designers' task force
"This project is a direct effect of a series of press provocations that the architecture studio Centrala staged between 2002 and 2008 in an effort to provoke a public discussion on the necessity of preserving Poland’s post-war modernist heritage from devastation and popular oblivion. Animated by this public discussion the owner of the cultural bar Klubokawiarnia Stacja Powiśle Centrala, who had been convinced by one of Warsaw’s activists, asked Centrala to develop the revitalisa tion design of the pavilion of Powiśle Station, originally designed by Arseniusz Romanowicz and Piotr Szymaniak. The idea was to convert the pavilion, originally a ticket-selling booth of roughly 70 square metres, into a cultural bar and meeting point for the neighbourhood. The main issue was to maintain the aesthetic consistency of the origi nal design while enhancing and remodelling the building‘s technical and functional aspects. The beautiful steel façade with one-layer glaz ing, which was too degraded to be maintained, had to be entirely replaced by an aluminium facade. To start a continuous dialogue with the young Polish art scene, the walls of the kitchen cube have been finished with graffiti. It is replaced every couple of weeks with a new coating of graffiti as an on-going project. Since the opening, eight artists have already contributed. Since the opening, a number of events related to the modernist heritage, such as lectures, book presentations and exhibitions have taken place in Stacja Powisle. The project was partly supported by the leading Polish architecture review„Architektura“.
(Photographs: Malgorzata Kuciewicz, Bartek Kraciuk, Bobrowiec, Blazej Pindor)"
11/2010
