“On Architecture. Sketches Written and Drawn”
Meeting around the book by Professor Sławomir Gzell
drawing by Sławomir Gzell
The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Blue Bird Publishing House invite to a meeting with the author of the book “On Architecture. Sketches Written and Drawn” by Professor Sławomir Gzell. The author will talk with panache and wit about architecture spelled with the capital A during his conversation with Grzegorz Piątek from Fundacja Centrum Architektury.
Sławomir Gzell’s book “On Architecture. Sketches Written and Drawn” is a collection of essays on various aspects of designing and looking at architecture. Describing his take on architecture, the author does not provide simple definitions. Early in the book he writes: ”Let’s not be too inventive: the gist of architecture is something which we will probably never be able to name. And since we continue to struggle to understand the meaning of some term, this means that its definition still does not exist. We are still dissatisfied with the words which we want to use the name the Innominate – so, maybe it is simply Unnameable”.
Sławomir Gzell invites readers to form their own opinions. While shifting the points of view, topics, he provides numerous facts describing them in a rather subjective way. One could say that he goes provides false clues. As an experienced teacher – Professor of Architecture and Town Planning at the Department of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, he knows that reaching the truth independently is worth more than giving it in its final and irrefutable version. Besides, there can be no absolute truth in architecture as an art.
The texts are accompanied by drawings by the author. Rapidly drawn sketches are used to record ideas and appear when something is worth remembering. Some are related to the accompanying text, but this is not their main role. They illustrate the range of author’s interests and should be looked at from this point of view.
The book was published on the centenary anniversary of the establishment of the
Department of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology.