CURATORS

PROLOG was founded in 2017 by Mirabela Jurczenko, Bartosz Kowal, Wojciech Mazan, Bartłomiej Poteralski and Rafał Śliwa. It is scattered across Europe, with a base in Wrocław, Poland. PROLOG engages with architecture through design projects, research, writing, exhibitions and workshops. PROLOG aims to frame each design from a practical and theoretical perspective. PROLOG is thought as a formative period, therefore its focus lies in the exploration, speculations and experiments. PROLOG was shortlisted in the international competition for the Tautos Namai concert hall in Vilnius, Lithuania, received the second prize in the international competition for a concert hall in Żelazowa Wola, Poland; and the second prize for a master plan for the Interrodera district in Szczecin, Poland.

PROLOG +1 is a team with the addition of Robert Witczak, working on the Trouble in Paradise project in the Polish Pavilion at Biennale Architettura 2021.

Mirabela Jurczenko graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Wrocław University of Technology and studied at the University of Minho in Guimarães, Portugal. She currently lives and works in Rotterdam. She has collaborated on research projects with the Technical University of Berlin and Technical University of Munich.

Bartosz Kowal holds an MSc Arch from the University of Liechtenstein. Previously, he studied at the Technical University of Munich, Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul and Wrocław University of Technology. Has worked as an architect in Germany, Poland and with Conradin Clavuot in Chur, Switzerland. Member of SIA (Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects).

Wojciech Mazan is an MPhil student of Projective Cities at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. His dissertation focuses on the post-socialist countryside of Poland. He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Wrocław University of Technology and studied at the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design. He has worked as an assistant researcher at the Royal College of Arts in London and previously for architecture offices in competition teams in Madrid, Rotterdam, Mexico City, and Graz.

Bartłomiej Poteralski graduated at the Faculty of Architecture of the Wrocław University of Technology, acquired experience in architectural offices in Poland, Spain and Austria. As part of his work at the Atelier Thomas Pucher, he worked on designs of the Sinfonia Varsovia headquarters in Warsaw and the Universitätsbibliothek in Graz.

Rafał Śliwa studied architecture in Portugal, at the University of Minho in Guimarães, the University of Coimbra, and the University of Porto. He received his master’s degree at the Wrocław University of Technology, with thesis investigating the relationship between the architecture of the city and education. He worked for offices in Poland and Portugal and is collaborating on competition concepts at the ANALOG office.

Robert Witczak studied at the Faculty of Architecture at the Wrocław University of Technology. He recently completed his master’s degree from the Delft University of Technology. In his thesis he investigated spatial problems of suburbanisation in Poland. Winner of numerous architectural competitions. He has gained professional experience in competition concepts in architectural offices in Poland and abroad.

ARCHITECTURAL STUDIOS

Atelier Fanelsa is an international team of architects based in Berlin and Gerswalde (Brandenburg). The studio investigates contemporary forms of working, living and commoning in the countryside, the periphery, and the city. We realise private projects, public buildings, exhibitions, and workshops. Within these formats, we develop innovative and qualitative answers to questions regarding the conditions of today’s society.

GUBAHÁMORI + Filip + László Demeter
GUBAHÁMORI is an architecture and urban design studio focusing on the correlation between the natural and the built environment. They are discovering architecture beyond ocularcentrism. Filip is a collective of visual artists based at a ship repair yard on the island of Népsziget, which is a culturally uprising brownfield of Budapest. The eclectic milieu of the still functional industrial site inspires them to look at everyday situations as platforms of art. László Demeter is a forest and ethnoecology scientific expert at the Centre for Ecological Research, Hungary. He specialises in using different knowledge systems (e.g. traditional knowledge and western science) for innovative conservation management.

KOSMOS Architects is an office collaborating virtually, bringing together partners based in Geneva, Moscow, Graz and New York. KOSMOS designs projects and environments of all types and scales: from a door handle to a city, from hardcore architecture to pop-up art installations. The office combines art and technology, global experience with respect to local context, academic research and practical architecture.

Rural Office for Architecture is based in a remote rural part of South Wales, UK. Established in 2008 by Niall Maxwell, the practice often works within rural settings, responding to its context and surroundings by reinterpreting the familiar architectural language of the past. They work across the UK on historic and new architectural projects and are currently developing a new dwelling in rural Japan, their first overseas commission.

RZUT (Katarzyna Billik, Matylda Gąsiorowska, Igor Łysiuk, Karolina Matysiak, Andrzej Olejniczak, Zofia Piotrowska, Przemysław Sobiecki, Łukasz Stępnik, Milena Trzcińska). ‘We are a group of people who write, tell stories and offer critique. We summarise the stories we observe in a quarterly published since 2013. We are not a design studio, and our goal is not to build. Nevertheless, we feel like architects and use our experience to deepen our reflection on the subject of space. Text, drawing and building are for us equal elements of a world where there is no division between theory and practice’.

Traumnovelle is a militant faction founded by three Belgian architects: Léone Drapeaud, Manuel León Fanjul and Johnny Leya. Traumnovelle uses architecture and fiction as analytical, critical and subversive tools to emphasise contemporary issues and dissect their resolutions. Their work champions a multi-disciplinary approach with architecture at the crossroads and has been published internationally. Traumnovelle curated the Belgian Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2018.

AUTHORS OF PANORAMA OF THE POLISH COUNTRYSIDE

Jan Domicz is a visual artist and creator of videos, objects and installations. He graduated from the Städelschule in Frankfurt and the University of the Arts in Poznań. He lives and works in Warsaw, collaborating with the Wschód gallery. Since 2017, he has run the semi-curatorial project Office for Narrated Spaces. His works have been presented in exhibitions at the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, SALTS in Basel, the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Arts in Warsaw, Significant Other in Vienna and Karlin Studios in Prague. He uses the narrative potential of space in his works.

Michał Sierakowski is a documentary photographer and filmmaker. He graduated in photography from the University of Arts in Poznań. He was a holder of the scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. His works have been shown in Warsaw, Kiev, London and St Petersburg, among others. In his work, he focuses on the relationship between humans and their environment, as well as how communities reinterpret and reconstruct landscape, whether natural or in the form of urban planning and architecture.

Paweł Starzec is a photographer, sociologist and documentary filmmaker. He is a lecturer and academic teacher, creator of workshop programs, co-creator of the Azimuth Press collective of artists and publishing house. He is a doctoral student at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of the University of Warsaw and a graduate student at the Institute of Creative Photography of the University of Silesia in Opava. A musician and sound artist, he currently performs with the Mazut project as well as solo. In his work, he focuses on the links between space, history and their social contexts.