On Tuesday, 8^th April at 6 pm we would like to invite you to a panel discussion dedicated to the books P1 by Alicja Gzowska and Lidia Klein and P2 edited by Lidia Klein, both published by 40 000 Malarzy.

The guests of the session will be: Krzysztof Bień, architect, Dorota Leśniak-Rychlak (Autoportret magazine and The Maloposka Institute of Culture), Prof. Krystyna Wilkoszewska (Faculty of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University), Piotr Winskowski, PhD (Faculty of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology). The discussion will be chaired by Alicja Gzowska.

The aim of P1 is to delineate basic research problems related to Polish postmodernism and to show its implications for both architecture and the way of thinking about city and space. Its relations with political and social changes taking place in the Polish Third Republic are also important. Texts of architects, art historians and culture experts allow the reader to see that postmodernism cannot be reduced to an outmoded aesthetic convention – a style imported from the West, subsequently trivialized by Polish architects. The analysis of the problem is not only of historical value, however. The changes brought by postmodernism are visible in architecture and urbanism until today. Many discussions which are important nowadays are related to the title topic. They concern both fundamental issues, such as the future of panel buildings and individual projects, such as the land management of Parade Square in Warsaw. Thus studying postmodernism is an attempt to understand the space around us as it is today. A collection of interviews of the same title complements the volume.

P2 is series of interviews with six architects who in various ways have referred to postmodernism in their work. The compilation of opinions of Czesław Bielecki, Marek Budzyński, Jerzy Gurawski, Wojciech Jarząbek, Romuald Loegler and Jakub Wujek shows the way Polish experiences with postmodernism have been shaped. The architects' memories reveal how the theories and formal  solutions created in the West were confronted with technologies available in Poland at the end of the Communist Era and the times of political transformation as well as with the state building norms. The interviews provide a basis for reflections on the way postmodern demands were present in Polish architecture of 1980s and 1990s. An anthology of texts of the same title complements the volume.

During the session the books will be available at special prices: P1 – 35 zł, P2 – 30 zł, a set of two books – 60 zł.

Alicja Gzowska (1986) studies the architecture of engineering structures from 1950s and 1960s in Poland. She is the author of the monograph Szesnaście żelbetowych kwiatów. Dworzec kolejowy w Katowicach (Sixteen Ferroconcrete Flowers. The railway station in Katowice) (2012). She works on an international project concerning the exportation of Polish developments in architecture and urbanism to Middle East and Third World Countries in the times of The People's Republic of Poland. She is a doctoral student and a lecturer at the Faculty of Art History of the University of Warsaw.

Lidia Klein (1983) studies modern architecture. In 2013 she defended her doctoral dissertation at the University of Warsaw. She is a scholar of The Fulbright Foundation and The Foundation for Polish Science. Since 2013 she has continued her education at Duke University. She has taught at the University of Warsaw, the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and School of Form.