Archinect - News

Preservationists are trying to save a piece of Polish Postmodernist Architecture

2021-08-13T11:05:00-04:00

In a last-ditch effort to save an iconic piece of postmodern architecture from its looming demolition, preservationists in Wrocław, Poland have taken an unconventional, yet jovial approach to protesting. Dancing to hits from the 1990s, clad in that era’s attire, in which there was an accompanying fashion show, protestors are paying homage to the Solpol department store.

Built in 1993 and designed by Wojciech Jarząbek, the structure has become one of the most notable examples of Polish postmodernist architecture, reflecting the country’s seismic transformation following the fall of the Iron Curtain. The building broke away from the grey, uniform aesthetics of its built surroundings with its exuberant façade in violet, pink, and green and unique geometric form. While polarizing due to its unique design, Solpol stood out with its modernity compared to other commercial facilities of its type in Wrocław, attracting both locals and tourists.

Photo: Zofia Banaś

However, at the turn of the...

Steven Holl Architects international exhibition is on view at Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Poland

2021-06-15T16:40:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects’ traveling exhibition, Steven Holl: Making Architecture, has opened at the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Poland. This is the first venue to host the showcase in Europe, as the ninth stop of the exhibition’s tour.

The exhibit opened on June 11th, exclusively through an online broadcast and opened to the public the following day. Steven Holl: Making Architecture explores Holl’s intricate and distinctive creative process of making architecture through eleven projects, featuring a collection of approximately one hundred models, sketches, and other related studies. The exhibition highlights the rapidly changing pace of architecture, specifically, the way ideas are formed and visualized as manual tasks fade in favor of digital approaches. Steven Holl’s design approach that he is using to challenge the trend towards digitization, which famously includes painting in watercolors at every stage of a building’s construction, is put on full display.

View of the exh...

MVRDV to renovate 19th-century building into Concordia Hub in Wroclaw

2018-10-03T18:42:00-04:00

Today, MVRDV unveiled their proposed design to transform a 19th-century heritage building into the Concordia Hub on Slodowa Island in Wroclaw, Poland. With most of Slodowa Island's buildings destroyed during the Siege of Breslau in World War II followed by a handful of other buildings being demolished later on, this particular building became known as the island's sole surviving structure. The rest of the island serves as a popular public park.

Image © MVRDV.

Working with local architect Q2, MVRDV was inspired by Janus — the Roman deity of transitions, the passage of time, and duality — for their concept. The design will retain the building's existing facade and add an extension to the rear, creating a distinction between old and new. The building's “formal” side will feature the historic facade, while the new contemporary addition will be a transparent structure and will face toward the public park.

Image © MVRDV.

“At both ends of the building, triple-height stepped voi...

How a postmodernist department store is trying to become the youngest monument in Poland

2015-03-05T14:40:00-05:00

As buildings from the postmodern eon continue to age with their residents, questions about historic significance and aesthetic relevance start to surface, leading to often heated debates whether the structures we used to love so much already merit magisterial protection or should give way for the new "now" architecture.

The case of the Solpol department store in Wrocław, Poland is only the latest in a list of soon to be decided PoMo fates: Built in the early 90s, the color- and shapeful structure embodies Poland's violent optimism of that time, when the tristesse of decades of communism was replaced with capitalism's promise of opportunity over night.

Hailed as "one of the best examples of postmodern architecture in Poland," the Society for Beautifying the City of Wrocław (TUMW) and Fundacja Transformator have now filed a motion to the Lower Silesian Monument Conservation Officer to include Solpol on the list of protected monuments.

Should everything go as planned, this PoMo gem would ...