We are proud to announce a new publication by the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław! Cities, Migrations, Modernisms. The Architecture of Andrzej Frydecki by Joanna Majczyk is the first monograph dedicated to one of the most important figures in the history of post-war Wrocław architecture, Professor Andrzej Frydecki. The book, in print and e-book form, will be published in December 2023 and is co-published by the Wrocław University of Technology and the Association of Polish Architects, Wrocław branch.
Cities, migrations, modernisms are slogans that succinctly encapsulate the life of Andrzej Frydecki (1903-1989), an architect and representative of a generation affected by the trauma and consequences of World War II. The title cities are places where Frydecki had to live and work, in some of them he found himself by choice, in others he settled by chance, migrating from east to west as a result of the war and the subsequent redrawing of Polish borders. Migration was a generational experience, as thousands of people were forced to leave their homes and set off, usually into the unknown. Modernism, on the other hand, was a kind of reference point for the architect’s entire oeuvre, linking all stages of his life.
About the architect:
Frydecki was born in Sosnowiec, a year after the city was founded. He studied in Lviv at the Faculty of Architecture of the local Technical University and planned to associate his future with this city. He had his first professional successes in Lviv, having completed several residential and public buildings, and was also employed at the university. After being forced to leave the Galician capital in 1943, Frydecki settled near Rzeszów and took up a job in the Reconstruction Department of the Voivodship Office (1943-1944). In 1945, he moved to Katowice, where he became deputy director of the Regional Spatial Planning Directorate. At that time he was mainly involved in urban planning projects, and developed, among other things, the design of the surroundings of the Monument of the Insurgents’ Deed on St. Anne’s Mountain by Xawery Dunikowski. In 1948 Frydecki “accepted a call to work at the Wrocław University of Technology”. Wrocław became the last stop in his life, he spent the next forty years in the city until his death in 1989.
The architect actively engaged in the reconstruction of Wrocław, initially as a designer and since the 1950s as a consultant. Frydecki, accustomed to the pre-war model of author’s studios, was not able to find his way in the structures of the state design offices, therefore since the 1960s he focused on teaching architecture, developing theoretical concepts of theatres and participation in architectural competitions. The architect was faithful to his stylistic choices and beliefs, which he derived from the postulates of the inter-war modernists. He transferred to Wrocław the ideas of the “Lviv school of design”, which he tried to implement at the Faculty of Architecture of the Wrocław University of Technology. He was also the designer of the first new building constructed in post-war Wrocław, which was the seat of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Frydecki was perceived by his contemporaries as one of the most important figures in the world of Wrocław architecture, a charismatic teacher and architect-humanist.
About the author:
Joanna Majczyk - lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, Wrocław University of Technology, in the Department of Public Utility Architecture and Design Fundamentals. She conducts research on post-war European architecture and urban planning, with particular emphasis on design concepts developed during the period of socialist realism. She devoted her doctoral thesis to the work of architect Andrzej Frydecki, a modernist and one of the founders of the Faculty of Architecture at Wrocław University of Technology. Using his fate as an example, she presented the position of a whole generation of artists who were successful in pre-war Poland, but after the war faced numerous problems when their experience was seen as a burden rather than a distinctive feature and attribute.
The book is a supplemented and expanded version of the doctoral dissertation written by the author at the Faculty of Architecture, Wrocław University of Technology, under the supervision of PhD Agnieszka Tomaszewicz
Reviewers: Janusz L. Dobesz, Jadwiga Urbanik
Graphic design and typesetting: Peter Łyczkowski (www.peterlyczkowski.com)
Printing and binding: JAKS
© Copyright by Muzeum Architektury we Wrocławiu, 2023
ISBN 978-83-65730-16-9
Publisher: Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw
Co-publishers: Wrocław University of Technology, Association of Polish Architects Wrocław Branch
Publication subsidised by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for the Promotion of Culture – państwowego funduszu celowego.
