Award for the best modernization of a modernist building

Photograph by GRZEGORZ CELEJEWSKI / AG
Jerzy Woźniak (on the left) and Jan Kowal;
the awarded building in the background

At present, this masterpiece may again be admired in its original shape. It is worth stopping for a while to raise one's eyes on the corner of Zwycięstwa Street and Przyjaźni Avenue because, because besides Rudolf Petersdorff's department store in Wrocław, this building is the only preserved work by Mendelsohn in Poland and a real architectural rarity.

The building has always been unique. When it was created, in the years 1921-1922, it was the most distinctive building on Zwycięstwa Street, which was full of richly ornamented bourgeois tenement houses with their corners crowned with turrets. Designed by Erich Mendelsohn, an architect of worldwide renown, this simple building with smooth walls shocked the inhabitants of Gliwice. Then, after years, it fell into neglect and at the end of 20th century it was a complete ruin. It was entered into the list of vintage buildings but, still, it did not save the building from disaster. Finally, the city decided to sell the building. The first tender did not attract any attention. According to developers, monuments always mean trouble and renovations are a bottomless pit. The second tender attracted brave investors.

- I had seen this building for years, it marred the city centre. I consider myself a man from Gliwice, which is why I care about the beauty of my little homeland - says Jan Kowal, President of Przedsiębiorstwo Wielobranżowe "Hurt-Metallco". The company bought the building at the end of 2001 for PLN 1.6 million. For the last decades the facility housed shops and service centres which destroyed the original decor of the department store of a rich Jewish textile merchant Erwin Weichmann.

The regional conservation officer ordered to restore the original function of the building. - Finding a lessee who would appropriately use the whole building turned out to be the most difficult problem. Traders wanted only the first two storeys. In the end, we established cooperation with the bank PKO BP which occupied the whole building - says Jerzy Woźniak, Vice-President of Hurt-Metallco.

The modernization was thus adapted to a specific user. The company Pracownia Projektowa "Architekt" from Katowice was commissioned to conduct architectural works and the project was drawn up by Halina Piotrowska-Hirszberg. First, all ceilings were exchanged and a new roof was built. It was the most difficult stage of works - only the outside walls were left and it was into this empty well that a crane arm lowered roof reinforcement. All windows were replaced with new wooden ones, yet they were modelled on the original windows. It was a great challenge because Mendelsohn designed different windows for each storey of this small building: large windows on the ground floor, horizontal, belt-shaped windows on the first floor, original invention on the third storey - windows with upper wing protruding in relation to the lower one, from the inside there is a convenient shelf-window sill between them, small windows on the upper storey. Different windows had different functions. Originally, the two lower storeys constituted the department store, whereas on the two upper storeys there were flats for the employess of Wiechmann's Textile House.

Conservation works focused on restoring the magnificence of the elevation, the plaster had to be hacked off and replaced with new one. Colours were a problem as no credible information concerning colours was preserved, so authors chose neutral shades of grey. As for the inside, only a stairwell with simple balustrades and noses of stair treads, as well as a bathroom on the second floor were preserved and reconstructed. The marble top of the washbasin and the glass skylight providing sunlight in the bathroom were renovated. The remaining interiors were adapted according to the needs of the new user, but the layout of the ground floor, a large open space, was not changed. The works were performed in record short time - between March and November 2002 - and they cost about PLN 1.5 million. Mendelsohn's work is on the border of expressionism and modernism. Dynamic form, asymmetric body, strong emphasis put on line (but not like in Art Nouveau by means of flat ornament but by using spatial elements, such as cornices or window frames) are the elements highlighting the expression of the building. Functionalism and the "honesty" of structure in the form of showing reinforced concrete structural posts on the elevation of the ground and first floor are the heralds of modernism.

- This is the second edition of awarding the Moderna 2005 prize. We decided to honour the owners of this facility because they renovated this masterpiece and saved it from destruction with due respect - says Jarosław Lewicki, a writer and a columnist and the originator of the prize. Moderna is becoming a new tradition. Last year it was awarded for the first time to the owners of the villa at ul. Bratków 4 for modernizing the building by Tadeusz Michejda. - Through this prize we want to promote modernism, the pearl of Silesian architecture, and to make people aware that this architecture must be appropriately renovated - adds Lewicki. The prize itself is symbolic, now it is only a diploma but soon there will be the Tadeusz Michejda Medal, in honour of the famous Silesian architect of the interwar period.

(source: Tomasz Malkowski, Gazeta Wyborcza, 26 October 2006)