What is good architecture and do we still have room for its "spectacular" unveiling in Polish cities? Is a license to practice a profession enough to be an architect? We talk about the main themes of 4 Design Days 2025, the canons of design and the prevalence of verbs over adjectives with Tomasz Konior of Konior Studio, a speaker at this year's event.
On January 23 and 24 this year, the spaces of the International Congress Center in Katowice will be taken over by 4 Design Days, the ninth installment of the festival of architecture and design. This year's program of the event includes the Archistars session, an orgainzed by the LADY initiative, a meeting with stars of architecture. Speakers will include Winy Maas, architect and co-founder at MVRDV, Marcin Sapeta, architect and partner at Kengo Kuma & Associates, and Ana Bibilashvili, architect at AnnDesign Studio.
The event's extensive program is available on the 4 Design Days website.
Ola Kloc: The themes of this year's 4 Design Days: How will we live? How to design places of work and leisure? How to plan cities? How to create sustainable buildings? They are very important and serious, what is the role of architects in all this?
Tomasz Konior: Urban planning and architecture have a huge impact on our lives. Sometimes, however, it can be doubted whether we realize this, looking at the space around us, the not infrequently frivolous ideas of investors and architects. It's high time to try to learn from these phenomena. I am quite critical of the experiments of the last few decades, when we drastically rejected the patterns developed and tested for centuries. Never before has there been such a revolution in design and construction as in modernism. I feel that despite hundreds of regulations, this process has gotten out of hand. Today, when we pose the questions "what is good urban planning" or "what is good architecture," we have a problem with the answer - how many people, so many views. Therefore, at every opportunity, I return to the canons, because in them I see hope.
Kwartał Dworcowa - a project for the reconstruction and modernization of eleven townhouses in Katowice.
© Konior Studio
Ola Kloc: What is this canon for you?
Tomasz Konior: A classic city with streets, squares and parks, in which houses form the urban fabric rather than separate entities. A compact, balanced urban fabric, on the other hand, creates a secure base for further development and the transformations that are still taking place. Despite the passage of time, we are also experiencing today how easy and versatile it manages to adapt to new needs. An urban tenement yesterday was a place to live, today it can be an office building, tomorrow it can become a hotel - this cannot be said of modern architecture. She, in accordance with ambitious slogans, went largely in the direction of unbridled creative freedom, play with forms, "play of solids in light". I have the impression that through this she has moved quite far away from human needs, from what architecture and urban planning should really serve.
Ola Kloc: Let's go back to that frivolity you mentioned, to grand architectural gestures. In your opinion, is there still a place in the space of Polish cities for spectacular realizations, architectural icons?
Tomasz Konior: Today the definitions of good architecture or good urban planning are very different. Similarly, one can say that the word "spectacular" can be understood very differently. This term has also been used, regarding one of our projects that is currently being carried out in the center of Katowice - the Dworcowa Quarter, eleven tenement houses that we are subjecting to thorough reconstruction and modernization. These buildings were deteriorating, now, I hope, they will undergo a metamorphosis, gain a second, maybe a third life. "Spectacularity" here refers to the scale of the changes and the hope that with a conscious investor we will succeed in revitalizing not just one building, but an entire quarter in the city center, which will undoubtedly affect the surrounding area, to set certain standards, to turn towards the historical fabric, which will gain a new face.
Dworcowa Quarter - a project for the reconstruction and modernization of eleven townhouses in Katowice.
© Konior Studio
We often use the term "spectacular" to describe something very different from what surrounds a given building or space. It happens that buildings without a significant reason, a unique function or location, take on peculiar forms. Without satisfaction, I believe that after decades of excessive arbitrariness in design, it is worth gaining social reflection, where the lack of proven rules, points of reference, which, as in the past, would testify to the culture of building, architectural code, leads. There comes a point when, more and more often, our voices approach the reflection: "more moderation, more concern for the environment, more verbs, fewer adjectives to describe architecture." If you asked me what good architecture is for me, I would try to answer that it is a designed and built place that can be defined by verbs.
Ola Kloc: I deliberately do not ask such "big" questions, I think it is very difficult to find an answer to them. However, let's talk a bit about these canons - what contemporary valuable we could or should add to them?
Tomasz Konior: You rightly pointed out how difficult it is to answer simple questions, but in fact, it is in this simplicity of questions that the essence of our work, its humanistic dimension, is contained. This is the basis that punishes us to be restrained in this frivolity.
For this reason, I keep coming back to canons, proven patterns that allow us not to get lost in design, to keep a backbone, to set boundaries. Invariably, the reference point for me is the classic city. In it was defined, contrary to conflicting opinions and the modernity that floods us, a hierarchy in which the spaces between buildings are more important than the buildings themselves. This approach by no means limits creativity. Unfortunately, today we no longer define the city in this way. On the way to modernity, we lost the canons, and the new rules rarely work. For what is a street today? Or a square? Or a park? And yet these are three types of spaces that testify to the quality of a city. For centuries, streets were defined by development frontages, along which stood a variety of buildings It was these that shaped the urban structure, defined the urban fabric. Therefore, it is worth looking for patterns, proven solutions. Those that are universal, durable and well-liked. I have such a habit that when I am in a city in transit or on vacation, I look at how rich and varied is the world of architecture embedded in classical urbanism, in which in one quarter of the development there are a lot of different conventions, styles, nevertheless this diversity creates a whole. Meanwhile, today it is very difficult to find examples that from architectural diversity create a compact context, a coherent and balanced urban space. These are, in my opinion, values so universal that together they give a sense of harmony, which we appreciate despite the passage of time. I see it in Siena, in Barcelona, in Manhattan, or in Zamosc. In Katowice, I feel it in a neighborhood from the interwar period. These are places that are still relevant. There, the basis for building houses comes from rationality, awareness of human needs, from scale and proportion. Which does not exclude modernity at all.
Kwartał Dworcowa - a project for the reconstruction and modernization of eleven tenement houses in Katowice.
© Konior Studio
Ola Kloc: It is quite a challenge to combine these values with the dynamic development of Polish cities.
Tomasz Konior: And the lack of recognized canons exacerbates this problem. We are still experimenting on living tissue. Often dynamic development is confused with aggressive investment. As a practicing architect, leading a sizable design team in my own studio, I face these phenomena. I deal with very different investors - public and private. Mostly the priorities seem obvious. In the first case, we have to deal with administrative machinery, public procurement law and procedures that rarely focus on quality, but more often on narrowly defined efficiency and economy. Among private investors, the prevailing trend is to seek the highest possible rate of return on investments made. This is understandable, although one often gets the impression that landscaping is a seasonal activity. Meanwhile, a poorly placed house in the city changes the environment irreversibly.
Another previously unknown phenomenon is that increasingly, buildings are being dismantled after 20,30 years. The Vitruvian triad: "durability, utility and beauty" was replaced in the 20th century by the slogan: "function, construction and form." Today, this has its consequences.
Without a proper hierarchy, universal benchmarks, consensus is hard to come by. Regulations are no substitute for competence. We are trying to talk about it, with the hope that the conversation will turn into a dialogue, and this dialogue will be heard, and in time will be reflected in a good space. Let's build awareness that the consequences of our actions are extremely permanent, energy-intensive, and affect the environment in significant ways. I trust that such discussions will also accompany the events at 4 Design Days. I hope for an exchange of ideas, more about real problems and solutions that will have a positive impact on the environment and our everyday life, less about contrived visions, design frivolity.
We spend 80 percent of our lives in buildings, nearly 70 percent of the population lives in cities. Despite this, architecture or urban planning is not a frequent topic of programs or articles in the mass media. It is rarely taught in mainstream schools. A new phenomenon was the case of the Museum of Modern Art, which provoked an unprecedented number of extreme opinions and heated discussions. I see a certain positive in this - architecture broke through a whole lot of other information, became quite relevant in the media for a while. And that's the way it should be, because to put it briefly - it's no joke! Once Renzo Piano said that we architects cannot enjoy full creative freedom. There is too much responsibility behind every line, and every decision affects the real space. It is indeed a complex process and an extreme amount of dependencies. So rarely understood as an end, but rather as a means to an end. Unrestricted right to practice is given by the authority. The exam is mainly of regulations. Competence is tested in practice. Responsibility and risks are behind every project. Consequences are distributed to future users.
Dworcowa Quarter - a project for the reconstruction and modernization of eleven townhouses in Katowice.
© Konior Studio
Ola Kloc: In view of this, what besides the licensing exam? A test of sensitivity?
Tomasz Konior: In response, one can ask about social expectations. Education concerns not only architects, but all users. This is a question about the examiners, the teachers who impart knowledge at universities and common schools. As far as I know, in general, apart from learning about styles, there is no subject that teaches about the city and architecture. And that's a shame. Industry-wise: when I studied, there were 8 faculties of architecture in Poland. Today, architects are trained by 26 universities. One could say that we have an incredibly educated society when it comes to architecture, having so many architecture schools. Is this really the case?
Ola Kloc: Thank you for the interview!