Issue 2(42)/2015

DOI: 10.5277/ARCHITECTUS

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Articles

Marta Rudnicka-Bogusz - Professor Janusz Leon Dobesz – scholar and satirist

doi:10.5277/arc150201

Last year, Professor Janusz L. Dobesz celebrated his 70th birthday. Janusz was born in Kraków in 1944 and as he grew up he soaked up the atmosphere of artistic bohemia in Jama Michalika or Piwnica pod Baranami. Those who have the pleasure to get to know and befriend him will confirm know that he is straightforward and expressive. (…)

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Agnieszka Tomaszewicz - Carl Lüdecke and dwelling-houses in Wrocław

doi:10.5277/arc150202

Carl Lüdecke was one of the most versatile architects of the 19th century Wrocław. He designed buildings of public services, country seats of aristocracy, he also carried out preservation works of the most important monuments in the Silesian capital. This article is an attempt at replenishing the gap in hitherto existing works related to the creation of the artist and shows the so far not described group of Lüdecke’s projects – the urban residential houses. The architect designed several tenament houses, most often of the service-tenament function, two villas, he also carried out reconstructions of existing houses, and created plans of facade decorations. In propositions of urban tenament houses Lüdecke employed the principle of style pluralism – to house elevations he gave classic form enriched with motives derived from various periods of Italian Renaissance. His standpoint related to styles in architecture the artist presented during his lectures which he gave in the Silesian Association of Native Culture. The architect realized only commissions of private investors, so that each design was the result of conditions of localization, the needs of the customer, legal requirements and artistic beliefs of the designer which were under a high influence of the Berlin school of architecture.

Keywords:

    tenament-housing

    historicism

    wrocław

Marta Rudnicka-Bogusz - The architecture and spatial disposition of 19th- and 20th-century military building complexes in Silesia. Typology, design, regeneration – preliminary study

doi:10.5277/arc150203

Architecture is the form of art most receptive to outer influences, because it is created entirely as a response to a specific demand. It fills the space not only with shapes but at the same time with ideas. This applies particularly to state-funded investments – administrative and government buildings – which by nature reflect social and political changes. In the researched area military installations were constructed in two main phases associated with the increase in militarism in the internal politics of Prussia and the German Reich – the second half of the 19th century and the 1930s – when multiple military facilities were built. The design was devised to emphasize their majesty and importance and so that they radiated the sense of unity and might of the state. At the same time they represented stylistic and functional characteristics of their times (Werkbund; expressionism), modified in accordance with the then-current ideology. These complexes represented the so called Herrschaftsarchitektur – the architecture of power – and they had important influence in shaping local identity communities on the verge of military conflict.     After 1945, due to their function, the military installations were immediately inhabited by the Polish or Soviet army. As strategic objects, they were unavailable for research and analysis for many years, nevertheless in most cases, were properly maintained. When the Russian troops were withdrawn and the Polish Army was restructured, many installations were abandoned. Unused or else sold to private investors, they start to degrade, are demolished or remodeled, which in either case makes it difficult to study them. In order to save them, it is necessary to reintroduce them into the urban space, so that they do not share the fate of post-industrial edifices and engineering heritage of the same era, which were irreversibly lost. The article discusses the issues of construction, typology and stylistics and the state of preservation of the barracks in Silesia. It constitutes a preliminary study that aims to determine the benefits and possibility of restoration of these facilities.

Keywords:

    military-complexes

    wrocław

    objects-of-state-administration-in-the-late-19th-and-early-20th-century

Ewa Grochowska, Krzysztof Stefański - The tomb-chapel of Samson Woller’s family in Leśna near Lubań – the work of Carl Lüdecke

doi:10.5277/arc150204

Leśna (German Marklissa) is a small town picturesquely situated in Izerskie Foothills, nearby Lubań. In the 19th century a textile industry wasdeveloped here. The owner of the biggest production plants, converted in 1888 into the joint stock company “Concordia”, was Samson Woller, a manufacturer of Jewish descent. In 1883 he built in Leśna a tomb-chapel according to a design of well known Breslau’s architect Carl Lüdecke. Its plans survived in the collection of Technische Universität in Berlin. The building belongs to the most interesting examples of tomb-chapels erected in the 19th century in Lower Silesia. The tomb-chapel is built on a central plan with a center square crowned by a cupola. It presents the classic-Renaissance style. The building is distinguished by an unusual location – outside the city, on a hillside that slopes towards a lake. It is the most interesting architectural work from among other tomb-chapels designed by Carl Lüdecke. Current condition of the object, which in 2013 was entered into the register of historical monuments, is very bad.     The article presents history of Samson Woller’s tomb-chapel in Leśna. It also contains analysis of chapel’s architectural value comparing it to other objects of its type built in the same periods in Silesia. A separate thread are Samson Woller’s connections to Polish lands – at the end of the 19th century he acquired estates in Dłoń and Smolice in the south of Wielkopolska, nearby Krotoszyn. They were given as a dowry to his daughters: Helen and Maria Otylia.

Keywords:

    sepulchral-architecture

    architecture-of-lower-silesia

    carl-lüdecke

    samson-woller

Małgorzata Wójtowicz - Mental institutions in Langenhorn, Wiesloch and Lubiąż – complementary urban architecture complexes

doi:10.5277/arc150205

Before the mentally ill, who were considered “unworthy to live”, died during World War II within the Nazis’ “Action T4”, German psychiatry was famous not only for world-renowned scholars, but also for great mental institutions. They were organized professionally according to the most recent achievements in that medical fi eld and – in its peak phase – they were uncommonly picturesquely arranged within an urban layout. Some of them bring to mind the associations with Howard’s movement of Garden Cities, realized in practice in Germany after creating “Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft” in 1902. Directly, they can be traced to pavilion hospitals, but there is no doubt that they comprised self-suffi cient settlements with well thought out park sites. It was in such institutions (which resumed their operations after the war) that poorer patients, both showing the signs of recovery and the terminally ill, were provided with healthcare, including proper therapy and living conditions. German mental institutions built from 1890s  to 1920s  were the crowning achievement of doctors’ efforts, who closely cooperated with architects, in order to build the best facility of the kind, as well as the result of the consistent policy of the authorities to create a network of domestic and provincial facilities. As a result, unique urban complexes were created which are not to be found anywhere else. The facilities in Langenhorn, Wiesloch and Lubiąż, presented as examples, show the connection between the layout, architecture of buildings, and park and garden arrangement adjusted to the landscape of the area with new progressive methods of therapy.

Keywords:

    mental-institutions

    psychiatric-hospitals

    garden-cities

    langenhorn

    wiesloch

    lubiąż

Maria Zwierz - The villa designed by Rudolf Fränkel, in Smolec near Wrocław

doi:10.5277/arc150206

This, to date completely unknown in Polish literature, villa was built in 1931–1932, representing the concept of organic building (organhaftes Bauen), formulated in 1925 by Hugo Häring. The design was created by an architect, being then a rising star of the Berlin architecture, the designer of several  luxury villas, but above all Berlin housing estates, including the Atlantic estate with fi ve hundred apartments, leisure facilities and the “Lichtburg” cinema. The very promising architectural career of Fränkl was interrupted in dramatic circumstances in 1933 due to his Jewish ancestors.     Fränkl’s employer and the villa’s owner was Robert Stern, a horticulturist with refi ned taste and high artistic aspirations, who in Brochów (now a quarter of Wrocław) ran a horticulture enterprise and who participated in horticultural exhibitions collecting both experience and awards. Around 1930 he moved his company to the outskirts of Smolec and at the pond, within a large estate he built the villa, designed by Fränkl. This villa rustica with excellent, almost Palladian, proportions and luxurious, individually decorated interiors was designed from the inside to the outside, its spaces were linked with the landscape and a panoramic view of the pond and the nature from two large terraces. Photographs of very good quality taken by the photographer Max Krajewski constantly cooperating with the architect, published in the contemporary architecture magazines give an idea of its original shape and comfort, adapted to the expectations of the owners. The house, although strongly rebuilt, still exists. The article presents all available information about the shape and architectural details of the villa, its designer and oryginal owners.

Keywords:

    villa

    design

    rudolf-fränkel

    organic-building

    robert-stern

Agnieszka Gryglewska - Gustav Oelsner – architect and officer in Wrocław (Breslau) in the years 1904–1911

doi:10.5277/arc150207

The subject matter of this publication is the architectural creativity of Gustav Oelsner (1879–1956) in Wrocław in the years of 1904–1911 within the range of his work in national administration on the construction of Wrocław University of Technology and council administration, as a municipal building inspector. Serving the city Oelsner designed and built: schools (two primary schools and one secondary), restoration work, conversion and extension of the All Saints and the Wenzel-Hancke hospitals, temporary exhibition pavilions in Szczytnicki Park. Working under the supervision of city architects Richard Plüddemann and Max Berg, Oelsner gained a great deal of experience important for his future work in the building administration in Katowice, Altona and Hamburg. In Wrocław he had contact with the circle of artistic reform followers around 1900, among others, with Hans Poelzig. Rejection of historizing detail, use of simplifi ed motives of regional building art – Heimatschutz-style, turning to the idea of creating a form resulting from function, construction and material. These are the features that made Oelsner’s works close to objectivity of the industrial architecture and works of interwar avant-garde.

Keywords:

    gustav-oelsner

    municipal-architecture

    architecture-of-the-turn-of-the-19th-and-20th-centuries

    wrocław

    germany

Barbara Widera - Innovative nature of architectural creation of Victor Horta

doi:10.5277/arc150208

The Belgian architect Victor Horta, was one of the first and also one of the most outstanding representatives of Art Nouveau in architecture. The innovative character of his works had a significant impact on the development of 20th century architecture. Among buildings designed by Horta a group of luxury private residences in Brussels deserve special attention and therefore are the subject of this paper. These are: Hôtel Tassel (1893–1894) at Rue Paul-Emile Janson, Hôtel van Eetvelde (1897–1901) on the Palmerston Avenue and Maison et Atelier Horta (1898–1901) on the Rue Américaine. The mentioned buildings have been identified as the pioneering works, extremely important for the further development of both Art Nouveau and modern architecture. Because of this reason they were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000. Their distingui shing innovative features were: open and free plan, common and consistent introduction of daylight to all living areas, modern and boldly exposed structure and the comprehensive decorative concept. Other important elements of the new design were: the creative way to derive inspiration from nature, the use of organic structure, the use of a stairway for the light and air distribution throughout the building, introduction of skylights and winter gardens, efficient use of electric lighting to create the ambience in architecture, innovative heating and ventilation systems, expressiveness of the natural materials beauty as well as bold and modern use of iron and glass. All the features mentioned above were the essence of the 20th century architecture.

Keywords:

    innovation-of-art-nouveau

    organic-architecture

    organic-structures

    contemporary-architecture

    biological-architecture

Jan Salm - Architecture created in East Prussia under the symbol of the swastika – an introduction to the preliminary study

doi:10.5277/arc150209

The architecture of the Nazi era in East Prussia is still rather poorly researched and documented, despite the fact that in the years between 1934 and 1945 a signifi cant number of interesting and distinctive buildings and urban complexes was created in this area. East Prussia was in a unique situation in the years between the two World Wars: it was the only part of Germany which suffered destruction during the Great War and then underwent a systematic and planned reconstruction programme. Territorial and political changes also had an infl uence. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles East Prussia was separated from the rest of Germany by the “Polish corridor”, which had an impact on the political and economic situation of the region and resulted in the effort to modernise the province continuing during the 1930s. This was clearly visible in the development of the local built environment. A number of distinctive trends can be distinguished. Firstly a signifi cant programme of residential development could be witnessed, with new suburbs and out of town settlements being realized. Due to their architectural coherence and unanimity they had a noticeable impact on the local landscape. There were also numerous examples of public and institutional buildings, such as schools being built both in and out of towns as well as governmental and administrative buildings housing banks, post offi ces and railway stations. Special attention should be given to the edifi ces designed to propagate and promote ideological messages such as party headquarters and large scale complexes intended for political rallies and sport events. All of them demonstrate universal motives typical of the architecture of the Nazi area. In some cases they take their cue from the local building traditions and regional decorative motifs. The article illustrates a number of buildings refl ecting the trends described above: The Town Hall in Szczytno, which draws on the architecture of Teutonic Knights; the square in Tylża (today’s Sovietsk) inspired by the Germanic tradition of Thing Plaze; the party meeting house in Święta Siekierka (today’s Mamonowo) with its rootes in classical architecture and Nazi symbolism and fi nally, the railway station and square in Olsztynek, which forms an integral and signifi cant part of the route culminating in a nationalistic war memorial in nearby Tannenberg.

Keywords:

    architecture-of-east-prussia

    nazi-architecture

    east-prussia