0108 Reading Muranów. Memory of a Place/ Memory of an Architect

Commentary on the Postwar Work of Bohdan Lachert

  • Katarzyna Uchowicz (Author)
    Institute of the History of Art, Polish Academy od Sciences (IS PAN)

     

    Historyczka sztuki. Studia w Instytucie Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, dyplom w 2000 r. na podstawie pracy magisterskiej zatytułowanej "Architektura dworców kolejowych od powstania kolei do dwudziestolecia międzywojennego (Polska i Europa)", napisanej pod kierunkiem prof. dr. hab. Tadeusza Stefana Jaroszewskiego. Od 2001 r. zatrudniona w Instytucie Sztuki PAN, w Pracowni Katalogu Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce. Od tego czasu bierze udział w pracach inwentaryzacyjnych kościołów katolickich na ziemiach wschodnich dawnej Rzeczypospolitej (dzięki kolejnym grantom Ministerstwa Nauki) podsumowanych w monografiach w większości poświęconych realizacjom dwudziestolecia międzywojennego (seria Materiały do Dziejów Sztuki Sakralnej na Ziemiach Wschodnich Dawnej Rzeczypospolitej). W opracowaniu dysertacja doktorska dotycząca twórczości architekta Bohdana Lacherta (1900–1987) pod kierunkiem dr. hab. Andrzeja Szczerskiego. Współpracuje z Collegium Civitas oraz Stowarzyszeniami "OD/BLOKUJ" i "Stacja Muranów".

    Art historian. Studied at the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw, graduating in 2000 with an MA dissertation on "The architecture of railway stations from the beginnings of rail industry until the interwar period (Poland and Europe)", written under the supervision of Professor Tadeusz Stefan Jaroszewski. Since 2001 she has been working at Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Science (PAN) in the Workshop of the Catalogue of Monuments of Art in Poland. Since that time she has taken part in inventory works of Catholic churches in the eastern borderland of the former Polish Republic (subsidised by grants of the Ministry of Science), summarised in monographs mostly discussing the interwar period (series titled Materials for the History of Christian Art in the Eastern Parts of the Former Polish Republic). She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation on the work of Bohdan Lachert (1900–1987) written under the supervision of Professor Andrzej Szczerski. She collaborates with Collegium Civitas as well as "OD/BLOKUJ" and "Stacja Muranów" Asociations.

  • Karolina Kolenda (Translator)

Identifiers (Article)

Abstract

The text concentrates on the concept of South Muranów – a residential quarter / monument realised in the area of the Warsaw ghetto by the architect Bohdan Lachert. It attempts to show this work as an artistic myth created by the artist. An analysis of the architect's texts and a reconstruction of the circumstances in which the project was realised, as well as the details of Lachert's biography reveal new layers of this architectonic palimpsest. Clear references to the bold visions of Śródmieście (City Centre) by Maciej Nowicki and an adaptation for the purposes of residential quarter / place of memory experiments at transforming rubble, popular in the 1940s, provoke questions about the originality of the concept of Muranów, whose unquestionable value is the spatial composition stemming from pioneering experiments by Katarzyna Kobro, organic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, and Nowicki'c new functionalism. The history of the quarter is at the same time a microcosm of the initial years of rebuilding Warsaw and of the socialist realist chaos after 1949, as well as a record of the search for artistic subjectivity of a Modernist architect in a new reality.

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Language
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Keywords
Warsaw ghetto, Postwar Modernism, reconstruction of Warsaw, experimental architecture, organic architecture, quarter-memorial, memory of the place, Bohdan Lachert, getto warszawskie, powojenny modernizm, odbudowa Warszawy, budownictwo eksperymentalne, architektura organiczna, osiedle-pomnik, pamięć miejsca