Rob Krier: for Łódź

Rob Krier, a Luxembourgish architect and urban planner, is the author of the concept of a new development of the Łódź centre located around EC1 (a part of the city closed by Narutowicza, Kopcińskiego, Targowa and Kiliński streets).

Professor Krier created dozens of large architectural projects, which were implemented in Germany (Berlin, Potsdam), the Netherlands (Amsterdam, The Hague), Austria (Vienna) and his native Luxembourg, among others. They were also shown in many art galleries and museums, mentioning only one of the last – a presentation at the Museum of Architecture in Frankfurt am Main. At the exhibition we will show Rob Krier's architectural designs, including his proposal for Łódź.

The ambitious plan covers an area of 90 hectares of the city. On the area being rebuilt there will be, among others Special Art Zone - 30 hectares in the immediate vicinity of the Factory Station. There will be a square called Rynek Kobro, as well as a cultural centre, a festival and congress hall, galleries, shops and restaurants. Four streets will also be marked out: Polish, Jewish, German and Russian. The first stage of the planned activities concerns the "heart" of the new centre, i.e. the cultural centre on the site of the century-old power plant.

Rob Krier is an advocate of the New Urbanism trend. In his projects, he places great emphasis on the historical and spatial context of the place. The architect became famous thanks to the book Urban space (German. Stadtraum) from 1975, in which he discusses and criticizes the reconstruction of destroyed structures Urban And proposes the reconstruction of traditional spatial compositions. "The most important challenge for me is to design in such a way as to fit into the history of the city. [...] You have to continue the existing structures and have respect for what exists. Thus, discover the unique language of the city. If I were able to take advantage of this unique opportunity and design such a space, the urban layout of Łódź would become unique," he says in one of the interviews given during a visit to Łódź.

At the exhibition in Atlas Sztuki, 27 sculptures of the artist will also be presented, about which he himself says: "Sculptures are my springboard from urban planning. Abstraction in architecture is enough for me. In the sculpture, I talk about emotions. Man can express so much through his gestures! Each hand position means something, it is a separate language. [...] I'm not a professional sculptor, so [my sculptures] are not in the art market, they don't travel from gallery to gallery. I only show them on the occasion of such events as lectures. They are important to me because I need them as a niche and a poetic source of inspiration. My architecture is also very romantic [...]. I dream of the sculptures being integrated into architecture again, as can be seen on tenement houses here in Łódź.”