Interview with Przemo Łukasik from Medusa Group

You founded the Medusa Group office more than a quarter of a century ago in the Polish city of Bytom, which lies halfway between Chorzów and Zabrze, from where you come. Was the decision to establish the studio that simple?
Medusa Group consists of a group of designers that we have gradually gathered around our projects. We founded our studio right after our studies in Poland and Paris. As students, we worked in various studios and participated in many competitions. This was how we tried to gain our first experiences. We did our internships in Berlin and Paris. We worked in the Paris offices of Odile Decq and Jean Nouvel.
It should be mentioned that it was the 1990s when the internet was crawling slowly, and computer programs like Revit or 3D Studio MAX were not yet available.
Initially, we were based in small spaces in Gliwice, and later we moved our studio to a large attic warehouse in Bytom. The empty industrial building in the city center originally served as a workshop.
We have tried to adapt it to our needs and also express our thoughtful approach to design, which respects the context, responds to users' needs, utilizes a limited budget, and takes advantage of the existing potential of the building.

Bytom is one of the oldest cities in Upper Silesia, but currently it is going through a period of the end of coal mining and heavy industry. How is the city, its residents, and you dealing with this?
Bytom is my hometown. Its history is truly very long, and its character is closely tied to industrial production. It has beautiful architecture, not just the industrial kind. There are significant buildings of the Silesian Opera, ballet schools, music schools, churches, and beautiful Art Nouveau tenements. This city has suffered a lot when coal was mined from beneath its foundations and taken to heat many households in Poland and abroad. Gradually, its buildings began to decay. When the time of economic and political changes came and almost all mines were closed, its community began to suffer. People lost their jobs, and industrial buildings began to stand empty.
Today, they are struggling to find a new perspective and revive the post-industrial substance with life again.
I moved with my young family to a former lamp factory in the mining area twenty years ago and still live there. Here, I raised my sons, who are now studying architecture. I believe that the place where they grew up is not only a personal experience for them that post-industrial architecture can serve different purposes, but it can also contribute to alleviating environmental impacts. The historical continuity of this landscape is also significant.

In the vicinity of Bytom, you are realizing buildings for auditing firms or game development companies that have succeeded in transitioning to digitalization and the new economy. How common is this model?
In Bytom, we have designed several apartment buildings that are currently under construction. We are advocating for buildings important to local culture, such as the Szombierki heating plant or the now solitary Krystyna mining tower, to remain in the city's silhouette. These are remnants of heavy industry that should be preserved for future generations. Activities at the intersection of architecture and artistic installations are often a way for us to communicate to the public the need to care for these buildings. I believe they will have a positive effect and that these buildings will continue to tell the story of my city, Bytom.

One of your first realizations was your own residence. The so-called 'Bolko loft' utilizes the former building used for cleaning lamps by miners. At the same time, you also recycled a staircase tower from another construction site. This sparked interest. Something like this was not seen in Poland. Did other investors also emerge who would embark on a similar adventure?
My own Bolko Loft house today represents a manifesto, even though I never planned it. I moved into it twenty years ago and raised my sons in it. When I was converting this old lamp factory into our home, I used an old staircase from another building and other recycled materials. My house recycles parts of a decommissioned industrial plant.
Today, we all calculate CO2 consumption and naturally care about the environment. At that time, I only thought about how to furnish a home for my children on a small budget. I did not know that a pandemic, economic crisis, and war in Ukraine awaited us and that we would have to design and build more responsibly. Now we know that the most ecological building is the one that was not built. The second in line is the one that already exists and needs to be cleverly adapted.

The interview originally appeared in the magazine Intro 25 - Kov.