Design priorities on the example of the modernization of Abram Gurewicz Health Resort in Otwock 85
minated in the roofs covered with light tar paper or asbestos
cement. Gutters and nishing were made of zinc sheets
3
[7, pp. 36–40], [10, pp. 10–25], [1, pp. 134–138], [8, p. 366].
The formwork, its dimensions and prole are an im-
portant element when considering the features of the
Nadświdrzańska architecture. There were two horizontal
friezes: window friezes and inter-story friezes. The upper
part, located on the knee wall, had a vertical formwork
direction and was nished with decorative cut-outs. The
corners of the building were additionally accentuated with
moldings. The decoration was also present in llings of
balustrades, under and over the windows, window frames,
shutters in protruding eaves of gable walls and verandas,
and in llings of veranda structures [7, pp. 36–40].
In most of the summer houses in Otwock, the façades
were impregnated with linseed oil. The villas were also
painted in light colors: light aquamarine, pink, white, pale
yellow, light beige, azure, various shades of gray. Sanato-
riums and treatment facilities were painted in light gray
and white (e.g., Abram Gurewicz Health Resort). The
schedule of conservation works on the discussed complex
contains conclusions from stratigraphic studies, which
show that at the end of the 1920s the Health Resort was
white and gray. In the 1920s, when the extension of the
guesthouse was completed, all wings were unied. The
façades were designed in a very light gray color scheme,
with the exception of white windows [11, p. 20]. The com-
position of the body of a typical building consisted of the
main body founded on a brick foundation and verandas
added on three sides in a skeleton structure. Attics, usu-
ally usable, with a knee wall, were covered with a gable
roof (with a slope of within 30°) protruding beyond the
gable wall and centrally crossing the roof of a small avant-
corps. There were dormers in the roof slope illuminating
the attic rooms. The buildings are characterized by a frag-
mented body shaped by adding smaller ones, covered with
a separate, gable roof.
Abram Gurewicz Health Resort is an unusual example
among other buildings of Nadświdrzańska architecture.
By juxtaposing its body with objects of a similar scale,
one can see the randomness of this system compared to
other objects, and at the same time it is possible to nd
some similarities. It is possible to distinguish characteris-
tic modules repeated in the solids, which are in fact exam-
ples of the most typical solid structures in Nadświdrzańs-
ka architecture (Fig. 3). In the case of Abram Gurewicz
Health Resort under analysis, these were three separate
facilities connected by wings in the years 1927–1935. In
Figure 3 there is also the newest intervention, which does
not disturb the characteristics of the form.
The issue of ornament and decoration
in the Nadświdrzańska architecture
The problem of ornamentation in the Nadświdrzańska
architecture occurs with virtually every attempt to dene
3
There is also information about other species such as spruce and
larch.
it, for many researchers it is identity factor of this build-
ings
4
[10, pp. 16, 17], [1, pp. 133–136], [8, p. 366]. An
interesting distinction is made by Antonio Monestiroli
by separating the concepts of decoration and ornament.
According to Monestiroli, decoration, in the Vitruvian
approach, consists in searching for forms appropriate for
a given building, and “building elements take represent-
ative forms” and become inextricably linked with the
whole. Ornament, as understood by Monestiroli, is some-
thing secondary to architecture, it functions in the form
of “stage directions”, leading its own narrative, often not
directly related to the building
5
[16, p. 37].
The issue of ornaments in architecture had its ethi-
cal dimension from the very beginning of development
of architectural theories. Architects and theorists such as
Christopher Wren, Johann Bernhard Fisher von Erlach,
Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Walter Gropius and Adolf
Loos emphasized, above all, the purposefulness of its use,
connection with the material and they were critical of its
various manifestations
6
. At the end of the 20
th
century,
the problem of ornament ceased to be so passionately dis-
cussed with the simultaneous increase in popularity of use
and a complete change in the understanding of the prob-
lem of ornament in architecture, just to mention Daniel
Liebeskind’s or Zaha Hadid’s works, where whole build-
ing appears as decoration/ornament.
The decorations appear in the so called “Świdermajer”
architecture in the form of boards cut with a hair saw. One
of the main features of the Nadświdrzańska architecture is
the veranda, which was to be a buer space between the
interior of the building and the surrounding nature, and the
openwork partitions were to lter the sun and constitute
an additional membrane between man and the forest. The
forms that the openwork decorations took are secondary
to the role they played – they were aimed at bringing peo-
ple closer to nature and at the same time separating them,
and in this sense, located in the verandas, determined the
sense of this architecture. Therefore, in the understanding
of Monestiroli, cut-outs on verandas are decorations, and
not only mere ornaments (Fig. 4).
Modernization of the Abram Gurewicz
Health Resort – the situation now
Abram Gurewicz Health Resort in Otwock, designed
by architects unknown to this day, is the largest preserved
building representative of the so called “Świdermajer”
architecture. The analysis of the issues described above
shows that it is a non-typical example of the Nad świ-
drzań ska architecture, occurring on a large scale, with
4
Krajewski draws attention to the misuse of the concept of “wood-
carving” (consisting of carving) in relation to ornamentation found in the
Nadświdrzańska architecture, which is based on cutting with a hair saw
(laubzega) [1, pp. 137, 138].
5
The decorum principle was based on the compliance (unity) of
the form with the content.
6
Hakan Sağlam in his paper Re-thinking the Concept of “Orna-
ment” in Architectural Design presents the attitudes of leading architects
towards ornament from antiquity to the present day [17, pp. 126–133].
