Architecture of the Seventh Day

KP: Do you consider yourself an architect?
KS: I'm not an architect. I never studied architecture. I studied urban planning in Wrocław. I was very influenced by a year-long internship at BIG, where I worked in their early days. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I'm still in touch with my colleagues. After that, I studied and later worked at Strelka. I actually don’t know what I should put on my business card, but it certainly wouldn't be "architect." Maybe researcher or urban planner…

KP: You mentioned your involvement at the Moscow institute Strelka…
KS: I am no longer involved there.

KP: We know. But we are interested in that school, and you spent quite a bit of time there…
KS: The situation in Moscow is now changing dramatically; I stopped working there a year ago. A lot could have changed in that year. I am unable to comment on it. Strelka, where I worked, is a thing of the past.

KP: What happened? Were you seeking change, or did the changes convince you to leave Strelka?
KS: I think it was all of that together. I wanted to focus on my own projects. I was at Strelka for a total of five years, the first year as a student and then I taught there for four years. Every year was different, the program constantly evolved.

KP: That's exactly what we are interested in – how the program evolved? Can you tell us more about the structure and development of the program?
KS: I really am not the right person to speak about this. Strelka has now shifted in a different direction – towards the internet. When I was there, it was a relatively small institute, in a specific place. Now they focus on topics that I have no connection with. The master's program Advanced Urban Design is great, based on things that Strelka used to focus on. Now it is more internet-oriented. That no longer concerns me; I am part of Strelka's past. I know what it looked like a year or two ago, but that is no longer relevant at all. There has basically been a revolution and constant change there all the time.

JK: Were people or the teaching idea changing?
KS: Everything. Koolhaas and others approached it as an experiment. So we experimented.

KP: So for the first four years, you dealt with topics you could identify with. You could set what you wanted to work on with the students. But gradually did things change so much that further involvement was no longer interesting for you?
KS: Now I am interested in other things. We didn't fall out or anything, but… I'm simply not a relevant spokesperson for you. The situation is constantly changing; I was a part of these changes, of the process, but I am no longer. Now Strelka is in a completely different place than it was a year ago. They are currently collaborating with the School of Economics in Moscow on a large, amazing master's program – Advanced Urban Design. They worked on its preparation for a year, and there are great people involved. There is also the Strelka Digital Program, which I was initially involved with, but I've lost track of that too…

JK: Let's put it another way. What could inspire us at Strelka? What do you consider to be the most interesting period of your involvement?
KS: I think I am most proud of the method for excursions that we developed together at the faculty. Excursions mostly don't make much sense, but we managed to create a process where the excursion becomes an intense work experience. I believe the best was to South Africa. An excursion is preceded by a hypothesis and research on a given topic. Students are divided into groups of four to five and develop a topic, plan whom to meet on the excursion and which places to visit. Upon return, they process all the information. For example, in South Africa, student groups were present at eight different locations along the river. It was quite fast; everyone looked at different angles, and we tried to understand the cities. Interdisciplinary teams of students do not analyze places at a geographical level; they approach them much more abstractly. Altogether, it takes about three weeks – one week before the excursion, one week on the excursion, and one week after. The outcome of the excursion is a publication.
After several excursions, we created a perfect way to conduct them. I think no other school does it this well. I believe we had very good results. So that’s one example of experimentation: How to organize the whole event? How to conduct research and studies in situ? How to approach data processing? It is a very dynamic process that also involves journalism – students learn how and with whom to conduct interviews and how to understand architecture. It’s incredibly interdisciplinary – architect, geographer, journalist, etc. – it’s team work. I think with the Advanced Urban Design program they are preparing to go to South Africa and will likely use the know-how we developed over the last five years.

KP: So, we will focus less on Strelka and more on why you are here. Why were you invited as a speaker to reSITE, a conference on migration? What will your contribution be about?
KS: I will speak about migration using one example that is part of a large project, Architecture of the Seventh Day, which I am currently working on. For the last two years, my friend and I have been dealing with more than three thousand Polish churches built unofficially during the communist regime. This could be interesting for Czechs as well: Poles built churches during communism. The peculiarity is that these buildings were unofficial; they represented a certain form of protest against the regime. Architects could not normally design churches; thus, they worked on projects outside of work hours. The materials for construction were usually not bought, but sourced from various places. There were no machines available, as the construction industry belonged to the state. People organized everything themselves because they were believers. Especially after Soviet-style urbanization, when people were relocated from the countryside to newly created industrial cities, they really needed a church. It represented a connection to tradition. They had motivation to build churches.
Nobody had documented or counted them before us. Most of the churches were built illegally, so for the last two years we have primarily mapped them. Some were built, for example, in cornfields – the construction grew along with the corn, so it was not visible. When the field was harvested, the church stood there. Particularly in southeastern Poland, the churches were completely illegal. That’s also why it was difficult to count them; they are not registered in the land registry. We recently completed the mapping and are now preparing a book on this topic.
But the most interesting thing about the entire matter is that the organization of construction was, in a way, very ahead of its time for the 80s and 90s. It operated on the principles of crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, shared economy – methods that the internet brought twenty years later. Similar to collective financing, everyone "threw something into the basket." Materials were gathered, a priest organized the work on construction, etc. It involved a lot of things… At the moment, we are conducting interviews with architects, collecting their stories and trying to gain know-how from them so that we can eventually carry out something similar ourselves.
At the conference, I will only present one story; I have only about three minutes for that, so it will really be short. The story is about a church in Kraków, in the Nowa Huta district. This is a new quarter on the outskirts of Kraków, built by Stalin to accommodate more workers in this traditionally bourgeois city. In the 50s, a steel mill opened here, and a whole city was built around it, but there was no church. So, people decided to build one themselves. The first attempt failed, and the construction had to be paused, but the people kept fighting. There were street riots where people even shot at police. Eventually, in the 70s, the construction of the church was permitted.
Most of the participants at reSITE talk about people at an abstract level. About crowds, about politics... I want to talk about monuments of migration – about what relationship architecture can have to migration.
Imagine a new city and its new, predominantly traditionally rooted originally rural inhabitants. They really needed a church. And the architecture of the church they built themselves reflects their community well. In the specific case of Nowa Huta, the entire facade is covered with small stones gathered by parishioners. Someone came up with the idea that everyone should bring pebbles from the seaside. The sea is about 600 km away, so it was not easy. This beautiful facade is symbolic.

Church of the Mother of God Queen of Poland [Matki Bożej Królowej Polski] in Kraków (photo © Maciej Lulko, 2015)

KP: Did people travel to the places they came from?
KS: No, they just went on vacation. I think it's quite a funny story, and it’s beautiful that architecture reflects this story. There are many stories associated with this church. Each church is in a way a monument of defiance against the communist regime, a monument of community construction. For every church built, the whole parish was involved. Hundreds of believers built together. It was not just about construction, but also about "building a community."

KP: And what is the significance of these buildings today? How are they perceived by society? Do they hold the same value for people?
KS: They are currently not exactly the center of attention, but I think most of them are architecturally very high-quality and are in good condition. They still function as parish churches; people still use them.
I need to show you. When I just talk about it, it's not that interesting. It’s really interesting architecture.
For example, this graph shows the number of churches built in Poland between 1945 and 2015 – after Stalin's death, the numbers jumped, and many churches were built after the emergence of Solidarity.

Amount of churches built (by size) between 1945 and 2015 (© Tomasz Swietlik)

This is a church in the village of Nowa Huta, the first design, the street riots, the current appearance, and a photo of the facade made from the stones I mentioned. There are thousands of them. The quality of the architecture is really high. And all of this was built by people without construction machines.

Interior of the Church of the Mother of God Queen of Poland [Matki Bożej Królowej Polski] in Kraków (photo © Maciej Lulko, 2015)

JK: It seems almost impossible… Did an architect always participate in the project?
KS: Sometimes.

JK: How did that work? I can imagine they managed to organize themselves and substitute technologies and machines... But how did it manage to go unnoticed during the communist regime? How did it go through without being noticed?
KS: First, I will show you other projects so that we know what we are talking about, and then I will answer your question.
 

Church of Divine Mercy [Miłosierdzia Bożego], called “White Batman,” in Kalisz (photo © Igor Snopek, 2015)

Each church is different. For example, people call this one White Batman. It was also built without machines. An architect collaborated with a mathematician. The construction took place under almost medieval conditions.
Another graph shows the amount of cubic meters of all buildings and all churches built in Poland between 1945 and 2015. Red indicates communist, public buildings, green indicates private homes. The graph shows that even during the best economic times of the communist regime, half of all buildings were private. This means that socialism in Poland never fully worked; the state was weak.
When construction began in Kraków, which I will talk about today, it turned out that the state could not stop the people. They tried, but a wave of resistance always arose. The state was simply too weak to prohibit the construction. All the time it was a kind of game between state power and the people. The state attempted to prevent the construction, but when the church was eventually realized, the communists pretended not to see it.

JK: Yes, maybe, but I wouldn't call it a game. We also have experience with the communist regime and know what methods they used: Intimidation, secret police, threats... for example, that your children would not be accepted to university. Why didn't the regime focus on the leaders and organizers?
KS: First of all, the communist state in Poland really did not have such a strong position. It was never that strong. It was unable to collectivize the countryside; private ownership remained. They could not prohibit the church. In the darkest period of Stalinism, they imprisoned a cardinal for two years; that was probably the worst moment. But after Stalin's death, things relaxed, and the cardinal was released. Polish communism was different from that in other states. The church was not prohibited and functioned as a parallel state, with its own institutions, hierarchy, buildings, everything. We are a very traditional society. Most members of the communist party in Poland came from small villages. They were forcibly relocated from some area in southern Poland to cities.
Initially, the architect went to the regional party leader, and the construction of the church was not permitted. They did not allow it even for the priest, but in the end, everyone pretended that nothing was happening, that they couldn’t see anything. 90% of Poles are believers, truly believers, not just on paper. They go to church, the priest is a real authority. In such a society, the church simply cannot be prohibited; everyone, including representatives of the communist party, were believers.

KP: Do you know of anything comparable in other former Eastern Bloc countries?
KS: I know of something similar in Lithuania. In a part of Lithuania that was originally part of Poland, there was also a very believing and traditional society. As part of the Soviet Union, they were under much stricter control than Poland; churches were really prohibited. Instead, they built something like ceremonial halls – they essentially look like churches, just without a cross. There are stained glass windows; it has a tower, etc. Society simply needs community buildings – in Poland, those were churches, in Lithuania ceremonial halls. That’s how it works; it cannot be prevented.

JK: Of course, in Czechoslovakia, self-built structures also emerged – outside of state institutions – but not on such a scale...
KS: That’s also why I am dealing with this project. I think it’s absolutely unique. I have not seen anything like it anywhere else. Yes, there is informal architecture, like slums, favelas, etc. People build their houses from whatever little they have. But in Poland, that informality functioned on several levels, so paradoxically the buildings almost look formal.

JK: Exactly. That's what amazes me. In Czechoslovakia, for example, thousands of cottages and summer houses were self-built. They also represented an escape from the regime. Everyone went to their cottage on weekends; they could say whatever they wanted there. But cottages, unlike churches, do not function on a symbolic level; they do not have such a scale. Their symbolic significance only arises from their gradual accumulation and quantity. But a church represents a symbol on a huge scale in one place; it simply does not correspond to the image of the communist regime that I know from our country.
KS: You must understand the church in Poland as a parallel state, as if two states were functioning alongside each other. The state’s territorial division is completely different from the ecclesiastical one. The ecclesiastical division is much older, based on communities of believers. In large cities with a higher population density, parishes are smaller; in sparsely populated areas, parishes are larger. The ecclesiastical division is much more organic. A lot of history can be read from ecclesiastical maps.
We worked with statistical data from both state and church institutions – the church has incomparably better and more precise data. The church, as a parallel state, has its own hierarchy, its own "heroes" – churches are named after individual saints, just as street names are named after secular figures. These are completely parallel structures.
After the fall of communism, the church actually has nothing to fight against anymore. It has its own radio and even a television program that about a million people watch. Now you might understand how this was possible. Communism could not destroy the church; the more it tried, the stronger the church's resistance became. When you speak about the symbolic level, architects told us in interviews that they tried to design the buildings as high as possible. It was a competition between the state and the church as to who could build a taller structure. For example, the state allocated land in such a way that the church would not be visible from the main road.

JK: How does the research on the churches proceed? Why did you tackle this topic that no one had addressed before you? When did you sense that it would be such an interesting topic?
KS: What’s interesting about research is that it always takes unexpected directions. You always learn something new. You discover new things, and when you encounter something more interesting, you simply dive into it. You research, and then perhaps you go down another path. With the Architecture of the Seventh Day project, we initially started with the churches themselves – we were amazed by their number. We just wanted to map them all, but then we discovered a much more interesting aspect: the community way of building. So we started exploring community work. Then we became even more interested in the architect's role. They worked under incredibly complex conditions. They had to build something significant almost from nothing, so they had to design a process that was completely different from the current way of working, where architects spend most of their time sitting behind a computer, clicking and saying to themselves, "I hate my job." At that time, of course, they didn’t have computers; everything was drawn by hand, which is complicated in itself, and they also had to organize everything. This is what interests us the most now, so we are conducting interviews with architects and trying to extract the process, the know-how, and reconstruct it. We are trying to create a theoretical model of how to build from nothing.

JK: What other people are involved in the Architecture of the Seventh Day project?
KS: The core team consists of three people – me, Iza, and Karolina. Karolina [Popera] studies architecture, Iza [Cichońska] is an architect, and I am an urban planner. Iza has also been involved with architecture in films. We also collaborate with a photographer, a statistician, and a lot of other people who occasionally help us – consultants from sociology, political studies, etc. I must say that the whole process is based on experiences from Strelka. It is very useful to have an architect or designer in the team who knows how to realize things. Additionally, a very important component of the team is a programmer (coder). I feel that without a programmer, research can no longer be done at all. You really need someone who can create a website, work with data, etc.
When I was a child, all parents taught their children English. There was a prevailing feeling that without English, you wouldn’t achieve anything. I think that currently it should be programming – it's really useful. You will do everything much faster. For example, we have obtained data on built-up area and building volumes, which we could not have done without a programmer. They can extract raster files from Google Maps, and then automatically cut out the built-up area in Photoshop; the size of the area can be obtained from the geographical latitude and longitude. You often think that various things are not possible… But when you collaborate with a programmer, they are able to design a program during the process that will help you solve it. They also designed our website. The website has a very simple concept, and through it, we get stories from people. The page is and will only be in Polish; however, we are preparing a publication in both Polish and English.
When you click on a city on the map, you see the churches located there. We have street view for each church, sometimes photos that people uploaded – for example, from the time of construction. It’s quite simple, but I am satisfied with it.

KP: Do you have any idea of the total number of realized churches?
KS: We have no idea, but when counting the churches, we worked with individual parishes – we contacted all of them one by one to verify whether there is a church in their parish and, if so, from what period it originates. If it was built after 1945, we tried to obtain as much data as possible about it and included it in the database. This way, we found 3,590 churches. Then we created a website and asked Polish media for promotion – we called on people to check our data and help us. Initially, many churches were added, but after about half a year, the activity basically stopped. I believe it was because we simply mapped all the churches. Now we have 3,642.

KP: Does the project also include churches built after the fall of the communist regime?
KS: Yes, all built between 1945 and 2015.

KP: Is the community way of building still practiced?
KS: In a way, yes. It depends on the place. The process has changed quite a bit.

KP: Do churches differ a lot now, when believers no longer have a common enemy against which they have to fight and conceal the church?
KS: Yes, they differ. The architecture is different. Everything has changed, but they are still being built. The biggest wave was in the 80s and 90s. Today, even huge churches of national significance are emerging. That was not possible before. After the regime fell, four such churches were built, and they were also constructed from collections.
Their architecture has changed. The market for materials is now more accessible, and today you can buy anything. But I would say that the quality is declining. Architecture was at a higher level in the 80s – I mean architectural quality. Today, everything can be found, but previously, working only with bricks and concrete was possible – that simplicity has its charm.

JK: Where did you learn to conduct research? At Strelka? It seems that part of your research is also thinking "about the method."
KS: My first research was done in the architectural office BIG. I took part in two research projects – one was the Audi Urban Future Initiative, and the other was Loop City in Copenhagen. Both were very interesting. At Strelka, we started with the deconstruction of research methods – what is the method of research? How to work effectively to make everything function?
During the Architecture of the Seventh Day project, I primarily had to create a database and write instructions because many people were involved in the project. For example, around twenty to thirty students helped us. The process included five simple steps that students were supposed to follow. In the next phase, we obtained photographs of churches from drones, so we had to select churches and learn to work with drones. It was not easy – at least not a year ago. The drone could fly for about ten minutes, but the batteries charged for four hours, so we had to install a second battery in the car as a power source. The drone was then charged while driving. However, since it was a hot summer, we also had to install a refrigerator in the car (the drone's batteries could explode at temperatures above 40°C) – and we needed another battery for that. We also created a program that calculates the route so that we could charge the batteries between individual churches.

Church of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe [Świętego Maksymiliana Marii Kolbego] in Kraków, view from a 45° angle (photo © Igor Snopek, 2015)

We created instructions for the photographer on how to accurately capture the churches – from what height, angle, etc. First, we photographed one church from different angles and selected the most suitable one, then photographed the second church similarly. We then compared the photographs. For example, the weather is very variable, so we decided to capture the churches in such a way that the sky was not visible. With the changing position of the sun, the shade of the sky changes as well, and we would have to photograph the churches always at the same time of day under the same lighting conditions. We thought a lot about the way of photographing. Each church is captured at a 45° angle without horizon so that the church occupies about 1/9 of the photo, and further captured from a height of 120 m, so you can compare the scale of the individual churches. It’s almost like from Google Maps, but more detailed.
 

Church of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe [Świętego Maksymiliana Marii Kolbego] in Kraków, view from a height of 120 m (photo © Igor Snopek, 2015)

When we were doing interviews with architects, we soon realized that we needed to define specific questions to ask. We held extensive discussions about that.
We also wanted to find out what relationship illegally built churches have to the surrounding buildings. Therefore, we mapped all residential areas built in Poland during the communist regime. We also created instructions for that. We cooperate with the media, which significantly facilitates our work. Within a month, we managed to organize students all over Poland to map the blocks of flats. As a result, we have a map of all the residential areas. Nobody had done that before either. In collaboration with a statistician, we collected data – the time of construction, size of residential area and church, etc., and based on this data, we then create graphs.

JK: What will the next step be?
KS: The next step will be to extract know-how on the process of community building from architects. Next year, we would like to build a church ourselves. Either completely free of cost or very cheaply, to see if it is possible.

JK: How do you finance the project? Technology, work, etc. You probably don't work for free, do you?
KS: I work for free because I am interested in it. We received a grant from the Polish Ministry of Culture to carry out an exhibition. It wasn't a lot of money, but we paid for drones from it. My brother took the photographs, so we only needed to cover the costs. He enjoyed traveling around Poland and photographing those crazy churches. Most of the students worked for us for free. They simply wanted to be involved in the project. They could learn a lot from us. We advertised a call for participation in the project in the media, and people signed up themselves. The three of us, the core team, also work for free out of enthusiasm. We are waiting for more grants. We want to publish a book. We are negotiating with two places that support cultural projects and could fund us. But even they won't pay us enough to cover our work.

JK: So this is not your main activity?
KS: It is. The first two years I devoted to the project in my free time; now it is my main interest. I earn money elsewhere – I give lectures, etc. Now we are trying to complete the project, and making money can wait until we are older.
The best thing about it is how we connect people – we work together. There are three of us; we conduct interviews with architects, meet with students… We have a lot of collaborators. Everyone enjoys the project. It’s not like at the university where you work on your PhD alone. We travel around Poland and photograph churches from drones. We talk to many interesting people who have done amazing things. It really makes sense. It’s a rewarding job.

Thank you for the interview.