scholarly journals Image of the city and modern architecture in the Polish feature films of the 1960s’

Author(s):  
Adam Nadolny

This article focuses on the inter-dependencies between the film image and architecture. The author has attempted to define what sort of historical background preconditions the film image to gain the status of a source for research on the history of Polish urban planning and post-war architecture, with particular emphasis placed on the 1960s.

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 347-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fair

When it opened in March 1958, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, was the first new professional theatre to be constructed in Britain for nearly two decades and the country’s first all-new civic theatre (Figs 1 and 2). Financially supported by Coventry City Council and designed in the City Architect’s office, it included a 910-seat auditorium with associated backstage facilities. Two features of the building were especially innovative, namely its extensive public foyers and the provision of a number of small flats for actors. The theatre, whose name commemorated a major gift of timber to the city of Coventry from the Yugoslav authorities, was regarded as the herald of a new age and indeed marked the beginning of a boom in British theatre construction which lasted until the late 1970s. Yet its architecture has hitherto been little considered by historians of theatre, while accounts of post-war Coventry have instead focused on other topics: the city’s politics; its replanning after severe wartime bombing; and the architecture of its new cathedral, designed by Basil Spence in 1950 and executed amidst international interest as a symbol of the city’s post-war recovery. However, the Belgrade also attracted considerable attention when it opened. The Observer’s drama critic, Kenneth Tynan, was especially effusive, asking ‘in what tranced moment did the City Council decided to spend £220,000 on a bauble as superfluous as a civic playhouse?’ For him, it was ‘one of the great decisions in the history of local government’. This article considers the architectural implications of that ‘great decision’. The main design moves are charted and related to the local context, in which the Belgrade was intended to function as a civic and community focus. In this respect, the Labour Party councillors’ wish to become involved in housing the arts reflected prevailing local and national party philosophy but was possibly amplified by knowledge of eastern European authorities’ involvement in accommodating and subsidizing theatre. In addition, close examination of the Belgrade’s external design, foyers and auditorium illuminates a number of broader debates in the architectural history of the period. The auditorium, for example, reveals something of the extent to which Modern architecture could be informed by precedent. Furthermore, the terms in which the building was received are also significant. Tynan commented: ‘enter most theatres, and you enter the gilded cupidacious past. Enter this one, and you are surrounded by the future’. Although it was perhaps inevitable that the Belgrade was thought to be unlike older theatres, given that there had been a two-decade hiatus in theatre-building, the resulting contrast was nonetheless rather appropriate, allowing the building to connote new ideas whilst also permitting us to read the Belgrade in terms of contemporary debates about the nature of the ‘modern monument’.


Author(s):  
Khokhon M. ◽  

Reliable fortifications were the key to the stable functioning of the castle, city or monastery on the territory of Western Ukraine in the XVII-XVIII centuries. Monastic complexes dominated actively in the space of settlements or landscape. Bernardin Order monasteries were one of the most numerous among the orders of the Western rite. Nowadays there often arises the question of determining the historical boundaries of objects and the original architectural and compositional integrity of monastic complexes during the development of urban planning documentation and restoration projects. Bernardin Order monasteries were actively studied by Ukrainian and Polish scientists, such as V. Vuytsyk, O. Boyko, I. Somochkin, A. Bethley, M. Kurzey, E. Kvetsinska. Research focuses mostly on the sacred elements of the complexes and describes the historical and architectural aspects of the monuments. The fortifications were partially inspected or not mentioned at all. The purpose of the article is to collect, systematize and reveal new facts of functioning and formation history of the defensive structures of Bernardine Order monasteries in Western Ukraine. Also the the purpose is to determine the location, dimensions, architectural and planning features of the fortifications of monasteries. In the studied period, we can identify about 50 defense complexes of various orders of the Western Rite, located in or outside the downtown. Bernardine Order monasteries are among the most common and are represented in in Berezhany, Husiatyn, Dubno, Zbarazh, Izyaslav, Lviv, Leshniv, Sokal and Khrystynopil. The Order of Bernardines is a branch of the Franciscan order, which was formed in the XII century. The Order of Bernardines appeared in the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Western Ukraine in the middle of the 15th century. As a result of the study of nine monasteries of the Bernardine Order, it was found that the architecture of the Order is clearly traced in the construction of its own fortifications. The article identifies the influence of the urban planning factor on the configuration and dimensions of the defense lines of objects. The Bernardines owned some of the most powerful defensive monasteries in Western Ukraine: in Sokal, Izyaslav and Lviv. The monasteries of this order were mostly located in downtown. Three of them, namely in Berezhany, Dubno, Leshniv, were located in the corners of downtown near the gates. The monasteries in Lviv, Husiatyn and Khrystynopil, which were blocked to the corner of the city defensive walls from the outside allocated to a separate type. Monastery in Zbarazh was located in the middle of the defense line near the gate and had its own defense walls. At this stage, the study revealed one defensive monastery church - in Leshnev. The monasteries in Dubno and Brzezany were defended by powerful city fortifications. The fortifications of the monasteries in Lviv and Sokal should be singled out. The monastery in Lviv, due to the status of the city and responsibility, was committed to active defense, which explains the presence of a three-tiered tower, strong walls with a loophole and a ravelin at the entrance. The monastery in Sokal was an outpost of the territory and a powerful center of pilgrimage that resulted into its economical wealth. It was found that the Bernardine complexes used mostly newer forms of protection - bastions and ramparts.


Author(s):  
N. Petuhova

The history of the creating of the Znamenskaya station square (now the Vosstaniya Square) in St. Petersburg is considered. The square appeared in front of the station of the first main railway in Russia, which connected two capitals - the old and the new - Moscow and St. Petersburg (from 1855 - Nikolaevskaya, from 1923 - October railway). The state status of the road also determined the status of the station square in front of its main station in St. Petersburg. The square was created as one of the main urban planning ensembles of the city, the formation of which was given attention at the highest level. Extensive archival sources have been studied, extracts and graphic materials from which are presented in this article. Based on the historical and urban planning analysis, the main factors that influenced the choice of the location of the station of the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway and its station square in St. Petersburg were identified. It is shown that Znamenskaya Square is one of the last urban planning ensembles of St. Petersburg, created centrally on the basis of classical principles according to a single project, including the entire front of the buildings that form it. It has been established that Znamenskaya Square is a unique urban planning phenomenon, since in the history of 19th century architecture, the fact of the creation of the station square, conceived as a single regular ensemble, is no longer known


Author(s):  
Timur Gimadeev

The article deals with the history of celebrating the Liberation Day in Czechoslovakia organised by the state. Various aspects of the history of the holiday have been considered with the extensive use of audiovisual documents (materials from Czechoslovak newsreels and TV archives), which allowed for a detailed analysis of the propaganda representation of the holiday. As a result, it has been possible to identify the main stages of the historical evolution of the celebrations of Liberation Day, to discover the close interdependence between these stages and the country’s political development. The establishment of the holiday itself — its concept and the military parade as the main ritual — took place in the first post-war years, simultaneously with the consolidation of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Later, until the end of the 1960s, the celebrations gradually evolved along the political regime, acquiring new ritual forms (ceremonial meetings, and “guards of memory”). In 1968, at the same time as there was an attempt to rethink the entire socialist regime and the historical experience connected with it, an attempt was made to reconstruct Liberation Day. However, political “normalisation” led to the normalisation of the celebration itself, which played an important role in legitimising the Soviet presence in the country. At this stage, the role of ceremonial meetings and “guards of memory” increased, while inventions released in time for 9 May appeared and “May TV” was specially produced. The fall of the Communist regime in 1989 led to the fall of the concept of Liberation Day on 9 May, resulting in changes of the title, date and paradigm of the holiday, which became Victory Day and has been since celebrated on 8 May.


Author(s):  
П. В. Капустин ◽  
А. И. Гаврилов

Состояние проблемы. Проблематика городской среды заявила о себе в 1960-е годы как протест против модернистских методов урбанизма и других видов проектирования. Средовое движение не случайно тогда именовали «антипрофессиональным» - оно было направлено против устоявшихся и недейственных методов работы с городом - от исследования до управления. За прошедшие десятилетия в рамках самого средового движения и его идейных наследников наработано немало методов и приемов работы, однако они до сих не подвергались анализу как пребывающая в исторической динамике целостная совокупность инструментария, альтернативного традиционному градостроительству. Результаты. Рассмотрены особенности и проблемы анализа методологического «арсенала» средового движения и урбанистики. Методы работы с городской средой впервые структурированы по типам знания. Показана близость методов исследовательского и проектного подходов в отношении городской среды. Выводы. В ближайшее время можно ожидать появления новых синтетических знаний и частных методологий, связанных как с обострением средовой проблематики, с расширением круга средовых акторов, так и с процессом профессионализации урбанистики. Statement of the problem. The urban environment paradigm emerged in the 1960s as a protest against the modernist methods of urbanism and other types of design. It was no coincidence that the environmental movement was back then called "anti-professional" as it was directed against the established and ineffective methods of working with the city, i. e., from research to management. Over the past decades, within the framework of the environmental movement and its ideological heirs, a lot of methods and have been developed. However, they have not yet been analyzed as an integral set of tools in the historical dynamics which is an alternative to traditional urban planning. Results. The features and problems of the analysis of the methodological “arsenal” of environmental movement and urban studies are considered. The methods of working with the urban environment are first structured according to the types of knowledge. The proximity of research and design approaches in the case when the urban environment is dealt with is shown. Conclusions. In the nearest future, we can expect new synthetic knowledge and particular methodologies related to both the exacerbation of environmental problems to emerge as well as the expansion of the circle of environmental actors and the process of professionalization of urbanstics.


Author(s):  
Aled Davies

The aim of this book has been to evaluate the relationship between Britain’s financial sector, based in the City of London, and the social democratic economic strategy of post-war Britain. The central argument presented in the book was that changes to the City during the 1960s and 1970s undermined a number of the key post-war social democratic techniques designed to sustain and develop a modern industrial economy. Financial institutionalization weakened the state’s ability to influence investment, and the labour movement was unable successfully to integrate the institutionalized funds within a renewed social democratic economic agenda. The post-war settlement in banking came under strain in the 1960s as new banking and credit institutions developed that the state struggled to manage. This was exacerbated by the decision to introduce competition among the clearing banks in 1971, which further weakened the state’s capacity to control the provision and allocation of credit to the real economy. The resurrection of an unregulated global capital market, centred on London, overwhelmed the capacity of the state to pursue domestic-focused macroeconomic policies—a problem worsened by the concurrent collapse of the Bretton Woods international monetary system. Against this background, the fundamental social democratic assumption that national prosperity could be achieved only through industry-led growth and modernization was undermined by an effective campaign to reconceptualize Britain as a fundamentally financial and commercial nation with the City of London at its heart....


Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson

The book proposes that the Cold War period saw a key debate about the future as singular or plural. Forms of Cold War science depicted the future as a closed sphere defined by delimited probabilities, but were challenged by alternative notions of the future as a potentially open realm with limits set only by human creativity. The Cold War was a struggle for temporality between the two different future visions of the two blocs, each armed with its set of predictive technologies, but these were rivaled, from the 1960s on, by future visions emerging from decolonization and the emergence of a set of alternative world futures. Futures research has reflected and enacted this debate. In so doing, it offers a window to the post-war history of the social sciences and of contemporary political ideologies of liberalism and neoliberalism, Marxism and revisionist Marxism, critical-systems thinking, ecologism, and postcolonialism.


Author(s):  
Marta Zuzanna Osuchowska

In the history of relations between the Argentinean government and the Holy See, two ideas are permanently intertwined: signing the Concordat and defending national patronage. The changes that occurred in the 1960s indicated that exercising the right of patronage, based on the principles outlined in the Constitution, was impossible, and the peaceful establishment of the principles of bilateral relations could only be indicated through an international agreement. The Concordat signed by Argentina in 1966 removed the national patronage, but the changes to the content of the Constitution were introduced only in 1994. The aim of the study is to show the concordat agreement concluded in 1966 by Argentina with the Holy See as an example of an international agreement. The main focus is the presentation of concordat standards for the institution of patronage. Due to the subject and purpose of the study, the work uses methods typical of social sciences in the legal science discipline. The dogmatic-legal method is the basis for consideration of the Concordat as a source of Argentine law, and as an auxiliary method, the historical-legal method was used to show the historical background of the presented issue.


ZARCH ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 58-69
Author(s):  
Tiago Lopes Dias ◽  
Rui Jorge Garcia Ramos

Modern Portuguese architecture has been seen as the result of an eminently empirical and intuitive practice, dissociated from any effort of theoretical structuring. This paper intends to contradict that predominant view, presenting the notion of spatial limit as a subject that earned particular consideration from a younger, more critical and intellectually demanding generation of architects. Firstly, it introduces two notions directly related to limit - ‘extensions of the dwelling’ and ‘transition-space’ - presented in theses by Nuno Portas (b. 1934) and Pedro Vieira de Almeida (1933-2011) respectively, two highly innovative works in the academic panorama of early 1960s. Next, it focuses on the fundamental role each of the notions taken in investigative works that are parallel in time but substantially different. The first, Habitação evolutiva, is a typological study reflecting the spirit of its time by claiming the ‘right to the city’ as the founding principle of a model critical of CIAM urbanism. The second is an essay stemming from a critical reflexion on the work of an eclectic architect that eludes categorization (Raul Lino, 1879-1974) which sheds light on the need for a critical approach to the history of modern architecture.


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