LE CORBUSIER IN WARSAW AND UPPER SILESIA
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RYSZARD NAKONIECZNY
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The year 2012 will be remembered in the cultural world as the 125th anniversary of the birth of Le Corbusier (1887-1965), the great architect of the 20th century. In Poland, the organiser of the Year of Le Corbusier – Centrum Architektury (Centre of Architecture) in Warsaw – did not content itself with celebrating the birthday of the guru of global modernism, who was born on 6 October 1887, but also prepared a special educational and artistic programme entitled “Le Corbusyear”, and invited the participation of many esteemed institutions, artists and researchers from Poland and all over the world. According to the principal organiser of the celebrations, Grzegorz Piątek, the idea came from “(...) Le Corbusier’s ideological presence and absence in Poland (...) in order to create an opportunity to (...) seek traces of his influence in our urban architecture and place the legacy of Polish architects in the global intellectual context, but also to reflect upon the robustness of modernist urban planning ideals (...)”. The project entailed a number of events that took place in Warsaw, Katowice and Tarnów. I myself organised Le Corbusyear in Katowice, following the concept of tracing Le Corbusier’s ideas in Katowice. This text has been presented at a Warsaw meeting with the participation of Charles Jencks, Arthur Rüegg and Charles Knevitt.
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Keywords: Le Corbusier, Warsaw, Upper Silesia, 20th century architecture