|
In this year's edition of the all-Poland Internet competition for the best and the worst works of architecture in the last 12 months, there were as many as three buildings from Kraków.
The poll is, first of all, a recapitulation of events from the world of Polish architecture. The Internet users themselves submit their proposals for awards and anti-awards. The goal of the Architectural Tops and Flops is to show what interesting and what harmful projects appeared in our country over the last 12 months. This year, among six candidates for the Architectural Top of 2008 award, there were as many as two projects directly from Kraków. The first of them is the Com-Com Zone Sports and Education Centre, winner of the last year's Prof. Bodanowski award for the best building of the year in Kraków. The second candidate is a complex of original single-family houses called the Onyx Lane in the Kraków's district of Wola Justowska.
Com-Com Zone is a complete novelty in the architecture of Kraków. The facility exposes and makes use of all those elements that architects diligently try to conceal in other buildings. In many places the elements of the building's structure, its pipeworks and technical systems were deliberately exposed. By showing its entrails, the building, in an almost anatomical approach, has to teach young people the technology of architecture and to familiarize them with it. "Ever since I've wanted to carve a building in concrete. And I finally managed to do it," so says Mr. Wojciech Obtułowicz, the chief designer and head of Studio Architektoniczne office about his design. The facility is a public utility building for the youth. It houses a swimming pool, a sports shall, a gym and a social development centre for the young people.
The second candidate from Kraków for the award of the year is the Onyx Lane, a complex of single-family houses, designed by nsMoonStudio and architect Krzysztof Dymek, and constructed by home building company Buma. The buildings, located in the Kraków's district of Wola Justowska, make themselves conspicuous at the first glance. From the foundations up to their roofs, they are clad with Trespa ecological panels with a graphite tint. The only accents of colour are their entrance doors, painted in contrasting colours and different in particular houses. Each of the houses has also an adjacent, cuboidal glazed block, which extends the living room space. The project has introduced a completely new quality to that part of the city, breaking the typical character of the district's architecture.
The level of this year's nominations selected from all over Poland is extremely high. Both nominees from Kraków will have to compete with such projects, as e.g. the buildings of the Museum of the Opole Countryside and the National Museum in Przemyśl, both of which were nominated for the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award.
In turn, among projects nominated for a much less honourable Flop of 2008 award, we find the new Kraków Opera building. The facility, designed by architect Romuald Loegler, looks like an office building, or a supermarket, rather than a venue associated with high culture. Parts of the complex give the impression of elements, which have accidentally been put close one to another, and which in no way correspond with the neighbouring buildings and structures.
|
