The jokes are over. Anonymity is a thing of the past. We’re erecting a monument to architects.
And there it is. Like a rocket ready for launch. The largest in Europe. In Konotop, Kuyavia, a majestic statue of the Virgin Mary stands —a full fifty-five meters tall. It’s nearly twenty meters taller than the one in Świebodzin. It seems that the less we’ve ever seen someone, the bigger the statue we carve. We’re just waiting for a 100-meter-tall head to play the role of the Holy Spirit. The eternal malcontents, of course, turn up their noses at it, calling it kitsch, idolatry, and tackiness, ignoring the promotional effect—which is just as sacred in Poland as the figures depicted here. A tourist information center has already been set up next to the statue of the Virgin Mary. There’s a park and a parking lot. I’m waiting for a hotel and an amusement park.
To console the malcontents, it’s time to point out that a host of more sophisticated, abstract, and even absurd monuments is also springing up across the country. Monuments by Polish architects. These are the new residential developments, ranging from sprawling estates to compact condominium blocks. Estates that have already provided Poles with plenty of amusement, opportunities to create memes, or—for me as well—to poke fun at them in my columns.
But let’s finally be serious and do justice to the creators of these homes, who are most often anonymous to their residents. In the past, architects often insisted on having their authorship acknowledged; they would call the media and—rightly—scold them when an architect was essentially ignored in coverage of a new development. Today, unfairly enough, they seem to make fewer such calls—and it’s hardly because the poor souls have grown tired of it. I suppose they know what they’re designing. So it’s still generally unknown which apartment block is whose monument. Hence my Very Serious Proposal—because I do get serious sometimes—that, under penalty of law, the architect’s name be engraved on buildings as a mandatory requirement, in a visible place, and it would be absolutely wonderful to engrave it in every stuffy apartment, every dark kitchen, every worm-infested room, and in the hallway like a tapeworm. In the so-called “premium segment”—complete with the designer’s likeness. Until now, the laughter was endless, but not anymore. After all, a monument is a serious matter.
I feel, however, that instead of delight at such recognition, there will be an outcry: “GDPR,” “slander,” “we can’t do anything,” “evil developers,” “we’re just following orders,” “enough with this Nuremberg stuff.”“We’re just following orders”could be embroidered in bright red thread on the banner of the Chamber of Architects—if such a banner were fluttering anywhere. Because architects much prefer to repeat phrases along these lines than to work together in solidarity to make the motto ring out: “We’re doing it right and in accordance with best practices.” The Warsaw Charter, painstakingly announced from May to June of this year—even if it’s entirely justified—isn’t really enough, especially since three months after the Architecture Congress, no one even bothered to optimize it for search engines. It can’t even outrank “Warsaw Resident’s Card” on Google, so how is it supposed to overcome Polish customs and legislation in the real world?
Architects also failed to realize, as a group, that the jokes, half-jokes, and snide remarks—even those from me—were meant out of pity, to buy them a little time so they could finally get a handle on the situation. They know full well that there’s plenty to get a handle on. “We’re a bunch of idiots,” a deep-thinking and sensitive architect sometimes tells me. I don’t bother to wonder what the worse ones think. And pity—or perhaps even understanding—has its limits, and it’s creeping right up to them.
The best thing now would be to turn Polish housing into an exhibition of shame and send it to Venice next year, but that’s a pipe dream, because in past decades a critical exhibition from Poland has gone to the Biennale only once, and even that one was about the construction industry, not architects. I even wanted to suggest staging a renovation of the Polish pavilion into micro-studios for next year, accompanied by a brochure brimming with the strangest floor plans of Polish apartments, the names of their designers, and the promotional gibberish that goes with them. But first of all, Zachęta announced the competition for the Biennale exhibition right in the middle of the peak vacation season (30 days in August)—so how are you supposed to pull your exhibition-making colleagues back from their vacations? and second, because you wash your dirty laundry at home—and this wouldn’t have been a spotless exhibition. It wouldn’t have been an exhibition at all, but rather something like a real estate booth promoting lucrative Polish micro-studs created (as we would convincingly suggest) right in the Giardini themselves. A merchant’s booth, vulgar in its pretentiousness, next to a closed, “under renovation” pavilion wrapped in scaffolding. No—pardon my language—metanarratives. No—damn it all—narrative.
But don’t worry, architects. There’s still a chance to free you from this monumental embarrassment. The dollar used to be pegged to gold. But it hasn’t been for fifty-five years, and the world hasn’t collapsed—though it’s constantly on its mind. So let’s press on. It’s time for a square meter of living space that’s still backed by a real structure—which is basically pointless when it serves mainly as a capital investment. Let’s introduce a “transfer meter” with no backing in anything real. A relatively stable exchange rate, multiplied by a coefficient reflecting an equally virtual location. It may sound strange, but Bitcoin sounds stranger, so why not? Nature will benefit, and so will architecture, whose quality we’ll stop diluting with yet more PUM building volumes. No renovations, no tenants, a steady rise in value, and regular interest payments. Architects will save time, too, and they’ll devote the hours they gain to meditating on their loss of status. They’ll also spare themselves the embarrassment.
It’s worse, however, for the avant-garde monuments to architects embodied in these apartment blocks. They would then have to be replaced with something more traditional. What might such a monument look like? What should it be made of? Hard as Hadid, flexible as professional ethics. One side of the chest puffed out for a medal, the other sunken. Chin jutting forward, eyes cast down in fear. Part big shot, part slacker. Seemingly poor, but driving a top-of-the-line car. A dwarf in appearance—like the dwarves, he gets a lot done, but hardly anyone knows him or has seen him. And since hardly anyone has seen him—in accordance with the proclaimed rule “the less seen, the greater”—he’s as tall as half of the Virgin Mary, which simultaneously symbolizes the famous designer’s ego. In short: a giant dwarf.
Jakub Głaz
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