenue of Roses in Nowa Huta, 1999
designed by Piotr Gajewski, photo: Zygmunt Put © CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
Realizations created according to Prof. Piotr Gajewski's designs are scattered all over Krakow. They are not only residential buildings, such as the richly textured house on Ludmila Korbutova Street in Wola Justowska, or the Geo 1 and Geo 2 residential blocks near Czyżyny airport, withfacades taking into account the movement of the solar disc across the sky, but also public spaces - including Karmelicka Street, Zwierzyniecka Street and Aleja Róż in Nowa Huta, as well as public buildings, such as a kindergarten on Strąkowa Street.
Prof. Piotr Gajewski laureate of the SARP Krakow Prize 2026
photo: Przemek Ciępka
A wide-ranging presentation of this year's laureate's work can be seen until March 30, 2026 at the exhibition "Piotr Gajewski and Friends" in the gallery at the SARP Krakow Branch headquarters on Szczepanski Square in Krakow. You are welcome!
