The Space of the traditional Polish Body

This subsection explores the imbalances of gender-representation in vernacular

architecture and media. By doing so I link the notions normally associated with gender representation with the weakness of the urban-oriented architecture and public presence in late 20th _{century Poland. This is done by analysing the public and private spaces in} vernacular architecture, which was not likely to have been influenced by foreign input. The research in this section analyses the aspects of life which were seen as indispensable by the vernacular builders. Due to scarcity of means the vernacular builders addressed the cultural definition of the most prominent necessities of life. Thus, vernacular structures (that

dominated the Polish landscape) give an indication of the core of Polish culture. The exploration gives an image of lack of strong definition in the traditional way of understanding of the Polish public personae. The tendency was, rather, to prefer a matriarchal social organisation, based on food-processing, which found its place in the interiors (especially the kitchen). Thus the image of the Polish body here is presented with respect to gender, as understood by Beatriz Colomina, who understands interiors to be of a nurturing and protective quality, much more so than the public (1994). The feminine aspect of the social life had a dominant role in Polish culture which, in the 20th _{century was still} predominantly agricultural. In contrast its masculine counterpart, which represented the public, was left without a clear definition. When Western-civic models came to dominate the Polish landscape the masculine aspect had to become dominant, however it was not elaborated. The gender division here is based on the divisions of domestic roles in society that were ascribed to biological sex in the early 20th _{century in Poland}5_.

The social structure of Poland at the beginning of the 20th _{century, before the Second World} War, was predominantly agricultural (Philipp 1947) and therefore still valued spaces

necessary for food processing and preservation. This would imply a far reaching

significance of the kitchen in the residential traditions. It also suggests lack of importance of the civic image of the Polish personae. Hans Philipp writes on logwood architecture in the Polish mountain chain (near Krakow), and states that this particular typology of inhabitation

5 _{It should be noted that by masculine and feminine I mean features of social conduct rather than biological} gender.

had no urban or public context and relied on the tectonic capacities of external walls leaving the interior partitions flexible and open to change. Philipp writes: ‘In some cases the internal partitions are only roughly planed leaving the grain and colour to display the natural beauty of the timber‘ (Philipp 1947 15). According to him the only space in the interior which was to remain unchanged was the kitchen. Its inflexible nature was due to the necessity of allowing accessibility to food storage in the basement. This vertical

complexity was only developed with respect to the kitchen, and it defined this space as a strong component in the composition of the interior. The trend of emphasising the position of the kitchen in the residential unit has prevailed in the 20th _{century Polish vernacular (ibid.),} making it a very well established part of the residential unit, according to which all other spaces had to abide. It would imply that the Polish vernacular was based on the nurturing capacity of feminine spaces and not the masculine public.

My interviewees, who I asked to comment on the most dominant space in the Polish Vernacular households built after the First World War, all pointed to the kitchen (Ewa, Michał, Marcin, Krzyś). They all claim that it was territorialised and governed by the

matriarch of the family. The gender roles here would imply that the feminine was devalued but nothing could be further from the truth. Their relations resonate with the stratification in Matejko’s painting (The fall of Poland Fig 1.2), where women were present and placed in a privileged position overseeing the political process, giving them a silent significance in the civic life. Ewa notes that the

most important [space] was always the kitchen […] it was a place where the whole family gathered, but mostly women […] even though the space is not visible from the entrance the presence of the kitchen is clear while walking past it every time you walk anywhere in the house (Ewa Interview 2016).

Ewa suggests that the main entrance to the building was not visible from the public street and was hidden in a defensive way – rejecting its participation in the civic space. Michał confirms that the kitchen was the heart of the house. In his recollection, the kitchen was used by the matriarch for cooking, laundry, bringing up children and sometimes sleeping (Michał Interview 2016). It was also an important transition space to the living room which was ‘not used as often’. Marcin, who is a structural engineer, notes that the kitchen was also used as a space generating heat for the entire household, conjuring images of sustaining the warmth of the hearth for the family (Marcin Interview 2016).

This followed in the way the body of a Polish citizen was represented in public. The feminine was always shown as a dominant element (as seen in Fig 3.37, a poster advertising sugar), in the interior, and with broad shoulders and strong arms, conversely, the masculine did not have a fixed image and was free to be interpreted in a number of ways, even as a

IMAGE REDACTED

Fig 3.37 representation of woman in a commercial ad from Poland inter-War period (historic archive in Lublin)

IMAGE REDACTED

Fig 3.38 representation of man in a commercial ad from Poland inter-War period (historic archive in Lublin)

It may be understood that ever since Poland opened up to Western urbanisation

paradigms, the domination of the civic elements started influencing Polish culture. Public spaces, which Colomina conceptualises as masculine elements of the urban fabric (1994), became increasingly more significant with the development of cities and necessity for public discourse. The architectural profession in Poland was, in the inter-War period, not able to navigate in accordance with a singular overriding dogma as there did not seem to have been an explicit imagery of the masculine or civic element. The lack of definition for the masculine and a growing necessity of civic space could have created an atmosphere of indeterminance and flux in the representation of the civic personae. This was contrary to the Soviet philosophy, which, as George Bataille argues, was always based on a masculine, war-based approach (1989 295).

It may have been the case that the lack of rigour in establishing a civic presence of the citizen allowed for the development of a multiplicity of approaches to understanding civic space and engaging with the knowledge circulation. Considering the architectural

profession, the far reaching liberty of Polish culture allowed for an exploration of a variety of approaches. Apart from the consideration of commercial utility, the architectural practice was also open to theories engaging with a phenomenological standpoint. This means that a very personal and subjective impression was allowed. It was acceptable to think of architecture in terms of conditions which were not immediately or obviously gratified in economic terms. An example of such was presented by Jerzy Sztaudynger, who wrote an article on the role of atmosphere in architecture (1935). He wrote that apart from bodily demands such as desire to eat or breathe the body has other requirements such as hunger for inner-experiences attuned via art or travel. This resonates with Huserrl’s

phenomenological understanding of spatial experience. Sztaudynger mentions that the spectrum of sensual perceptions interweave to compose a particular atmosphere (ibid. 245).

Similarly to considering the relationship of the male body and architecture, the representation of the civic self was not rigorously defined. The imagery of the body in publications or even commercial advertisements was varied and their physicality distant from dictating what an ideal man should become. Each advertising image had its own agenda and the representation of the male body in Poland was inconsistent. It was left to create a lampoon of the masculine in public. This dichotomy of representations also implies that there was no standardised ideal of the male Polish body or at least not one which was suggested by the producers of the posters. The Western influence, which inspired a slow process of urbanisation (Lubiński 1931), was based on the image of the publicity of the masculine form (Colomina 1994) and in the Polish tradition did not have a defined form.

This section of the chapter argues that there was no dictated modality of designing nor was there one which would force people into generating a unified stream of knowledge. The power/knowledge nexus was not strong enough to consolidate a unified approach in the field. In the atmosphere of the post-First World War crisis and desolation the information circulation enhanced the tendencies of the national culture to discard a total approach to leadership. The infrastructure as well as the will to engage in a public debate were not regulated, which allowed for a variety of opinions and approaches to architecture to emerge. This was represented in the disorderly governance of the development of Gdynia and Krakow. Information from the other was internalised by what Foucault would call ‘a secular soul’ which was filtered by the Catholic Church. The Church seemed to be one of the few established structures in the country that truly acted in and through the citizens, however this is the case only because of its capacity to function on a radically rhizomal level with minimal contact with hierarchy. It might have been those qualities that allowed it to function in the inter-War period without the advocacy of an arborescent model of governance. The rhizomal character of the Church is represented in the variety of submissions made to the competition for designing The Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw. This variety created conditions which might seem disorderly but ones which operated under a latent organisation. It can be argued that with lack of strict regulation the Polish individuals could create their own ways of understanding architecture and develop new architectural languages (such as the new Neo-vernacular style in Zakopane). The human condition from the perspective of architecture in Poland was diverse and unstable during the inter-War period. The self was in a situation of being able to explore capacities of diversifying oneself to the frontiers of understanding. This was largely

conducted within the context of glorifying the Catholic Church and the West. The success of the Church might have come from the scarcity of defined public presence and

leadership, which Polish culture seemed not to have developed, focusing as it did on the intimate rather than the civic. It can be argued that the struggle to develop a strong civil society was informed by the inability of the Polish culture to form a strong civic presence, necessary for a democratic discourse.

As a result the power structure required less effort than the intensity of the Soviet regime, which aimed at creating a unified biopolitical strategy of a propaganda machine via vivid imagery. The Polish ‘self’ under the scrutiny of Foucault, Agamben, Deleuze and Guattari comes across as a strong individualistic movement with diverse opinions, unwilling to conform but on the other hand attempting to create a cohesive structure of governance within a landscape of lack of legible authority.