Although Social Realism championed the brick and the bricklayer as a symbol of solidarity and popular labour, optimization and Modernist influences led to a decline in brick construction in Warsaw during the 1970's and 80's. Indeed, at that time, architecture in general suffered due to standardization and centralization. In Poland in 1980, as many as 160 'factories of houses' produced large concrete panels which were used to build over 80% of apartments.
The decade of the 1980's in Poland was a time of low standards and a permanent crisis in all spheres of life [...] The only way to bypass the strict building standards imposed on prefabricated housing construction and an opportunity to show designing skill was when a new church was to be designed and built.
- Majewski, Jerzy Stanislaw, Landmarks of People's Poland in Warsaw, Warsaw: Agora, 2010, p. 254
In many cases, the designers of churches chose to return to brick, and the church of Our Lady of Czestochowa on Łazienkowska street is one example. This church was completed first in 1918, but was mostly destroyed in WW2, and its reconstruction was undermined again by the removal of a facade during the construction of the Łazienkowski highway in 1971. The rebuilding was entrusted to the architects Thomas Turczynowicz, Anna Bielecka, and Peter Walkowiak, who created a neo-medieval post-modernist fusion. This sounds disastrous, but it is actually an engaging and intricate balance of old and new, with a beautiful blend of shades of yellow brick.
The decade of the 1980's in Poland was a time of low standards and a permanent crisis in all spheres of life [...] The only way to bypass the strict building standards imposed on prefabricated housing construction and an opportunity to show designing skill was when a new church was to be designed and built.
- Majewski, Jerzy Stanislaw, Landmarks of People's Poland in Warsaw, Warsaw: Agora, 2010, p. 254
In many cases, the designers of churches chose to return to brick, and the church of Our Lady of Czestochowa on Łazienkowska street is one example. This church was completed first in 1918, but was mostly destroyed in WW2, and its reconstruction was undermined again by the removal of a facade during the construction of the Łazienkowski highway in 1971. The rebuilding was entrusted to the architects Thomas Turczynowicz, Anna Bielecka, and Peter Walkowiak, who created a neo-medieval post-modernist fusion. This sounds disastrous, but it is actually an engaging and intricate balance of old and new, with a beautiful blend of shades of yellow brick.
Brick was chosen as an affirmation of the human and the individual, in reaction to the machine-produced apartment blocks, as well as its evocation of the archaic and the timeless.
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