Oskar Sosnowski

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Oskar Sosnowski (November 6, 1880 – September 24, 1939) was a leading Polish architect and art conservator and restorer of monuments during the period between World War I and World War II.

Sosnowski received his education at a Russian polytechnic in Warsaw, in the Engineering and Construction Faculty Department.[1]

In the fall of 1918, the recently renovated building of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology (Warsaw Polytechnic) was occupied by the Bolshevik army causing many Polish students enlisted to drive them out, and following this brief interruption, new professors arrived at the Faculty; including Sosnowski, who took the post of the Chair of Polish Architecture Division.[1] In 1919, he became a professor at the Warsaw Polytechnic. In 1922, he initiated the establishment of the Association of Polish City Planners. In 1929, he founded the Department of Architecture of Poland at Warsaw Polytechnic.

Sosnowski's projects were based on traditional historical forms, but he used new materials as reinforced concrete. He also developed proposals for communities that for the first time applied a new urban form of building around a lake or other feature.

Sosnowski was one of the greatest Polish architects of the period that developed the Professors' Quarter in Warsaw. A unique complex of 21 houses built in the Powiśle district of Warsaw (within the triangular area delineated by the Górnośląska, Myśliwiecka, and Hoene-Wrońskiego streets). They were built between 1923 and 1926 by professors at Warsaw Polytechnic's Faculty of Architecture, with the idea for each architect designs a house for himself. The houses have been preserved in an almost perfect condition and are now a treasured monument of architecture and urban planning.[2]

Sosnowski was quite interested in Jewish culture, and he began a project to inventory synagogues in Poland during the 1920s.[3] Of especial importance is the documentation, measured drawings and photographs made in the period between the First and Second World Wars by the Department of Polish Architecture of the Polytechnic of Warsaw, and in particular, the efforts of Professor Sosnowski and other architects, art historians and students which he led, has provided a unique collection of documentation[4] Sosnowski, photographer and art historian Szymon Zajczyk, and Warsaw Polytechnic students documented these wooden structures through architectural drawings, replica paintings, and photographs. Recognizing the historical importance and artistic value of this architecture and fearing its impending destruction with the rise of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, this team compiled extensive data and produced architectural drawings, color and detail studies and photographs of many synagogues. Much of this project was destroyed during World War II but a substantial amount survived. Today the documentation is all that remain of the wooden synagogues of Poland.[5]

He also prepared an extensive database documenting of other buildings and design elements[6] that has now become part of the work in preserving the European Wooden Churches Heritage.[7]The collection includes drawings and photographs concerning monumental as well as vernacular architecture. It was rescued during the burning of Warsaw by the Nazis and the collection was continued after war, so that it consists now more than 35 thousand drawings – plans, sections, facades, and details along with thousands of photographs, and is probably the biggest archive of this kind in Poland.[8]

Work by Sosnowski within the Polish Architecture Division in the Department of Architecture was conducted in the following areas: folk art and rural construction, the history of art, inventory measurements, town planning, painting, and history of fortifications, as well as in studios dealing with interiors and equipment, liturgical (sacral) art, Jewish art, and garden architecture. The amassed collections of measurements, photographs, and slides totaled thousands, and the number of publications exceeded twenty.[9]

Sosnowski was wounded by German soldiers in the School of Architecture building's courtyard while trying save the archives containing the surveys of Polish Historic Buildings (the preserved documents provided the information to reconstruct the Warsaw Old Town after the war).[10] The Germans then killed or interred 41 professors, including Sosnowski, and the university soon became an important point of resistance during the 1944 uprising against the Germans.[11]

[edit] Selected works

  • Bałabanów in Lvov (1908)
  • Church of St James, Warsaw (1909-23)
  • Immaculate Conception Church of the Virgin Mary in Warsaw (1911-23)
  • Parish Church of St. Agnes in Goniadz (1924)
  • The expressionist Church of Christ the King and St. Roch in Bialystok. It is one of the first modernist churches in the world.[12] (1927-1939) [13]
  • Bialystok - Starosielce: Church. Stanislaus (1937-1938)
  • Lublin: Catholic Church. St. Michael the Archangel at Bronowicach (1930-1938)
  • Churches in Orłowie, Grodno, Grudziadz, Falkowie, Chlewiskach
  • Book - Establishment, structure, and characteristics of the street network in the metropolitan Warsaw region (Powstanie, układ i cechy charakterystyczne sieci ulicznej na obszarze wielkiej Warszawy) (1930), * Construction achievements in Poland (Dzieje budownictwa w Polsce) unfinished work, Volume I, published by PWN in 1964.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Parszewska, Dorota. "Architects-graphic designers from the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw Polytechnic in 1915-1939", Wilanow Poster Museum, undated, retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  2. ^ Archive or Exhibitions in 2005, The Historical Museum of Warsaw, retrieved on 2008-06-06.
  3. ^ “Zabludow Synagogue Project” Handshouse Studio, undated, retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  4. ^ Baranski, Marek and Maczynski, Dominik. "Annihilated Heritage", Exhibition prepared by the Association of Conservators of Historic Monuments, Poland, undated, retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  5. ^ Wooden Synagogues of Poland An Exhibition: "A Lost World Revisited", undated, retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  6. ^ "Rysunki do Dziejów budownictwa w Polsce według Oskara Sosnowskiego" ZAP & ZPAWK Wydział Architektury Politechniki Warszawskiej, retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  7. ^ Wrona, Stefan. Rescuing the Hidden European Wooden Churches Heritage an International Methodology for Implementing a Database for Restoration Projects (chapter on Poland: The Role of Databases in Rescuing Wooden Religious Buildings). Wooden Church Heritage — European Commission. Retrieved on 2008-06-05. 
  8. ^ Kunkel, Robert. "Wooden Religious Buildings" Wooden Church Heritage — European Commission, undated, retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  9. ^ Piechotka, K. (1988) "Staż naukowy Wojciecha Kalinowskiego w Zakładzie Architektury Polskiej Politechniki Warszawskiej" Kwartalnik Architektury i Urbanistyki, V. 43, N. 1-2, p. 63-64, retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  10. ^ Foreign Student's Guide. Faculty of Architecture, Warsaw University of Technology. 2003-2004, 7, retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  11. ^ Szmit-Zawierucha, Danuta. "History of Learning" Warsaw Voice, October 25, 2006, retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  12. ^ Author: bialystok.pl "Along Lipowa street", undated, retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  13. ^ archINFORM: Oscar Sosnowski, retreived on 2008-06-01.
  • Oskara Sosnowskiego świat architektury — Twórczość i dzieła (Oscar Sosnowski's world of architecture — Creativity and work). Wydawnictwo Politechniki Warszawskiej, 2004