RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE OF WARSAW IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONSTRUCTION AND HOUSING COOPERATIVES, THE MILITARY HOUSING FUND AND THE WARSAW HOUSING COOPERATIVE, ESTABLISHED IN THE VICINITY OF POLE MOKOTOWSKIE
ANNA AGATA WAGNER
ABSTRACT
The residential housing built in the interwar period in the area of Pole Mokotowskie is representative of the overall residential construction of that period in Poland. Its shape was influenced by social, political, economic and technological issues, as well as the time of their creation in line with the current stylistic trends. Among the residential properties of Housing Cooperatives (Spółdzielnia Budowlano-Mieszkaniowa) where the apartments were owned by the members of the cooperative, built mainly in the 1920s for the upper class of civil servants or representatives of liberal professions with well-established patterns of living with servants, layouts of peripheral-block buildings with large residential premises prevail. Over the years, there has been a tendency to rationalize and introduce functional zoning, new technological and material solutions, and change the formal architectural language moving from traditional to modern forms. The Military Housing Fund (Fundusz Kwaterunku Wojskowego) approached the task of mass housing construction for officers very rationally - it was supposed to be cheap, durable, easy to maintain and hygienic. Social differences depending on the rank were clearly noticeable in the size, standard of equipment and finishing of residential properties. Mostly, it was high-class architecture, characterized primarily by rational design, and in external forms, a durable veneer material on the facades, gray cement bricks, which are not only resistant to external conditions, but also allow for interesting artistic effects. The estate of the Warsaw Housin Cooperative Rakowiec (Warszawska Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa Rakowiec) (originally intended for worker housing) is an example of the implementation of modernist assumptions of mass housing, promoted by the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), whose active members were the authors of the project - Helena and Szymon Syrkus. The resulting colony of houses for workers can be described as a function of social, technical and spatial-artistic factors. At the same time, social issues were on a par with the essential, especially for Szymon Syrkus, technical and technological factors were supposed to fulfill the slogan: to build better, cheaper, faster.
Keywords: Housing construction in the interwar period, Housing Cooperatives, Military Housing Fund, Warsaw Housing Cooperative Rakowiec, Pole Mokotowskie