Kościoły i kapliczki Włodzimierza Gruszczyńskiego

Churches and chapels designed by Włodzimierz Gruszczyński

Summary: Włodzimierz Gruszczyński (1906-1973), architect and painter, studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, then at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw Polytechnic, from which he graduated in 1936. After the Second World War he was one of the initiators of the establishment of the Faculty of Architecture at the Cracow Academy of Mining and Metallurgy (later at the Cracow Polytechnic), where since 1970 he remained in the position of full professor at the Institute of Urban and Physical Planning. Gruszczyński was the author of many designs and theoretical conceptions in the following fields: region-specific architecture of Zakopane and the area of Podhale, future architecture and town planning, the renovation of the Cracow Market Square and the Wawel Hill (the so-called Wawel 2000 project). Undoubtedly, a role of capital importance in the development of his personality as an artist and architect was played by the environment of the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts in the 1920s, or, more generally speaking, the whole artistic Cracow concentrated around this school. Gruszczyński's contact with the most prominent Polish architects, who at that time were involved with the Faculty of Architecture of the Academy, such as Ekielski, Szyszko-Bohusz or Czajkowski, determined the direction of his own artistic inquiries. However, he managed relatively quickly to come out of their shadow and to create a system of his own artistic signs, typical only of himself, thanks to which we can immediately recognize his sketches and designs. His architecture was more of an interpretation than a continuation of the historical and regional myth of Polishness. He created new national architecture through a synthesis and transposition of formal motifs handed down by tradition. The elaborate form of his churches and chapels was a result of painstaking observations and drawing studies, initially performed in the open air, and then analysed intellectually in the atelier. Unfortunately, the majority of Gruszczyński's designs of churches and chapels have never been carried out. But then these were not always designs, but mostly theoretical studies. In the present paper I discuss both the designs of erected churches (in Zagorzyce, Samocice and Szarwark) and those that have remained on paper (designs for Siedliska, Sienna, Mościce, Kobierzyn and Nowa Huta). In his church designs he eagerly followed historical forms, but he always modernised them and at the same time enriched them with local elements. He treated with reserve the expressive and decorative trend in architecture, allegedly inspired by national tradition. What attracts attention in the churches designed by him are vertical lines and precipitous proportions, which are not to be found in analogous designs by other architects. The churches are built in such a way so as to enable light to penetrate the whole construction. In Gruszczyński's designs, just like it used to be for so many centuries, the sense of the sacred is created by light. For Gruszczyński, the source of inspiration was primarily the landscape, which he understood as a great architecture with a defined rhythm, construction and function. He also drew profusely from the tradition of rural wooden architecture, although he never faithfully reproduced its details. He rather meant to create an atmosphere which is evoked by specific proportions, materials and architectural forms: the forms derived from some heartland of Polish architecture, familiar only to him. His greatest dream was to create a specifically understood, synthetic national style.

Peregrinus Cracoviensis, 1998, z.6, s. 213-224.

Instytut Geografii i Gospodarki Przestrzennej UJ

ISSN 1425-1922, ISBN 83-907568-5-4

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