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Izabela Cichońska / Karolina Popera / Kuba Snopek Day-VII Architecture A Catalogue of Polish Churches post 1945 Photos by Igor Snopek and Maciej Lulko 210 × 230 mm, 284 pages 200 illustrations, soft cover ISBN 978-3-86922-741-2 (English) EUR 28,00 July 2019. DOM publishers, Berlin |
New from DOM publishers:
Izabela Cichońska / Karolina Popera / Kuba Snopek
Day-VII Architecture
A Catalogue of Polish Churches post 1945
Over 3,000 churches were built in Poland between 1945 and 1989 – more than in any other European country – despite the rejection that the communist state showed towards religion. The majority of these often quite unconventional buildings were constructed together with architects and craftsmen by the parish communities themselves. The authors have named this unique heritage "Day-VII Architecture ", as most of the building was done on the weekends. Neither legal nor prohibited, many of these places of worship became crucial sites for Poland's democratisation process.
In Day-VII Architecture. A Catalogue of Polish Churches post 1945, which is now available from DOM publishers, Kuba Snopek, Izabela Cichońska and Karolina Popera have sought to comprehensively document these Polish churches and the circumstances of their construction. The title, for the first time published in English, is based on a research project that ran from 2013 to 2016 and which attracted considerable attention on the international architecture scene. Part history, part analysis, and part reportage, the project examines the way in which architects and craftsmen worked with parish communities to build these places of worship that were often constructed from scavenged material. These unconventional, truly communal buildings were in contradiction to what the technocratic socialist urban planners had envisaged and were a form of antigovernment protest of tradition-bound Catholicism against communism.
The history of this building typology is brought back to life through the publication's large-format aerial photography and interviews with their designers which shed new light on the architectural dimension of Poland's transformation from a socialist to capitalist state. The immediate aim of the project is to bring to awareness this special period in history and to make the voices of those who were involved in the construction of these churches heard. In a broader sense the publication also documents strategies of protest movements, and how communal spaces can be created even under the most difficult conditions.
The publication has been supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of POLSKA 100, the international cultural programme accompanying the centenary of Poland regaining independence (www.culture.pl).
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© Igor Snopek |
© Igor Snopek |
© Igor Snopek |
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