Teka Komisji Urbanistyki i Architektury Oddziału Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Krakowie

Józefa Dietla street in Kraków has been constructed in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was a pioneering urban design solution, meant to act as a sort of ventilation duct for the city, so that its climate could be improved. An important element of this system of ventilating the city is the area currently occupied by a football pitch of the "Nadwiślan" sports club, which allows the breeze of the Vistula river into the city. This idea is evidence of the modern and forward thinking approach to urban planning in Kraków during those times. The role of Józefa Dietla street as a ventilation duct has currently been all but forgotten and is underappreciated despite the fact that the amount of air pollution in Kraków has greatly increased in comparison to the times when the street was being constructed. A measure of this disdain for the role that Józefa Dietla street and the area of the "Nadwiślan" play in keeping the sanitary conditions within the city at acceptable levels is the current layout of the area, which has significantly reduced the ventilating capacity of the street. The planned construction of a residential apartment building in place of the current football pitch will definitely hamper the capacity in which the street can be used for ventilation purposes. In this manner, the evidence of pro-ecological thinking of the urban planners of the XIX century is being wasted by their XXI century counterparts.

The Protection House of the Charity Association (a nursing home) together with former buildings of the Sisters Koletek Convent in Cracow is going through a major revitalization. It is located at the intersection of three streets: Koletek, Dietla and Sukiennicza. There is an unique residential apartment, ‘The Royal Apartment’ and has a two - storey chapel with stained glasses and a wall polychrome. They were designed by Jan Bukowski. The breathe of a new life was taken into this abandon and sacrum interior

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The article presents the architectural heritage created as a part of the Central Industrial District in the context of the need for its preservation and protection. Presented are selected topics and problems associated with the current technical condition of both industrial and residential buildings. The analysis contain also the impact of modern conservation doctrines and their ability to preserve works of COP’s architecture with the specific conditions of ownership, poor awareness of users and owners, and a large shortage of historical planning sources.

The essay presents an original application of using the coolhunting method to discover new trends in architecture and design. The ability to identify trends is tied in with the possibility of attaining an advantage over the competition with the use of new designs that can become hits on the market, gaining the favor of customers. The term coolhunting can be broadly defined as the pursuit of inspiration and the forecasting of the directions of development. Initially, the term was applied to fashion, but quickly spread to other spheres of activity, like music, the arts, lifestyle and finally, to architecture and design. The essay is a slightly altered and improved rendition of the author's article published in Zastosowania ergonomii. Wybrane kierunki badań ergonomicznych w roku 2014 . (ed. Charytonowicz J.), Publ. Polskie Towarzystwo Ergonomiczne PTErg, o/Wrocław, 2014, p. 289-304. The method outlined therein is the result of research conducted under the author's supervision at the Institute of Architecture and Spatial Planning of the Poznań University of Technology between the years 2012 and 2014.

The article presents the first pioneering attempt to shape the architectural form in the mountains on the basis of traditional architecture and its further evolution to neoregional modern form. Important here is capitalizing on the tradition and the search for new meeting methods of mountain architecture. This evolution should take place at different levels of development - from research on the forms of the original, by drawing on traditional solutions and prospecting for new solutions. In this methodology became famous Cracow design school in the landscape under the direction of Prof. Włodzimierz Gruszczyński and generations of his students, who in later years, despite the difficulties emphasized the seriousness of the debate on items subject.

The 26th of June 2010 saw the passing of the 100th anniver sary of the birth of Maciej Nowicki, an outstanding Polish architect and humanist. Nowicki was born in the classic example of a family "cast out of the saddle" - members of the intelligentsia and the gentry left landless - in Chita, Siberia, in the Zabaykalsky Krai. On the 31st of August of that same year, sixty years have passed since the tragic, untimely death of Nowicki in an airplane crash - which also happened far away from his homeland, above the Nile river delta, on his way from India to America. These two anniversaries have raised interest in the phenomenon that is Nowicki's oeuvre; a number of publications have been published and November 2010 saw the organizing of an academic conference in Warsaw (Warsaw branch of the SARP, Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology, RAM). However, due to the dispersal of his legacy, a decade of forced silence regarding his work after his departure from the country in 1945 and the previously difficult communication with the US and India, which were the sites of the last of his activity - Maciej (also known to some as Matthew) Nowicki, a phenomenally talented "architect for architects", as he was once aptly called by Frei Otto himself due to the refinement and ingenuity of his designs - still remains largely a mystery. The authoress of this essay has devoted her doctoral dissertation and several publications, published in both Polish and English, to Nowicki (doctorate, Kraków University of Technology, 2000). Here - she illustrates the course of the development of Nowicki's body of work - in the fields of both theory and design. Another topic, which is briefly discussed, is the concept of the reconstruction of the city center of Warsaw, developed in 1945, as well as the design of the first suspended roof (in the shape of a parabolic hyperboloid) for the Arena in Raleigh, South Carolina (1949). Finally, a wider discussion regarding the "architect's dream" is presented: that of the master plan and the architectural and urban concept of Chandigarh, the new capital of Punjab (India, 1950), developed by Nowicki (with the cooperation of Albert Mayer). After the tragic death of the Polish architect, the commission was taken over by a design team headed by Le Corbusier, who is, alas! considered by the general population as the only author of Chandigarh...

Ustawy o planowaniu przestrzennym z lat 1994 i 2003 zniosły obowiązek sporządzania planów miejscowych, więc 3/4 terytorium Polski zabudowywane jest bez planu. Zastępują go ułomne i korupcjogenne „Decyzje o warunkach zabudowy”. W roku 2014 zlikwidowane zostały uprawnienia urbanistyczne i samorząd zawodowy Izba Urbanistów. Środowiska profesjonalistów pozbawione zostały podstawowych narzędzi. Od roku 2015 indywidualne budownictwo mieszkaniowe i rekreacyjne może powstawać bez pozwolenia na budowę. Ta liberalizacja objawia się intensyfikacją zabudowy wokół „magnesów” krajobrazowych. Jakość krajobrazu stała się ofiarą politycznego populizmu. Co takiego wydarzyło się w transformacji rozpoczętej w roku 1989, że społeczeństwo nie podąża za głosem profesjonalistów i elit intelektualnych, a władza bezkrytycznie schlebia upodobaniom wyborców? Czy ceną demokracji i gospodarki wolnorynkowej musi być psucie jakości estetycznej wspólnego dobra? Bez odpowiedzi na to nie potrafimy podjąć skutecznej ochrony i poprawy krajobrazu, jako narodowego dziedzictwa.

The authoress wishes to discuss the idea of engaging senior citizens into the maintenance and care of historical park and garden complexes. The article illustrates the possible mutual benefits of the cooperation between the caretakers of these complexes and organized groups of senior citizens, who whose participation would be based on a form of voluntary help, through a foundation, or based on monetary compensation. Such a cooperation could lead to an improvement of the condition of historical gardens, in addition to providing beneficial effects to the physical and mental he alth of older people.

Shaping a space shouldn’t be an endless expansion of the built environemnt. New districts and new cities should be more than collections of houses, quickly produced and placed without any overarching concept. They should present streets, squares, axes, directions, as features of the area's composition. An ordered space is a sign of true modernity.

Commercial functions are very important to the process of urban revitalization. Various commercial forms of trade, such as markets, marketplaces, cloth halls have enriched the public spaces of cities over the centuries. Over the last 25 years of the free market in Poland, we have observed deformations within the urban structure caused by new types of commercial functions. The attractive functions of urban malls and shopping centers, which are usually placed inside, cause the degradation he streets located outside. Shopping centers, spread within the city and isolated by parking areas from pedestrian networks, contribute to the growth of inner peripheries. The fluctuations of the global economy should lead us however, to the delimitation of commercial functions, especially the largest ones. The proper relations between these commercial areas and the beautiful landscape of the city can be used as an element of building the city's image. Ventures within the historical city centers require the development of new instruments which would allow us to protect existing values.

The subject of this paper is the study of the specificity of the transformation of the urban public spaces of the Western world and the problem of the multi form nature of this phenomenon. The Author uses such concepts as that of the "hybrid" and of "hybridization" borrowed from the field of natural sciences and explains the reasons for their introduction within this specific scope of research in a broad manner.

The concept of civil society does not cease to attract the attention of the media and that of politicians. It is being discussed over and over and viewed from every angle: political, national, social. We can ask ourselves the important question the, what is its influence on architecture and the aesthetics of our immediate surroundings? How can converting the homo sapiens into a citizens change our landscape? If it can, what is so special about architectural and urban design in a civil society which makes it different from those that we have now? Can we describe the aesthetics of a civil society? And finally, what are the relations between being a citizen and architecture, aesthetics and the landscape?

The essay is meant to be a reflection, a conclusion of sorts regarding the topic proposed by the organizers of the "Towards beauty." It is meant to be about the problems of introducing aesthetics to public spaces. From the point of view of many disciplines. This academic event took place in the April of 2014 at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk. The Author assumed the perspective of an architect when contemplating the problems being discussed. This approach emphasizes the role that is played by the concept of the urban landscape. The work is composed of an introduction, which illustrates the reasons for adopting this perspective. This part is followed by a classification of the stances and academic research that has been presented in the delivered lectures and essays. This generalization has the form of a typology composed of five points, which describe the general issues that were discussed. The overarching thesis of this is essay is the statement that the choice of problems that have been discussed at the conference are the result of a contemporary model of thinking about the management of space, which results from a much too liberal approach that has been adopted after the socioeconomic changes that occurred in 1989. This begs the question whether the issues that are important in the context of the aesthetics of cities are effects the causes of which could lie in society's approach to its reality. Due to the aim of this essay being a commentary on the academic event that was the Gdańsk conference and a sort of reflection on the issues that were being discussed there, the Author decided not to provide it with a conclusion at the end. The Author's comments contained in this work are only a voice in the discussion and a complementation of the opinions that have been presented during the conference. The article is supposed to elicit a familiarity with the presented issues so that the reader can form their opinions, and, what is perhaps even more important, provide the foundation for future academic discussion on the topic of the beauty of the cityscape.

The trip towards a magic Cathar Country, our UIA Program “Places of Worship”. On the way Amsterdam. As the City, as Stock by Hendrik Berlage, as Nemo by Renzo Piano are impressive as always. Then Touluse, surptising are not only Saint Sernin basilica and Couvent des Jacobins, but also the Modern Metro. Then scientific session - didcussion. At last, awaited castles. Rocky mountains topped with great ruined edifices. Climbing with Wojtek in a terrible southern sunshine. Magnificent landscapes, and a dramatic history behind. Then Carcassonne, and culminating emotions, sanctuary Lourdes.