Minister picks the top designs
The Ministry of Transport and Construction has for the 50th time presented awards for outstanding creative achievement in architecture, construction, spatial planning, town planning, geodesy, and cartography. Works from 51 studios were submitted to the competition, out of which the Award Commission recognized 15, mostly in the categories of architecture and engineering studies.
First-degree awards in the area of architecture were granted to the Lecture Centre of the Poznań University of Technology, and the Hydrotherapy Center project in Nałęczów. Also in the architecture category, the Opus Film office building in Łód won a second-degree award. "Those works are valuable as they have been tested in practice. They should be the patterns to be followed," said Professor Adam Zbigniew Pawłowski, who is head of the awards commission.
"In the times of transformation it seemed that the balance between the public and private space was infringed. Now it can be seen that the public space is gaining new, valuable buildings," said Bolesław Stelmach, from Lublin's Stelmach & Partnerzy, the studio behind the Hydrotherapy project.
Other projects that were awarded in this year's edition are the engineering projects of the A-2 motorway, the stretch of Nowy Tomyl-Komorniki and the reconstruction of the St Roch historic bridge on the river Warta in Poznań.
Looking back on the competition's history, it is difficult to understand how projects that are now considered eyesores were granted the award. Among such oddities are the 'Spodek' in Katowice, the Supersam project in Warsaw, which won in 1962, and the railway station building in Katowice, which won plaudits in 1973. Still, some are widely recognized and appreciated, such as the Library of the Warsaw University or the Siekierkowski suspension bridge in Warsaw.
Agnieszka Barteczko
