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Warsaw Under Construction Festival 9. A Step Forward

YEAR
2017

CLIENT
Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie, Muzeum Warszawy

LOCATION
Plac Defilad, Warsaw, PL

PROGRAM
exhibition design, public space

AREA
15 000 sqm

STATUS
built 2017

TEAM
Budcud: Mateusz Adamczyk, Agata Woźniczka (authors), Sławomir Pucek (structural engineer), Lea Moureau, Joanna Ryś

PHOTOS
Budcud, Marcin Czechowicz, Wojtek Radwański

Warsaw Under Construction Festival 9. A Step Forward

For the 9th edition of Warsaw Under Construction festival BUDCUD realized a large scale installation on the Parade Square in Warsaw. It consisted of a color intervention ‘Squares within Square’, 8 baugespann rods and a speculative archaeology pavilion ‘The Square Post’. Installation, by the means of fragmentary prototypes, analogies and spatial sketches, showcased the character and size of the future Central Square.

A color intervention in Parade Square outlined the future square to raise awareness of its planned scale. The existing surface of the site was covered with real-scale graphic representations of famous public squares: Old Town Market Square in Warsaw, Place des Vosges in Paris, Piazza del Campo in Sienna and Times Square in New York. The squares helped identifying contemporary problems of urban public spaces and related development projects. The graphic was bordered with baugespanns: Swiss planning devices that mark height and size of planned buildings. Designed by DWA ZETA, dedicated flags with icons of public values hanged on their tops, tracing the volume of the future square.

The north-eastern corner of the square was emphasized not only with baugespann rod, but also with a folly, serving as a festival meeting place and discussion agora. The Square Post is an open pavilion of speculative archaeology of the past, present and future. It is located near Marszalkowska St., in the place where the designed edifices of the TR Warszawa theater and the Museum of Modern Art will intersect. The Square Post is a venue of discussions about the qualities that good public space in the center of Warsaw should demonstrate. It serves the needs of meetings, functions as the starting point of guided tours of the square and establishes the zone of educational activities.

The Post has a simple, engineering-like character. The pavilion roof covers formally austere geometrical pieces of furniture. One of them models the real-size shape of the museum arcade, the other imitates the planned auditorium of the theater and a structure of its facade, whereas the prominent column and a lamp bear refer to the scale and style of the Palace of Culture, which towers above the site. Thus, the Post functions as a device that reflects the size and array of elements of small architecture that the square may feature in the future.

At the same time, it addresses in a metaphorical way the main challenges in shaping public space of the future square by highlighting its more ephemeral components such as light, shade and greenery.