Mateusz Gyurkovich
Technical Transactions, Architecture Issue 4-A (13) 2012, 2012, pp. 25-56
https://doi.org/10.4467/2353737XCT.14.132.1909The urban development of Barcelona over the span of more than two thousand years makes an excellent example of a successful idea of urbanity. For more than 150 years, it has been under the continuous process of the adaptation, restoration and revitalization of its urban space which aims at creating optimal dwelling and working conditions for its inhabitants. The crowning achievement in the urban dimension of industrial city was the extension – Eixample designed by Ildefonso Cerdà in 1859. The orthogonal street grid, which remained decades ahead of similar solutions in other European cities, assumed tenfold extension of the city area and changed its image forever. Similarly to a number of other postindustrial cities, Barcelona must revitalize vast degraded and partially abandoned areas which shifted from the outskirts to the heart of this polycentric metropolis. The 22@Barcelona project changes the urban, social and functional structure of the central areas as well as contributes to the transformation of Barcelona from the City of Industrial Civilization into the City of Knowledge Civilization.
Mateusz Gyurkovich
Technical Transactions, Architecture Issue 6-A (9) 2015, 2015, pp. 75-95
https://doi.org/10.4467/2353737XCT.15.240.4643Nowadays that the globally valid spatial model of a modern city, is derived from the rich tradition of the European city structure, the authenticity of preserved heritage of our continent may be a significant advantage in the global competition between metropolises. European cities, sometimes dating back several millennia ago, are still evolving, changing, modernizing. Despite wars and natural disasters, most of them managed to save the historic urban systems, or fragments of them, as well as architectural elements forming them (buildings and their complexes).Their primary functions as unsustainable, are replaced by others. Many of today’s hybrid cultural projects are formed on the basis of the historic structures, an element of the broader urban strategies, related to the protection of heritage and city promotion. Selected case studies which has been designed or built lately in one of Spanish metropolises would be presented within this paper.
Mateusz Gyurkovich
Housing Environment, 22/2018, 2018, pp. 4-14
https://doi.org/10.4467/25438700SM.18.001.8511Water has been accompanying architecture since the dawn of time. It was one of the fundamental conditions enabling to build settlements, and subsequently towns. It secured survival; it enabled the development of civilisations; it constituted one of defence lines against enemies. In time, besides utilitarian functions it started to fulfil symbolic, decorative, and compositional ones. In the Catalan tradition the most prestigious public spaces where not necessarily squares, but rather las ramblas. These are longitudinal tree-lined promenades, typologically characteristic for the local urban culture, designed along rivers and streams, around which towns would develop. These watercourses, once fulfilling utilitarian functions, in time becoming more and more polluted, were subsequently hidden underneath the ground. Over the ages also other, more decorative ways of making use of water reached Catalonia from other parts of Europe. Parks, squares, and piazzas equipped with decorative water features are characteristic places in the downtown landscape of Barcelona and other cities. This paper presents several projects from the years 1899–2015.
Mateusz Gyurkovich
Housing Environment, 24/2018, 2018, pp. 99-110
https://doi.org/10.4467/25438700SM.18.062.9652Architectural and urban structures and complexes associated with cultural functions in European cities currently constitute elements of their spatial structure that are significant to their status and image. They co-create essential sequences of urban and landscape interiors, both within historical spatial layouts, as well as newly-designed ones, most commonly including those fragments of urban tissue that are subjected to urban regeneration processes. Many of these spaces are accompanied by green compositions, most commonly in the form of small flower-beds or rows of trees that highlight the monumentalism of urban and architectural complexes and which are meant to symbolise the rank and position of individual cultural institutions. Apart from historical park and residence complexes that are currently being adapted to functions associated with culture, it is very rare for arranged greenery to dominate in these types of layouts, instead of primarily serving as a background for architecture—an equally significant if not a non-dominant element that shapes urban public space. The publication refers to a number of examples of contemporary built projects of such spaces in European metropolises.
Mateusz Gyurkovich
Technical Transactions, Architektecture Issue 2-A (8) 2016, 2016, pp. 107-124
https://doi.org/10.4467/2353737XCT.16.180.5791Some cities have incessantly teemed with life for centuries, even for millennia. Currently, the oldest inhabited urban settlements are deemed to be those located in the Old World. Their contemporary layouts are very different to how they were originally, this is very often hidden in relics which attest to the older layers. Searching for such layers is a fascinating task. Sometimes, they can be found in the layout of public spaces, or in the architecture of historic buildings and complexes. Others remain deeply concealed underneath the surface of streets, squares, pavements, and parks. Most frequently, the exposure of larger parts of the remains of old architectural and urban structures is not easy due to the need to secure efficient functioning of the contemporary urban tissue. Architectural and archaeological reserves established especially in Europe, help to restore the lost memory of the city by exhibiting its historic layers.
Mateusz Gyurkovich
Technical Transactions, Architecture Issue 2-A (7) 2013, 2013, pp. 3-17
https://doi.org/10.4467/2353737XCT.14.009.2592The city as a product of man’s civilization undergoes constant transformations, whereas forecasts announcing its collapse appear to be off-the-mark. After the industrial city and the postindustrial city, comes the knowledge civilization city. It turns out that ultramodern knowledge civilization cities – filled with the spirit of the information revolution as well as functions based on education and contemporary information technologies – have not developed their own type of public spaces so far. The author of this article aims to present some park spaces implemented in contemporary Barcelona. They neighbour on the grounds of 22@Barcelona which have remained under intense functional and spatial transformations since 2000. Numerous researchers acknowledge this project as a model knowledge civilization city.
Mateusz Gyurkovich
Housing Environment, 18/2017, 2017, pp. 95-105
https://doi.org/10.4467/25438700SM.17.011.7601Light, the natural as well as the artificial one, is an indispensable architectural material, the importance of which is equal to that of wood, stone, concrete, brick, steel, and glass. It has been so since the birth of humanity, it is so today, even in the times when technology dominates what Rasmussen called ‘experiencing architecture’. In residential, office or industrial buildings, light fulfils most of all a utilitarian role. Its access to individual rooms is governed by detailed regulations, which also provide for values of artificial light necessary to illuminate each square metre of the floor area, depending on the function. Monumental or more private, sacral buildings and cultural facilities, are a special field for experimenting with light. It helps to build emotions, necessary to perceive a work of architecture in an appropriate way. It brings out shapes, emphasises colours and properties of materials. The paper is devoted to the role of light in the process of building of an architectural form of iconic cultural facilities, taking into account Polish examples.
Mateusz Gyurkovich
Technical Transactions, Volume 2 Year 2018 (115), 2018, pp. 5-25
https://doi.org/10.4467/2353737XCT.18.017.7990Cracow, the former capital of Poland and currently the second-largest Polish city, dreams of becoming the most important metropolis – not only of the Lesser Poland region, but also of the entire southern and south-eastern part of Poland. This paper, based on long-term research and field studies, also refers, in part, to the “Model of the Spatial Structure of Cracow” research programme, which was conducted at the Institute of Urban Design of the CUT under the guidance of M. Gyurkovich with collaboration with A. Sotoca, between October 2016 and July 2017. This is the background against which the selected issues of spatial transformations that took place within the city limits and that influence the urban morphology of Cracow, will be presented against. The type of spatial structure that can currently be observed in Cracow, does not bring to mind an association with the urban form of a European Metropolis. Can the contemporary attempts to create a polycentric urban organism- that can compete with other, well-organised ones, internationally, ever be successful? Will the dream of the Cracow Metropolis ever come true?