The project included interior design of a 100 year old house after its expansion and modernization. In addition, it required designing a fireplace and a staircase connecting the three levels. Most of the furniture (dining table, bureau, coffee table, sideboard, kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets) were designed and built by Loft Szczecin. Furniture were made of oak and were later oiled. Kitchen furniture were created from laminated plywood and the countertop is made of black granite. Vintage items were bought in auctions and have been restored by Loft Szczecin. These include the chairs designed by Niels Moller of danish production, the armchair of czech production from the 60s designed by Magda Sepova and small medical furniture from the early 20th century.
Before the WWII, Szczecin was a german city and location of our museum used to be a urban quarter. During the war, due to air raids, a quarter was destroyed. After war, Szczecin became a polish city, meanwhile an empty square accidentally appeared in place of a former quarter. In December ’70, there were bloody clashes against the militia with tragic results of 16 fatalities. Since those events, a square has became a symbol of the fight for freedom, which is commemorated by a monument over there. Thus, an idea of a museum of the latest history of Szczecin in that place came up. Philharmonic Hall, designed by Estudio Barozzi Veiga was meant to be built on the opposite side of the street. Even then, we concluded, that this new building would become the new icon of the city, so we decided to step aside to the second plan with our museum design.
Our project was done in a former warehouse of a marmalade factory, which operated before World War II in Szczecin (Poland). The project involved reconstruction of one of the open spaces for an apartment divided into 4 rooms (living room with a kitchenette, bedroom, office, bathroom). In the most part of the loft we preserved historic, wooden floors that have been restored. All the kitchen furniture were designed and built by Loft Szczecin. Countertops were made of white marble and kitchen furniture of plywood. The rest of the furnishing is vintage furniture and lamps from the 50s and 60s from Denmark, the Czech Republic, Poland and the Netherlands. The furniture have been renovated by Loft Szczecin. For decoration we used a polish rug from the 30s.
At the end of the Second World War when the Potsdam Conference (1945) pushed back the German border, part of the region of Western Pomerania remained in Polish territory. The German inhabitants were deported and quickly replaced by new Polish settlers. For decades, Szczecin, the capital of the region, suffered from this uprooting and the ripping apart of its social fabric, a situation aggravated by the fact that, thanks to Soviet censorship, the people were denied a rigorous history of what had actually happened. This memory hole was accompanied by the testimony of numerous physical holes left in the city centre by allied aerial bombing attacks. What had once been a densely-populated, vibrant urban zone was turned into a pockmarked territory which Soviet architecture continued to ill-treat by opening up new motorways, putting up crude constructions of hefty concrete blocks and neglecting the city’s many desolate, empty lots.
Photography: Juliusz Sokołowski, Jakub Certowicz, Aneta Popławska-Suś, Magdalena Kotelon
Developer: Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie
Collaborators: authors: Robert Konieczny, Katarzyna Furgalinska, Dorota Zurek coauthor: Michal Lisinski collaboration: Aleksandra Stolecka, Piotr Tokarski, Adam Radzimski, Joanna Biedna, Magdalena Adamczak
The brief called for design proposals to maximise the flexibility of the 1976-designed theatre for a variety of performances on the stage, and to add a new roof to enclose both the stage and the audience. The underside of the roof, which covers the stage and front of auditorium, will enhance and project the natural acoustic for orchestral events.
The Philarmonic Hall, which is to accommodate a concert hall and a chamber music hall , is a very complex building that occupies the same space as the former music building. This is a synthetic project that shares identifying traits with its surrounding context. Mass, versatility and the shape of the roof-lines are dominant, connecting the hall with the rest of the city.
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