Engancha a tu público

9 _{Duzo zieleni, latwe przemieszczanie…}

Fig. 4.16 Initial proposal for the Masterplan from a propaganda book (Garliński 1953 81)

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Fig. 4.17 The administrative map of the city with annotated districts from 1951 (Slawiński and Sibila (ed.) 2004)

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Fig. 4.19 The Kombinat Gates; View of Kombinat from Central Square and Kombinat gates, own archive and aerial view (Slawiński and Sibila 2008 197)

The gates pull the attention of the city towards the East, towards Kombinat. The two buildings framing the entrance to the workplace act as the nobleman from Matejko’s painting

dismissing Rejtan’s protest and ordering him to leave so that a dignified civic debate can take place.

The two polarities (Central Square and gates to Kombinat) are the most impressive and compelling elements of the design. Lothar Bolz, a distinguished Socialist-Realism theoretician said:

The centre constitutes the core shaping the town. The centre is where the political life of this population focusses... in the Central Square demonstrations and parades, as well as celebrations and folk festivals, take place... the extent of its greatness is not a passenger rushing through the town in a modern car, but – A MAN OR A POLITICAL DEMONSTRATOR and the speed of his parch. (quoted in Miezian 2004 83)

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Fig. 4.20 A demonstration in praise of a Soviet Celebration in Nowa Huta; Communist period (Jurewicz (ed.) 2008 191)

It comes as no surprise that in Nowa Huta the politicisation of the citizen is linked with labour. What was to be produced in Nowa Huta was only in part steel and in part a conceptual personae of the homo-sovieticus.

The gates to the Kombinat were framed by two administrative buildings playfully called ‘the Doje’s palaces’ by the local inhabitants, this was because of their regal ornamentation and appearance. Their eclectic name serves to ridicule the inadequate amount of effort, placed to glorify an administrative building of a steelworks factory. Binek notes that the palaces were

erected in record time by Soviet builders (1997). This links the entrance to the Kombinat with Central Square which was designed in a similar architectural ethos. It lies at the crossing of an already existing route – now called ‘Jana Pawla’ street and one perpendicular to what is now called ‘Kocmorzynowska’ street (Slawiński and Sibila (ed.) 2008), as seen in Fig. 4.21. The public nature of the urban plan was a reversal of the traditions of the Polish vernacular explored in Chapter three. This type of architecture was public with a strong civic or political presence as opposed to private and human scaled.

Even the grandest spaces in the city became eventually overshadowed by the gates to the Kombinat. This was a subtle way of signifying the un-spoken hierarchies that Žižek referred to when discussing the Soviet way of communicating while discussing ‘Lenin is in Warsaw’. The imagery of work and the secondary nature of Central Square increased the importance of the Kombinat at the same time as moulding it from the centre of the city into, merely a communication link between the inhabitants and the workplace. The political

manifestations, which took place were always associating the view of the Kombinat. In Fig. 4.20 the view looking out to the Steelworks is one street on the left from the performance stage. If one were to navigate around the space of the square, it may be easier to do so with respect to the view of Kombinat. It could be understood that place-making within this space was conducted whilst being reminded of work.

It can be assumed that the initial step of the design was to determine the location of Central Square (a sketch of the map of the main streets is represented in Fig. 4.21). Jana Pawła street and Kocmorzynowska street along with the boundary of the river denote a vague area but the geometries seem to be confined in a hermetic self-definition without reaching out into the landscape. No other features would have been influential as most of the terrain was bulldozed before the construction started. Considering the ethos of the design to be neo- classical, it can be argued that the determinant was geometrical.

The reason why Kocmorzynowska was not chosen as part of the fan is unclear, the proximity of Krakow might have been the factor which allowed for that street to become merely a barrier for the masterplan. Another reason might have been its lack of recognition of Kombinat. The merit of the design has little architectural value as there is no specificity of Central Square or any other street recognisable at the human scale. The streets are not organised according to specific features on site, they were rather organised to

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A sketch of the image is available below

Fig. 4.21 My sketch over a rendering of the masterplan from 1955 which includes the gates of the Kombinat, considering the ‘Doje’s Palace’ as part of the urban grid in spite of their

The relationships of spaces within the city and Kombinat were privileged negating Nowa Huta’s accommodation of the natural context of local conditions. These present a neo- classical arrogance expressed through a lack of response to the microclimate in favour of geometrical rigour.

The below images (Fig. 4.22-4.30) are an extract from an original propaganda-book

published in 1953 by the Communist government (Garliński 1953). These are the first images that are presented in the Nowa Huta section of the book. This implies the importance of the two major features in the composition of the design; Central Square and the Gates to the Kombinat.

Fig. 4.23 Plan created by Miastoprojekt representing Central Square (Garliński 1953 81); own sketch showing analysis of the space – different zones of transition

Fig. 4.24 Plans section and elevation created by Miastoprojekt representing ‘The Doje’s Palaces’ (Garliński 1953 86)

Fig. 4.25 Drawings of ornamentation created by Miastoprojekt representing the ‘Doje’s Palace’ (Garliński 1953, 87)

Fig. 4.26 Drawings of elevation of the ‘Doje’s Palace’ created by Miastoprojekt representing the ‘Doje’s Palace’ (Garliński 1953 87)

Fig. 4.27 An elevation of the House of Culture defining the Southern-most boundaries of Central Square (Garliński 1953 81)

Fig. 4.28 A section leading along the Rose Alley, leading from the house of culture, via Central square to the administration square and through city hall (Garliński 1953 81)