The role of a brick detail in architecture on the example of contemporary architectural trends in Upper Silesia

Justyna Juroszek

doi:10.37190/arc230203

Abstract

An image of the changing trends in the design of ceramic architectural details in Upper Silesia in recent years is the subject of the study. At the research stage, a source query, analysis of completed architectural objects, field inspection and photographic documentation were used. On the basis of a broader recognition of the subject, two examples were selected from the sacral buildings, residential buildings and public utility buildings. Assessment of the architectural environment, representativeness of the building, high architectural value, and cultural recognition were the selection criteria. Showing that the contemporary architecture of Upper Silesia allows operating with chiaroscuro, which gives the composition a “third dimension” – uniqueness and specific expression is the goal that the author achieves. It is not reaching for historical patterns, but creating new, geometric, spatial forms, setting new composition rules, using chiaroscuro, painterly and sculptural features of this timeless material. The human scale of the module means that bricks can be used to design almost any architectural object: a residential building, as well as a sacral or public utility building. Contemporary brick is no longer used only to create structural elements – it is part of the image composition, relief and sculpting of each façade.

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2023

2(74)

Justyna Juroszek*

The role of a brick detail in architecture on the example

of contemporary architectural trends in Upper Silesia

Introduction

Brick has established its position as a material that

can be classied as timeless [1, p. 8]. It is a concept of

a building system that has been successfully operating for

thousands of years [1, p. 8]. Brick is an environmental-

ly friendly material and free of harmful chemicals. It has

high mechanical strength and resistance to weather con-

ditions. It has the ability to accumulate heat, providing

a pleasant and favourable microclimate [2, p. 217]. It is

very plastic and susceptible to forming. Depending on the

colour, format, binding or brick solution employed, brick

can be used in any style and atmosphere. On the one hand,

it refers sentimentally to the past, while on the other hand,

it surprises us with its modernity. It combines austerity

with delicacy and warmth in an interesting way. It can sof-

ten the ascetic shape of the building or give it a slightly

“rough” character. The rich colours of the brick t in with

modern architecture. 2023 marks 814 years since building

ceramics began to be popularized in Poland [3, p. 26].

Knowledge of production technology came to Polish

lands from the West; mainly from Italy, the Netherlands,

Denmark and Saxony. Local brickmakers, following the

example of Western builders, began to acquire the ability

to form and re bricks and to produce them on a larger

scale. The Industrial Revolution in the 19

century saw

a huge leap in brick production with the invention of new

kilns and mechanical manufacturing techniques that laid

the foundations for many variants of the modern perforat-

ed bricks of the 20

century. Unlike the oldest air-dried

bricks, the “modern” brick, thanks to a complex ring

process that lasted from 8 to 15 hours at a constant tem-

perature of 900 to 1150°C, became hard and resistant to

water. Until the beginning of the 19

century, bricks were

shaped by hand and excess clay from a wooden template,

and later from the moulding box, was rst removed by hand

(“nger brick”), and later with a wooden stick (“scraper”).

The bricks were then stacked in a ring chamber.

The so-called dry pressing process in which the clay was

rst kneaded by a machine and then forced into a mould

under considerable pressure was the rst mechanical

method of brick formation. The extrusion process, which

Johann Georg Degerlein patented in England in March

1810, turned out to be very eective: the inventor’s ma-

chine pressed the moist clay mass through a mould, from

which a rectangular strip cut into single bricks emerged.

Smooth, uniform bricks could be laid with very narrow

joints, which aroused mixed feelings among architects.

On the one hand, they appreciated uniformity, on the other

hand, they missed the original texture and unique charac-

ter of hand-made bricks.

More complicated decorative elements began to be

made of it. Brick turned out to be durable as a construction

material and after non-standard shaping and glazing, so

noble that it became a willingly used nishing and deco-

rative material.

For Silesia, the period at the turn of the 19

and 20

cen turies was the peak of economic development. It was

with the use of brick that mine buildings were built, and

then, successively, workers’ housing estates, houses, pub-

lic buildings and schools.

Due to the already existing context, the sentiment for

using the brick – a material with an aesthetic form and

high durability, made it often used in the design of modern

buildings. Brick has multiple possibilities of expression

that can be read in many dierent ways: as a construction

rule, as a design element, as an atmospherically complex

DOI: 10.37190/arc230203

Published in open access. CC BY NC ND license

* ORCID: 0000-0002-7157-1180. Faculty of Civil Architecture

and Applied Arts, Silesian Academy, Poland, e-mail: justyna.juroszek@

oce.wst.pl

30 Justyna Juroszek

surface [1, p. 47]. The rich colours and size of the formats

make the brick t perfectly into any architecture [4, p. 72].

The colour of the brick depends on the type of clay used.

The use of local minerals emphasizes the colour of tra-

ditional local architecture. It can be glazed, rened, red

and xed in various ways [5, p. 23]. A brick is said to

be “tailor-made for people” – […] it has a width, length,

height and weight designed so that one hand can com-

fortably grab a brick and with the other trowel mortar

to make a joint with another brick [6, p. 332]. With this

practical module, houses and entire cities were built, and

the small scale of a single brick translated into a very large

spatial element. No matter how large a house or city dis-

trict is, the correlations with the small scale of the building

material have always been evident. The single brick that

everyone knows is xed in the pattern of laying whole el-

ements from these single modules. This pattern has rmly

established itself in the architectural identity of Silesia.

Architects want to preserve the culture and tradition of

Upper Silesia, which is why brick often “calls the tune” in

the best architectural projects of this region. For the needs

of contemporary architecture and its style, ceramic brick

is used in the form of cladding, simplied detail, open-

work and decorative elements. Simplicity, timelessness

and the possibility of using the brick to build both small

and large-scale buildings make it a material used in the

construction of contemporary architectural projects not

only in Upper Silesia, but also throughout Poland.

Objective and research issues

The aim of the article is to organize knowledge about

changes in the way the bricks are used and the evolution

of the ceramic detail in the contemporary architecture of

Upper Silesia. Once, brick was used only to build de tails

of massive structures, but over time it has been mo died in

this way and is successfully used to create open work dec-

orative details in accordance with the latest sty listic trends.

The aim of the article is also to show the connections

between what is local and traditional and what is modern

and innovative. An attempt was made to answer the fol-

lowing questions: Is a contemporary detail a reference to

historical forms? How to draw on the patterns of previous

eras, while adapting them to new trends in architecture

and the needs of users? To what extent does the small scale

of ceramic elements inuence the shaping of architecture

and its details? Does the ceramic material have a greater

impact on the sculptural character of architecture?

Research methodology

At the research stage, the comparative method was

used to analyse the documentation and literature on the

subject, followed by the eld research and case studies

covering the period after the economic transformation in

1989 in Upper Silesia.

Research techniques used:

– source query,

– comparative analysis of completed architectural ob-

jects,

–

eld inspection – author’s photographic documenta-

tion.

On the basis of a broader recognition of the architec

ture

of Upper Silesia (“Murator”, “Architektura i Biznes”, scien -

tic literature), two examples in each category from sacral

objects, residential buildings, and public utility build ings

were selected.

The following selection criteria were used:

– objective criterion of the architectural community:

awards granted by the professional community, publica-

tions in recognized professional journals,

– representativeness of the object assessed by the pro-

fessional environment,

– high architectural value of the building also assessed

by the professional community,

– cultural recognition of the object assessed by the Up-

per Silesia inhabitants.

State of the research work

Among the foreign magazines on brick architecture,

it is worth mentioning the magazine published twice

a year in Denmark, Germany and Great Britain: “Peters-

en TEGL. A magazine about brickwork and responsible

architecture”. The problem of a detail on brick façades

has also appeared many times in German magazine “De-

tail”, published since 1961. Articles on brick architecture

are also often published in British journal “Architectural

Design”. This issue is also discussed in books such as:

Materials for architectural design 2 by Victoria Ballard

Bell and Patrick Rand [2] or Architecture & materials by

Cristina Paredes Benitez [6]. The most interesting con-

temporary projects in Silesia using brick were described

by Aleksander Seran in the article Ekspresja ceglanych

elewacji na przykładzie architektury niemieckiej i aus-

triackiej [Expression of brick façades on the example of

German and Austrian architecture] [7]. Contemporary Po-

lish architecture against the backdrop of global trends was

extensively presented by Nina Juzwa and Jakub Świe-

rzawski in their book Myśli, marzenia, miejsca. Architek-

tura polska w innowacyjnej współczesności [Thoughts,

Dreams, Places. Polish architecture in innovative contem-

poraneity] [8], and presented in a historical context by

Ewa Węcławowicz-Gyurkovich in the study Architektura

najnowsza w historycznym środowisku miast europejskich

[Latest architecture in the historical environment of Eu-

ropean cities] [9]. The above-mentioned publications dis-

cuss current trends in brick design, both in the world and

in Poland, especially in Upper Silesia.

Since 2004, every two years, the supplier of building

materials and infrastructure solutions, Wienerberger AG,

has organized an international competition called Brick

Award for the authors of the most interesting architec-

tural concepts. The competition puts emphasis on using

the traditional building methods and materials in archi-

tecture, and the cultural context, thus enabling a broad

presentation of brick architecture and the architects re-

lated with it. The most interesting and awarded projects

are discussed in a series of books by Callwey entitled

Brick.

The role of a brick detail in architecture on the example of contemporary architectural trends in Upper Silesia 31

The Polish edition of the Brick Award competition has

been announced since 2013, and its results are discussed

are in magazines “Architektura Murator” and “Architek-

tura i Biznes”.

Results of review of architectonic objects

The following objects were selected to present the

trends in Silesian brick architecture at the turn of the 20

and 21

centuries: Church of the Holy Spirit in Tychy,

Church of Jesus the Redeemer in Czechowice-Dziedzice

(religious buildings), Osiedle nad Jamną in Mikołów, Dom

Rudy in Rudy (residential buildings), buildings of the

“Sym fonia” Center for Science and Musical Education and

the historic Królowa Luiza [Queen Louise] mine in Za

brze

(public buildings).

Church of the Holy Spirit

in Tychy (1978–1982)

The most outstanding brick buildings in Silesia include

the Church of the Holy Spirit at 43 Myśliwska Street, in

the Żwaków district in Tychy. This is one of Stanisław

Niemczyk’s rst sacral projects (before that, he worked

for Miastoprojekt Tychy for many years).

The body of the church refers to the “rst temple of the

chosen people” [10] and brick is its main decoration, sug-

gesting many, also oriental, associations. At the top of the

squat roof there are four small crosses. The architect referred

here to the symbol of the Old Testament tent and to “Sobo-

ty”, deep arcades surrounding wooden churches. The design-

er also used wood and reinforced concrete in a phenomenal

way. He also designed the furnishings of the church.

Stanisław Niemczyk reached for two inspirations. On

the one hand, it was a form of a wooden temple, charac-

teristic of the south of Poland, in which the roof is a sig-

nicant part of the body. On the other hand, the architect

created, in accordance with the requirements of the Second

Vatican Council (1962–1965), an object on a central plan,

giving the congregation the best chance to stay close to

the altar.

The church in Tychy resembles a large tent with an in-

terior in the form of a vast, open space. It is compared to

those erected by pilgrims in the times of early Christiani-

ty. The brick walls are practically invisible from under the

huge, hip roof covered with metal sheet. Through the sky-

light in the roof, a stream of natural light enters the chapel

on the lower level through the glazing in the oor of the

presbytery. This endeavour is to symbolize the connection

of Heaven and Earth.

The arrangement of bricks in the church walls over

time became Niemczyk’s hallmark [11, p. 260]. Brick, as

in most of the artist’s projects, is a sculptural and paint-

ing element, which the architect skilfully plays with. This

can be seen both in the brick arcades – cloisters (Silesian

“Soboty”), and in the ceramic bell tower, on each side

of which there are two carved Byzantine crosses, above

which there are modern brick niches (Figs. 1a, b).

Church of Jesus Christ the Redeemer

in Czechowice-Dziedzice (1998)

The typical Silesian breath can also be found in Sta-

ni sław Niemczyk’s later work. It is the church of Jesus

Christ the Redeemer at 23 Pocztowa Street in Czecho wi-

ce-Dziedzice.

Fig. 1. Church of the Holy Spirit in Tychy:

a) brick arcades – cloisters, b) view of the tower from the north

(design by S. Niemczyk, photo by J. Juroszek)

Il. 1. Kościół Ducha Świętego w Tychach:

a) ceglane podcienie – krużganki, b) widok na wieżę od strony północnej

(proj. S. Niemczyk, fot. J. Juroszek)

a b

32 Justyna Juroszek

The entire object is both simple and very irregular, dif-

ferent from every perspective. The side walls are patchy

– it’s just a brick wall enlivened by inlays made of burnets,

suggesting partly a window, partly a cross. The lower part

of the wall facing the street is occupied by windows illu-

minating the interior. Between them and the street there is

a fence separating the interior from the trac. The rear wall

with the apse has a less regular shape, but it is not exposed

at all – right behind it stands the parish house, built earlier,

independently of the church. The sacristy separated from

the church body, the outer wall of which is covered with

marquetry recalling the tablets of the Decalogue and the

shape of a tree is also a characteristic element of the whole.

All this is conjured up invariably from a typical brick.

The church grounds are surrounded by a brick fence.

This fence is open – it has clearances and wide passages

devoid of any fence. The meaning is clear: it is not about

separating, but about designating a place of sacrum. Such

open walls or fences around churches are a constant mo-

tif of Niemczyk’s architecture. The interior of the church

is single-space, without divisions. Like the exterior, it is

basically brick with a few concrete elements. From the

inside, it is much better to see that the church is small

(cubage 4850 m

). Apart from the windows in the wall

facing the street and in the ceiling, the only sources of

The church is built almost exclusively of brick, only a few

elements: foundations, lintels, beams supporting the roof,

etc., are made of concrete, usually left unnished. The brick

from which the church was erected comes from a brick-

yard one and a half kilometres away in the village of Best-

wina. Materials important for the general view, basically

unheard of, are the brick rejects, burnt bricks, sometimes

diering only in colour, sometimes completely melted and

resembling a piece of solidied lava. From them, on the

principle of marquetry in the wall, an architectural detail is

made. The details are also holes in the wall of various siz-

es, clearances, openwork, as well as patterns created from

the arrangement of bricks. There are a lot of details in the

church of Jesus the Redeemer in Czechowice-Dziedzice,

but you certainly do not feel excess, because it is a very

simple, economical detail: a protruding brick, a few bricks

arranged dierently, a cross made of four or ve bricks,

a small hole. One gets the impression that no place in the

church has been omitted – each one is appreciated with the

help of a detail, even the simplest one (Figs. 2a, b). Noth-

ing is mechanically repeated, copied, like perforation with

identical holes multiplied a million times. The church has

a triangular plan, the base of which stands diagonally on

a narrow plot – thanks to this, the bigger dimension of the

building was obtained.

Fig. 2. Church of Jesus Christ the Redeemer in Czechowice-Dziedzice:

a) main entrance to the church, b) main entrance to the church – a dark brick cross

(design by S. Niemczyk, photo by J. Juroszek)

Il. 2. Kościół Jezusa Odkupiciela w Czechowicach-Dziedzicach:

a) wejście główne do kościoła, b) wejście główne do kościoła – krzyż z ciemnej cegły (proj. S. Niemczyk, fot. J. Juroszek)

a b

The role of a brick detail in architecture on the example of contemporary architectural trends in Upper Silesia 33

natural light are the glazed entrance door and a few small

windows at the choir level. As explained by S. Niemczyk

in one from his interviews, […] the point is not that I built

the wall. I bite into space out of necessity […]. So archi-

tecture is not this wall, architecture is this space, where

we can consume architecture [12, p. 33]. Niemczyk trusts

only the natural materials, which he considers the only

ones worth of sacred space. These are unprocessed ma-

terials that intuitively allow themselves to be recognized

by everyone. Stone is stone, wood is wood, glass is glass.

They do not imitate anything, they do not pretend or man-

ifest anything. With their skilful arrangement and applica-

tion, they age gracefully and with dignity.

The parish complex was mainly made of bricks red

in the local brickyard, including burnt bricks considered

unt for use. Meanwhile, the way it is arranged creates

an unusual composition, transforming the drawing of at

walls into a multi-coloured mosaic enlivened by changing

chiaroscuro. Surprising, seemingly random patterns hide

a symbolic content. Here and there, there is a drawing

of a cross, tablets of the Decalogue, and in other places

– the Tree of Life. The brick has a base that is usually

not shown. Niemczyk, however, passionately reveals this

seemingly contaminated surface, because, as he says, it

[…] has expression, it bears the traces of builders’ ngers

… Just like baked bread, which tastes best from the bottom

[13, p. 3].

Housing estate over the Jamna River

in Mikołów (1983–1986)

Another worth mentioning example of one of designs

by Stanisław Niemczyk is this time an example of brick

residential architecture. In Mikołów, he designed a hous-

ing estate referring to universal, timeless architectural val-

ues. The buildings were composed between the valley of

the Jamna River and two diagonal streets. The buildings

were situated parallel or perpendicular to both arteries. On

the other hand, a ribbon character was given to the internal

pedestrian route with a housing estate agora in the middle,

reminiscent of ariver current.

Each house in this estate is dierent, although at rst

glance they all seem to be the same. The windows arrange-

ment, the shapes of the staircase entrances and numerous

bay windows and metal divisions with triangular toppings

of balcony loggias, which are an original reinterpretation

of porches, called in Silesia “the laubs”, dier them [14,

p. 35].

A dozen or so residential buildings (12 to be exact)

composed of narrow segments were placed there on a ter-

rain of varying heights. In this way, an intimate, cosy space

was created between the buildings and was made more

attractive by numerous squares, platforms with benches,

passages, stairs and side streets (Figs. 3a, b).

The area, while maintaining a human scale, has acquired

picturesque features – it is caused by dierences in the

height of the buildings foundations, hidden passages, nu-

merous nooks and crannies, platforms shaped like observa-

tion decks, and even “labyrinths” composed of high hedges.

Before the project in Mikołów, Niemczyk had already

completed a number of unconventional projects. At the

end of the 1970s, when blocks of ats were popular in

Silesia, only Niemczyk used the same prefabricated ele-

ments to build on a human scale, referring to the charac-

teristic red brick houses located nearby.

Anna Cymer wrote that […] the Mikołów housing es-

tate gives the impression that it exists outside of time and

outside the region; looking at the pictures, it is easy to

Fig. 3. Housing estate over the Jamna River in Mikołów, inner courtyard:

a) view from the east, b) view from the northeast

(design by S. Niemczyk, photo by J. Juroszek)

Il. 3. Osiedle nad Jamną w Mikołowie, wewnętrzny dziedziniec:

a) widok od wschodu, b) widok od strony północno-wschodniej (proj. S. Niemczyk, fot. J. Juroszek)

a b

34 Justyna Juroszek

assume that it was created in Great Britain or the Nether-

lands, both in the 19

and 21

centuries [15, p. 268].

Meanwhile, this is Upper Silesia.

Niemczyk reects the human scale in the material he

uses to create the façade. He plays with the colour, struc-

ture and form of the brick. The façades are not at – the

artist divides them and arranges them with colourful pilas-

ters protruding from the wall face. The brick used for this

project has dierent colours and Niemczyk uses this to treat

the façade as a painting on canvas. The small scale of the

brick is justied in each element, so that the objects match

with the small-town architecture of Mikołów (Figs. 3a, b).

Dom Rudy (Rudy House) in Rudy (2017)

Another interesting example of brick housing is Dom

Rudy designed by Marek and Karol Wawrzyniak from

2017. The house is located in the town of Rudy, in the

Kuź nia Raciborska commune, in the picturesque Racibórz

Valley, on the Ruda River, at the intersection of the roads

Racibórz–Gliwice and Kuźnia Raciborska–Rybnik–Knu-

rów. The building is close to a forest that is part of the

largest landscape park in Poland, called Cistercian Land-

scape Compositions [16, p. 72].

Dom Rudy in Rudy (it is worth paying attention to the

play on words taking into account at the same time the

name of the town, in Polish the red colour of the house

itself (rudy means red in Polish as well as the colour of ex-

tracted ore) attracts attention with an unusual way of using

the bricks. The building material becomes the subject and,

at the same time, an expressive artistic form that makes

this project unique in its category. In the project of a sin-

gle-family house in Rudy, brick has become something

more than a building material. The façade of the house is

extremely expressive, despite the familiar ways of using

brick. The architects use the building material in an un-

usual way: they used a unique detail in the walls – their

own variation of a cross-stitch thread with vertical heads,

which are pushed out on one side and pressed in against

the face of the wall on the other. This simple procedure

signicantly enriched chiaroscuro eect on the façade. By

completely removing the same pair of bricks, an open-

work wall was created, hiding window openings that di-

versify the uniform/repeatable structure of the façade. At

night, with little or no articial lighting, the openwork

starts to light (Figs. 4a, b).

The form of the house emerged from the transformation

of a cuboid, when a square was cut out from the basic body.

In its place, an introverted, closed courtyard was arranged,

which separates the entrance area from the road and the

rest of the estate. Empty space, obtained after cutting out

a cube, nds its antithesis in a gable roof, superimposed

on a model of a simple cube. Thus, the architects achieved

the eect of a game between emptiness and solid, concave

and convex forms. The traditional form of a single-family

house, covered with a gable roof, has been integrated into

a modern, architectural layout. The same happened with

brick – a traditional building material whose colour, tex-

ture, shape and arrangement are the leitmotiv of the entire

project. Looking for a building material best suited to the

character of the place where the house was to be built, the

architects found the last, still operating local brickyard.

The clay used to build the house is almost the same colour

as the ground on the plot. All colours of the brick appear

on the façade. Traditional ring methods allowed obtain-

ing a whole range of warm colours – from bright orange to

deep violet, close to black. Many hand-sorted waste bricks

were used to build the house. Working with local materials

usually gives the most natural results. Relying on readi-

ly available, local materials is ecological and in line with

Fig. 4. Rudy House in Rudy:

a) façade from the east,

b) detail from the north

(design by M. i K. Wawrzyniak, photo by J. Juroszek)

Il. 4. Dom Rudy w Rudach:

a) elewacja od strony wschodniej,

b) detal od strony północnej

(proj. M. i K. Wawrzyniak, fot. J. Juroszek)

The role of a brick detail in architecture on the example of contemporary architectural trends in Upper Silesia 35

the principles of sustainable development. Dom Rudy is

a building where the simplicity of shaping the projection,

manipulating the shapes and light, and creating non-obvi-

ous connections between oors, inspires with minimalist

European and Japanese architecture. At the same time,

striving to use local products with the smallest possible

carbon footprint and creating the relationship with nature

is a search for a new way in architecture in a globalized

world of typical solutions [16, p. 73].

Science and Music Education Centre “Symfonia”

in Katowice (2014)

The building, which was erected to expand the seat of

the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice,

for the needs of the new Centre for Science and Music Ed-

ucation “Symfonia”, seems to be a characteristic Silesian

architecture object. The building is located at 3 Zacisze

Street in the very centre of Katowice. It is an extension of

the existing, historic main building of the Academy, cre-

ating a continuation of the frontage of Damrota Street in

Katowice.

The new layout was designed by the Konior Barysz Ar-

chitekci studio (after 2005, work was continued at Konior

Studio). The existing two buildings were connected and

supplemented with a concert hall with facilities and an ad-

ministrative part.

Tomasz Konior, Krzysztof Barysz, Andrzej Witkowski

and Aleksander Nowacki were the authors of the exten-

sion building who strived to create a modern facility that

would be a formal and functional, but also creative contin-

uation of the surroundings. At a short distance, along the

rear façade of the main historic building, a slightly lower

cuboid shape was added (library and administration part),

and the space left between them was in the form of a glass

atrium. Thanks to this, the very decorative neo-Gothic

façade of the old building was inside. Two independent,

dierently accentuated entrances have been designed in

the new facility – for students from the side of a small

courtyard and for the concert audience from Damrota

Street. Along this street, at right angles to the atrium,

a concert hall was situated, with a width precisely result-

ing from the architectural divisions of the Academy seat.

To preserve the atmosphere of the place and additionally

unify the complex, the façades of the new parts were made

of carefully selected bricks, referring to the surrounding

buildings. Single bricks irregularly protruding 2–3 cm on

the surface of the entire façade break the austerity of the

body and give the university a modern look. The windows

were placed in narrow elongated niches, reminiscent of

a Gothic architectural detail. The large planes of the walls

without openings were enlivened with a small irregular

ornament made of protruding bricks (Figs. 5a, b). The in-

terior is also dominated by brick supplemented with con-

crete. The architects refer to the interior of the building’s

façade and smoothly play with every architectural detail.

The spaciousness of the walls and the light that reaches

the interior at dierent times of the day means that we can

always admire the play of chiaroscuro and the painterly

character of this timeless material.

Revitalization of the chain bathhouse

of the historic Królowa Luiza [Queen Louise] mine

in Zabrze (2015)

Revitalization of the building of the former chain bath-

house with the intention of using it as a reception point of

“Królowa Luiza Adit”, i.e. a several-kilometre-long tour-

ist route under the city centre, was one of the character-

istic features of Silesia. The building is located in Zabrze

at 408 Wolności St., which is the main thoroughfare of

the city. The authors of the project of the revitalization of

the chain bathhouse are Tomasz Konior and Barbara and

Oskar Grąbczewski.

Fig. 5. Science and Music Education Centre “Symfonia” in Katowice:

a) façade from the west, b) detail inside the building

(design by T. Konior, K. Barysz, A. Witkowski, A. Nowacki, photo by J. Juroszek)

Il. 5. Centrum Nauki i Edukacji Muzycznej „Symfonia” w Katowicach:

a) elewacja od strony zachodniej, b) detal wewnątrz budynku (proj. T. Konior, K. Barysz, A. Witkowski, A. Nowacki, fot. J. Juroszek)

a b

36 Justyna Juroszek

building features rhythmically composed pilasters, rysalit

and windows nished with a three-dimensional brick frieze.

The foundation was also nished with a modernist cor-

nice typical of the Bauhaus period. The building tells its

own story. A modern added lampshade gives lightness to

historical architectural details and makes the body take on

a new, present-day character (Fig. 6a, b).

Discussion

The examples of architecture, mentioned by the author

constitute their own, unique style – the style visible in

each element that is not subordinated to the search for

originality. There is a lot of detail using bricks in con-

temporary architecture and it is generally thought out and

applied in moderation. It is a simple, economical detail:

a protruding brick, several bricks arranged dierently,

a cross made of ve or six bricks, a small hole. It is the use

of appropriate chiaroscuro, texture and colour, just like in

contemporary sculpture or painting. Texture of the brick,

i.e. the material as such, is important when we look at it

very close, from a distance of about thirty or forty centi-

metres. From a distance of one or two meters, it doesn’t

count because the brick pattern appears on the wall.

From such a distance, it becomes the texture of the wall

and it reveals the designer’s intention [7, p. 25]. Among

the elements characterizing a contemporary detail, we

can nd […] building the simple archetypal geometric

forms drawn from tradition, in which references to the

past are visible, but clearly schematic and simplied

[…]. Provocative entanglements and clashes of forms,

growing out of fragments of geometric solids, rotated,

transformed as part of a previously planned chaos and

apparent randomness, do not repeat the compositions

Designers inspired by the Iberian thinking about the

façade as a mashrabiya protecting against the sun created

an arcade with lots of small openings creating a compo-

sition on the façade. The play of lights coming out of the

openings of the building creates a harmonious play of chi-

aroscuro on the simple shape of the building.

A one-story, brick basilica building, erected at the end

of the 19

century, served as the so-called chain cloak-

room, a bathhouse and a marks room. In the rst room,

miners left their clothes hanging them at the ceiling on

hooks equipped with chains, and in the last one they

collected marks, i.e. plaques with an individual number,

thanks to which it was known if the worker had gone up

to the surface after work. When the mine was closed down

in 1998 and its buildings were used as the Coal Mining

Museum, the bathhouse was used as a gallery and event

venue. The new function of the facility required adapting

it to handle tourist trac of quite high intensity. A sou-

venir shop, a helmet warehouse and a room for guides

were planned here, as well as a restaurant with facilities

and a multi-purpose room [17, p. 62]. The facility that

had been used by miners during the mine operation time,

was adapted under the supervision of the conservator of

monuments. From the outside, apart from cleaning the

façade and building two small extensions on the side of

the gable walls, the building has not undergone signicant

changes. No major revolutions were made in the interior

either. Here, too, the walls were cleaned, partly uncover-

ing their redevelopment, partly rebuilding the walls with

bricks recovered during the revitalization. Thanks to this,

the building gained an additional narrative telling about

the reconstructions it has undergone over the years. Here,

the detail has become a combination of modern thinking

with the existing post-industrial urban fabric. The existing

Fig. 6. Revitalization of the chain bathhouse of the historic Królowa Luiza mine in Zabrze:

a) façade from the east, b) interior of the building

(revitalization project by T. Konior, B. and O. Grąbczewski, photo by J. Juroszek)

Il. 6. Rewitalizacja łaźni łańcuszkowej w zespole zabytkowej kopalni Królowa Luiza w Zabrzu:

a) elewacja od strony południowej, b) wnętrze budynku

(proj. rewitalizacji: T. Konior, B. i O. Grąbczewscy, fot. J. Juroszek)

The role of a brick detail in architecture on the example of contemporary architectural trends in Upper Silesia 37

known to us from the past, they are fresh, dramatic and

surprising [9, p. 98].

Thanks to the eight-hundred-year tradition of using

the brick for building, the modern constructing industry,

inspired by historical styles, generates new spatial crea-

tions. Using the changing chiaroscuro and texture, it sat-

ises new aesthetic and visual needs. Brick architecture,

like any other art, has undergone transformations over the

years of experience, in accordance with the needs of so-

ciety, without losing its artistic values. The wide range of

colours of the brick and the fact that it is a natural, ecolog-

ical and practical material, adapted to any compositional

scale, made it timeless. Despite the changing landscape

around us, the universality and multidimensional poten-

tial of brick still inspires. In Silesia, brick is a symbol of

economic prosperity, it is associated with the construction

of the rst mines, workers’ housing estates, churches and

public buildings. The space in architecture, created to

raise human needs, is strongly related to the emotionality

of human experiences [8, p. 96]. It was with the use of

solid brick that the rst working-class housing estates in

Silesia were built (e.g. Nikiszowiec in Katowice). In such

places, the colours of the bricks are often combined with

green and red, as a refe rence to the two colours in which

window sills and window frames are painted in Silesian

familoks (multi-fami ly houses): traditionally, metallurgist

windows are green, miners windows are red. The detail

of brick architecture has changed over the years, but the

sculptural character, geometrization and plasticity have

remained unchanged.

The role of brick façades in the cultural aspect seems

to be important in the cultural aspect [7, p. 26], because

contemporary sources of inspiration in the way of sur-

face shaping introduce a new meaning to the reality of

architecture. Characteristic patterned surfaces – chang-

ing costumes of buildings create unlimited perspectives in

the 21

century. They act as lters separating from each

other and at the same time connecting two sides – form

and context, partially showing the structure of the interior,

partially covering it [18, pp. 124, 125].

Brick has always been considered a simple but solid

building material. Over the years, it has acquired nobili-

ty and elegance. Carefully crafted, purposefully nished

bricks with a specially designed detail, were used to build

ordinary houses, as well as churches and palaces. Orig-

inally, brick served as a structural element, with time it

acquired a painterly and sculptural character. The dis-

cussed phenomenon also applies to Poland, but only a few

publications concern this topic. Silesian architects try to

continue local traditions [19, p. 23]. This traditional raw

material ts perfectly into the modern style, and at the

same time as an ecological material, it allows the erection

of buildings in compliance with the principles of sustain-

able development. This material has “breathing” proper-

ties, i.e. it ensures free ow of water vapour in the wall,

eliminating the risk of condensation and accumulation of

moisture. In addition, it is resistant to fungi and mould,

so in the era of numerous allergenic products, it is a very

hygienic material. The use of ceramics allows maintaining

the favourable microclimate inside rooms. An undoubted

advantage of building ceramics, which other materials do

not have, is the possibility of its repeated use, which al-

lows to reduce the amount of possible waste. Due to the

fact that it is a material made entirely of renewable raw

materials, it can be recycled. In turn, the development

of the production of porous ceramics allows to achieve

a high level of energy eciency. The use of ceramic hol-

low bricks means that there is no need to use an additional

layer of thermal insulation, and the reduction in a variety

of materials reduces the investment costs.

In addition to ecological properties, ceramics have

unique aesthetic values. The multitude of shapes, formats

and colours allows achieving the excellent visual eects.

Popularity of a brick as a contemporary architectural ma-

terial results from its dualistic potential, manifested in the

possibility of using it both as a structure and as a lling

[20, p. 170].

The use of this building material allows for a contem-

porary interpretation of art, without duplicating historical

forms, only using the tradition in local culture. Contem-

porary architects discover new beauty, new possibilities,

new rules, new geometric variations of the timeless brick.

Summary

The examples presented in the article prove that Sile-

sian brick architecture has survived historical cultural

changes. Innovative solutions used by architects make

brick take on a modern character. A modern detail is no

longer just a construction and decorative material, but of-

ten takes the form of openwork curtains, creating semi-

closed architectural interiors. The colour scheme of ad-

justing the detail to local conditions results from the needs

and sentiment of the inhabitants. The detail from heavy

geometric forms was turned into light, semi-transparent

walls that t in the latest architectural trends and the us-

ers’ needs. Dom Rudy (Rudy House) in Rudy designed

by Marek and Karol Wawrzyniak or the Church of Je-

sus the Redeemer in Czechowice-Dziedzice designed by

Stanisław Niemczyk, where a fence or towers with clear-

ings illuminate the interiors and leave them open, can be

good examples.

The detail has become a modern interpretation of his-

torical patterns. It does not duplicate medieval forms, does

not imitate the past, but using a modern language it ex-

tracts from this material what made it valued for centuries.

In the reconstructed buildings, brick from the symmetri-

cal, regular forms creates asymmetrical compositions that

give a new tone in the existing context. Revitalization of

the chain bathhouse in the complex of the historic Królo-

wa Luiza mine in Zabrze, designed by Tomasz Konior and

Barbara and Oskar Grąbczewski, where the asymmetrical

entrance to the building superimposed on the rhythmic

fabric of the one-story basilica building creates a new,

unique narration of the body, is an example. Historic brick

buildings often tell their story in a silent way. Designing

the context for them in a modern form, with an innovative

architectural detail, makes the building take on a new char-

acter. Properly designed lighting in buildings emphasizes

the chiaroscuro of each block and brings out the so-called

38 Justyna Juroszek

third dimension – characteristic of the Bauhaus period.

Flat walls with a composition of openings or fragments

of protruding bricks, with the appropriate use of light, are

like a picture painted on canvas, a modern sculpture, as

simple as modernist, ascetic architecture. A good example

of this are the objects designed by Tomasz Konior. Small

dimensions of the brick mean that every detail can be used

both in residential and sacral buildings, as well as in pub-

lic buildings. Every one of them, on a dierent level and

in a dierent context, brings out the best from the existing

cultural landscape. In Silesia, there are many objects of

brick architecture forming the legacy of post-industrial

achievements. The existing urban fabric makes Silesian

architects look for new narratives, new architectural solu-

tions, new variations and interpretations of brick details.

The architectural examples mentioned above prove that

they are able to extract new beauty, new skin and a second

life for the symbols of the cultural heritage of Upper Sile-

sia from the existing context.

Local land development plans often include provisions

and conditions giving preference to noble materials such

as stone, wood and brick. Today, it is brick that dominates

most of the adopted solutions, successfully tting into

modern eco-trends.

In Upper Silesia, brick is inscribed in the existing urban

texture and is an inseparable element of cultural heritage.

Translated by

Andrzej Madejski

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References

Abstract

The role of a brick detail in architecture

on the example of contemporary architectural trends in Upper Silesia

An image of the changing trends in the design of ceramic architectural details in Upper Silesia in recent years is the subject of the study. At the

research stage, a source query, analysis of completed architectural objects, eld inspection and photographic documentation were used. On the ba-

sis of a broader recognition of the subject, two examples were selected from the sacral buildings, residential buildings and public utility buildings.

Assessment of the architectural environment, representativeness of the building, high architectural value, and cultural recognition were the selection

criteria. Showing that the contemporary architecture of Upper Silesia allows operating with chiaroscuro, which gives the composition a “third dimen-

sion” – uniqueness and specic expression is the goal that the author achieves. It is not reaching for historical patterns, but creating new, geometric,

spatial forms, setting new composition rules, using chiaroscuro, painterly and sculptural features of this timeless material. The human scale of the

module means that bricks can be used to design almost any architectural object: a residential building, as well as a sacral or public utility building.

Contemporary brick is no longer used only to create structural elements – it is part of the image composition, relief and sculpting of each façade.

Key words: detail, brick, brick architecture, composition, Upper Silesia

The role of a brick detail in architecture on the example of contemporary architectural trends in Upper Silesia 39

Streszczenie

Rola ceglanego detalu w architekturze

na przykładzie współczesnych trendów architektonicznych na Górnym Śląsku

Tematem pracy jest obraz zmieniających się w ostatnich latach trendów w projektowaniu ceramicznego detalu architektonicznego na terenie

Górnego Śląska. Na etapie badań posłużono się kwerendą źródłową, analizą zrealizowanych obiektów architektonicznych, wizją terenową oraz

dokumentacją fotograczną. Na podstawie szerszego rozpoznania tematu wytypowano po dwa przykłady spośród obiektów sakralnych, budyn-

ków mieszkalnych oraz obiektów użyteczności publicznej. Jako kryteria wyboru posłużyły ocena środowiska architektonicznego, reprezentacyjność

obiektu, wysoka wartość architektoniczna, rozpoznawalność kulturowa. Celem autorki było wykazanie, że współczesna architektura Górnego Śląska

pozwala operować światłocieniem, który nadaje kompozycji „trzeci wymiar” – wyjątkowość i specyczny wyraz. Nie jest to sięganie do wzorców

historycznych, lecz tworzenie nowych, geometrycznych, przestrzennych form, ustalanie nowych zasad kompozycyjnych, operowanie światłocie-

niem, malarskością i rzeźbiarskością tego ponadczasowego materiału. Ludzka skala modułu sprawia, iż cegły można użyć do projektowania niemal

każdego obiektu architektonicznego – zarówno budynku mieszkalnego, jak i sakralnego lub użyteczności publicznej. Współczesna cegła nie służy już

tylko i wyłącznie do tworzenia elementów konstrukcyjnych – jest częścią kompozycji obrazu, reliefu i rozrzeźbienia każdej elewacji.

Słowa kluczowe: detal, cegła, architektura ceglana, kompozycja, Górny Śląsk