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Museum Of Architecture At Vistula River's Bend In Kazimierz District In Cracow

Part 2 Project 2001
Mateusz Gyurkovich
Cracow University of Technology | Poland
The design site has been located at the river’s bend in historic Kazimierz district of Cracow. There were city walls with the gate, tower and the bridge situated here in the past. The ruins of the St. Jacobs church are still under the surface of present-day lawn.

The idea of the design bases at the relations: past-present, nature-city. That kind of interpretation of the place in the city has determined the structure of leading composition, which can be called: still motion – as well literally as metaphorically. The shape of river’s bend has been treated as the predominant line of the whole composition, and it was transformed into a high, concrete, perforated Wall.

Museum of Architecture has been designed as the multifunctional, contemporary complex of buildings, and formed as the refilling of the city quarter, a kind of “a new town in the city”, divided from the surrounding world by the Wall. On the other side of the Wall one can perceive the play of the cubic volumes, which seam to overlap and penetrate each other in a way to create possibly dynamic composition, using possibly static, even minimalist forms.

The urban composition of the complex together with applied forms (Tower, Wall, Bridge, Gate), as well as the material used reminds the history of the site. As stone walls and buildings dividing the city from the river in middle ages, the concrete Wall and the ghost of former tower - built of glass – stand at the edge of the complex and create the Gate to the new world, contemporary world.

Mateusz Gyurkovich


The design site is located on the border between the river and the city. The Past had proved the necessity of such unification in urban scale. The Present has reminded about the rightness to create the absent building, about the necessity of shaping the Museum of Architecture.

The fact, that the shape of river’s bend has been treated in urban composition, as the predominant line, which puts in order it’s both sides, was rightful not only from the compositional, but also from the historical point of view. Urban interior, formatted as the result of placing the volumes, should be judged positively.

The museum function has become just a pretext for creating the contemporary architectural complex, treated as the place of memory and the place of work, education, coincidental and reserved appointments, place of exposition with the silent enclaves of contemplation. The dynamic composition of the complex catches the indefinable motion of the volumes, sliding at the predominant line - along the perforated wall.

The structural and technical solutions in which the kind, colour and surface of materials were used for showing the diversity of forms have been judged positively. The concrete wall dominates in the composition.

The concept has been presented legibly and consequently together with the aesthetically composed entirety. The student has shown his analytic inquiry, professional knowledge, artistic and architectural talent and his gift of imagination, which allowed him to create very interesting design. The thesis design has been marked as very good (A).

2001
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