Modernism in Europe - Modernism in Gdynia. Journal of Architecture and Heritage

Dealing with Modern Heritage in Times of Crisis

Uta Pottgiesser — 2025-11-30

Dealing with modern heritage in times of crisis is addressing the global and local challenges that designers and planners and organizations like DOCOMOMO International have to recognize and analyze on different levels. When moving its headquarters back to TU Delft in 2022 the International Secretariat formulated three main areas of action for the running programmatic period until 2025: sustainability, digitalization and education. Those themes are inherently connected to each other and are at the core of DOCOMOMO’s mission. But the organization is also challenged by divergent global shifts between the Global North and South. Documentation and conservation of modern heritage are understood not as luxurious intellectual goods but as a direct contribution to sustainability within the scope of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): saving resources, making cities better and providing education are main contributions.
The current 79 national working parties are dealing with different challenges and priorities related to the documentation and conservation of modern heritage in each region that need to be addressed differently. In a comparative approach the International Secretariat is analyzing the strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of the national working parties in order to draw conclusions for the future workprogram. It can be noticed that the open accessed to many materials and research during the last two decades has already made a difference and allows for a smoother knowledge transfer, in particular among the younger generation. We also notice the diversity in the composition of the national working parties, coming from academia, professional or activists background. This diversity in expression and the local character of each national working party guarantee for the development of individual and suitable approaches. A priority on DOCOMOMO International’s agenda will be the provision of further material, including the digitization of old documents and the creation of new documents, webinars or online-courses related to historical, technological or societal aspects of modern heritage and aiming at the improvement of our built and lived environment. Of particular interest is to provide accessed to affordable housing, food and water.

International Congresses of Modern Architecture CIAM. Architects, Events and Works through the Lens of Szymon Syrkus (1935-1939)

Małgorzata Rozbicka — 2025-11-30

In 2022, glass negatives taken in 1935-1939 by Szymon Syrkus – one of the leaders of the Polish interwar architectural avant-garde, were found at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology. As it was possible to determine, among the approximately eighty surviving negatives, more than twenty document the course and effects of the construction of three residential buildings, which were designed and completed in 1937–1939/1943 in Warsaw in whole or in part by Szymon and Helena Syrkus. A dozen or so photographs were taken in 1938 on the occasion of private, sightseeing and holiday trips of the Syrkus family and friends to Czersk and the vicinity of Kielce. However, the largest collection, comprising about forty negatives, consists largely of photographs published here for the first time, documenting the activities of the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) in the period of preparations for the Fifth CIAM Congress in Paris, which lasted from 1935 to 1937. The collection of negatives concerning the activities of CIAM is complemented by individual photographs documenting works of modernist architecture, which S. Syrkus visited in the years 1937–1939 on the occasion of his other official trips abroad. In 1937 he went to Budapest for the first meeting of the so-called Eastern Group of CIAM (CIAM-Ost), bringing together CIAM members from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and in the summer of 1939 to Stockholm for the 17th Congress of the International Federation for Housing and Urban Planning (IFHTP). The article, against the broader background of Szymon Syrkus’ activity as a member and activist of CIAM since 1928, discusses documented in his photographs the works of architecture, places and participants of formal and backstage meetings that took place in July 1935 in Amsterdam and in September 1936 in La Sarraz in Switzerland, as part of the work of the so-called CIRPAC, i.e. the International Committee for the Implementation of Problems of Contemporary Architecture (a body of CIAM that brought together members of its board and delegates of individual national groups) and in 1937 during the Fifth Congress of CIAM in Paris, as well as during Syrkus’s business trips to Hungary in 1937 and Sweden in 1939.

Hans Poelzig and the Problem of Functional House. From Landhaus to the Modern Movement House in Weissenhof Estate

Jerzy Ilkosz — 2025-11-30

The aim of the article is to indicate the role played by Hans Poelzig in the first half of the 20th century in creating the way towards modernity and especially towards the modern, functional house. The article is mainly the result of literary and archival studies and shows the architectural activity of Hans Poelzig. At the beginning of the 20th century, Poelzig twice proposed a single-family house of the Landhaus type in Wrocław as a model of the solution that he considered the best at that time. These were: a model house of the ‘Atristic Craft Exhibition’ from 1904 and a single-family house in the Zalesie estate from 1906, its form related to the Heimatschutz movement, which promoted the use of regional forms in architecture. Thanks to cooperation with the company Christoph & Unmack from Niesky, in 1926, Poelzig designed a wooden single-family house using construction techniques introduced by this company. It is an Existenzminimum house, promoted in the second half of the 1920s. A truly modern approach to the design of a single-family house was presented by the architect in 1927, in the model experimental Werkbund estate - Weissenhof in Stuttgart. The house had a very modest form, consistent with the conditions of the exhibition, the most important of which was a flat roof. In 1928, Poelzig designed two traditional houses - a single-family house and a semi-detached house in Berlin in the Am Fischtalgrund housing estate. A truly modern one was the architect’s own house, designed with his second wife, Marlene Moeschke, between 1928 and 1930. The final statement on modern housing was the house presented at the exhibition entitled Berliner Sommerschau 1932: Sonne, Luft und Haus für Alle …, where the architect presented a “growing house.” Hans Poelzig is considered one of the precursors of modernism, he prepared a new generation of architects to solve new tasks regarding modern apartments and their equipment, but he himself was not fully enchanted by the new style of Neues Bauen.

Barbarians in the ‘City of Poets’. The Modern Movement in the Public Architecture of Vilnius in the Interwar Period

Małgorzata Dolistowska — 2025-11-30

The purpose of this paper is to present the process of penetration of modernist avant-garde ideas into the public space of interwar Vilnius and the role played by the architects of the younger generation – the graduates of the Faculty of Architecture of Warsaw University of Technology. Vilnius gained independence as part of the Second Polish Republic. It was perceived as a mysterious ‘city of poets’, the cradle of Polish Romanticism and a picturesque ‘city under the clouds’ whose enchanting landscape included numerous historical buildings. This somewhat mythical image of Vilnius, captured in Jan Bułhak’s mood-setting photographs, has influenced a rather conservative attitude towards modern architecture. The community of architects, formed around the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Stefan Batory University and supported by local art historians, represented a current of conservative traditionalism promoting the idea of following historical patterns. The first modernist projects aroused vehement objections and people spoke of a so-called ‘factory form’ spoiling beautiful Vilnius. Despite the critical approach of the local community, the ideas of the modernist movement found resonance mainly in Vilnius’ public architecture in the 1930s. The most important projects included the halls of residence of the Stefan Batory University, the building of the Bank of National Economy, the headquarters of the Social Insurance Institution, the primary school in Lipówka, the complex of buildings of the municipal cooling plant, as well as the new pavilions at the Northern Trade Fair. At the same time, the preserved designs of buildings planned for construction in the coming years indicate that the forms of functional modernism became firmly rooted in the architecture of Vilnius in the 1930s. They show ambitious and interesting urban concepts, including the buildings of the bus station, the Social House, the school complex at Tartaki Street in Vilnius, and the public school at Subocz Street. Those projects were mostly created by the graduates of the Faculty of Architecture of Warsaw University of Technology (e.g. A. Forkiewicz, I. Heilman, K. Biszewski), many of whom decided to pursue their careers in Vilnius. An important role in promoting the idea of modernism in Vilnius was played by Romuald Gutt who headed the newly established Urban Planning Studio. He created a team of co-workers, with S. Bukowski, J. Kobzakowski and L. Dąbrowski to name a few, who quickly became involved in the city’s social life. The paper presents selected works and also non-implemented conceptual projects that show the process of penetration of the ideas of the modernist movement into the public architecture of Vilnius in the 1930s.

A post-war chapter in the history of architecture and development of the port of Gdynia

Anna Orchowska — 2025-11-30

The port of Gdynia, considered one of the largest civil construction projects of the 20th century in Europe, was built at an express pace for only a dozen or so years from the mid-1920s to the end of the 1930s. Unusual solutions from the construction period in the port engineering category, as well as outstanding architectural works The industrial area quickly became architectural symbols of economic growth and the general rebirth of Poland after 1918. In April 1945, the Poles took over the property of the port after the war found a picture of the ruins and destruction of the port, mainly the result of deliberate plantings carried out on the orders of Adolf Hitler in the last 10 days before the capitulation of the Germans. The devastation of individual elements of the port infrastructure and buildings was assessed at the level from 25% to 100%. Post-war reconstruction of the port from damage, in the years 1945-1947 not only the losses were inventoried, but also significant decisions were made as to whether the building was to be rebuilt or a new investment was planned in its place. Studies on this subject show that the investment reconstruction of the port did not continue the boldly outlined pre-war development plans, but from the point of view of its architecture, a new page in its history definitely opened up for this team.