Interview with Zupagrafika
Friend FunctionHow did you come to the idea of creating design based on Soviet-era architecture?
We started as a design studio specializing in editorial design and graphic design applied to architecture. Simultaneously, we began to create and publish illustrated interactive books on Polish post-war modernist architecture in response to a rapid disappearance of this type of architecture that has been either demolished or thoughtlessly renovated. That was our way to preserve those buildings in their original form. We then launched follow ups with other countries.
Since we started Zupagrafika in 2012, we have been travelling, photographing and illustrating post-war modernist and brutalist architecture, in the former Eastern Bloc and western Europe. The documentation of the districts and buildings that we visited during the last decade has been the main inspiration for the books we create and publish. Our publications include photography, illustration and cardboard models books.
The architecture of the socialist era or the “PRL” (The Polish People's Republic) is still present in our everyday life. The cities in Poland are surrounded by huge prefabricated panel block estates that are home to hundreds of thousands of city dwellers to this day. Martyna was born in the mid-1980s, and like many folks from this generation, was raised in a Wielka Płyta estate (prefabricated blocks of flats in Polish). You can see many different examples of this kind of prefab construction in our books. We admire the composition and design of those buildings and the architects behind them, and perceive them as peculiar pieces of art.
We perceive the brutalist and modernist buildings and complexes featured in our books as the anti-heroes of modern architecture. In particular, the housing estates might often be viewed as homogeneous grey masses of concrete, but rich diversity can be found in their design and urban planning. Many of those structures reflect the dreams and ideals of a controversial era. We try to portray them to help us better understand post-war Eastern Europe (and beyond), its dreams and utopias, failures and success.
Our books are a way of creating an archive or documentation of what we see around. We have worked out a very detailed style of illustration to display the original facades of the buildings as they were constructed, but also featuring all kinds of peculiarities present on their facades as a result of the passing of time or human intervention - like TV antennas, window curtains, graffiti or patches of dirt.
Do you know what are the strangest places on earth where panel buildings were erected?
There is a common preconception about post-war modernist and brutalist architecture, especially the housing estates. At first glance the blocks of flats seem to be identical everywhere you go from Moscow to East Berlin. But if you look a bit closer, you will see these standardised typologies have their own unique character in every single country. In fact most of the housing projects designed to be copied and pasted all around the former Eastern Bloc were locally modified and adjusted to every region’s/town’s/country's needs. There is huge diversity to be found in architectural structures from this period of time, the otherworldly concrete grand designs born in the former USSR being the best case in point. Just look at the cosmic shapes that were created out of steel and concrete in the past era.
Even more diversity can be found in the UK, France or Italy. Modernist style started by Le Corbusier was practised in western Europe already in the 1930s but after WWII it started to develop on a mass scale for the same reasons as it did behind the Iron Curtain. Modernist ideas of collective living and minimalist functional design were of course perfectly suited for communal needs, but they also turned out to be the best response to the new reality where all European governments needed to address the same housing shortage and provide quick and cheap flats for the masses.
Do common panel dwellers are surprised by such an interest towards their housing?
After we finished each book containing paper models, we found great joy in photographing the models on location, in front of the buildings they represented. We would ask the inhabitants if we could take their portraits holding the models of their houses. We carefully listened to their stories, anecdotes about the communities they inhabited, thoughts on their blocks and the living conditions they offered.
“The Tenants” also celebrates the 10th anniversary of Zupagrafika and features over 40 housing projects in 37 different cities of the former Eastern Bloc and ex-Yugoslavia.
Through the journey leading up to the publication of this volume, we learned a lot from the people whose everyday lives revolve around the ‘sleeping districts.’ It was gripping to discover how uniform their feelings were about the estates they inhabit all across this vast area under study. From the former East Germany to Siberia, and all the way through Kazakhstan to the Baltic states, the inhabitants would unanimously praise the large green spaces, children’s playgrounds and public transport, and frequently complain about the technical state of the buildings, such as poor thermal insulation or maintenance.
What do you think is the right future for these buildings? Should they be preserved somehow or demolished and rebuilt?
These buildings are definitely part of our heritage, and witnesses of a very peculiar era. They are also ingrained in a collective memory of so many of us from our generation born and raised between the 1970s and the 1990s. Panel blocks, wielka płyta, panelki, panelak, Plattenbau, or panelhaz, call it however you like, but the grey geometric panel of concrete with a window inside is a symbol of the bygone times almost all around the globe.
The inevitable consequence of those buildings that were constructed quickly and cheap in the burning housing crisis after WWII, is that today they often are in a poor condition and require more and more expensive maintenance which makes local authorities question their future. It is often their decision to demolish those and build new dwellings instead of investing in renovation. Again, we try to preserve them at least on paper.
Do people need to love panelki to buy your books?
I guess not, they might hate them and still want to have our books on their shelves. But seriously, seeing those blocks on a small scale might change their mind, when you feel overwhelmed by the omnipresent panel blocks, perhaps building a small version of it and putting it on your desk can help you like them a bit more.
What is the main purpose of buying your books: extension of self-collection, present to a friend, fun, professional interest?
We can only guess our books are for those appreciating the beauty of the ordinary, and willing to explore what we might not necessarily notice on a daily basis, from a new and playful perspective. We think that it might be the unexpected amusement our readers find in our books that portray objects we tend to think are nothing special or surroundings that are considered dull. So yes, self-collection, present to a friend, fun, professional interest, everything you enumerated pretty much.
Could you tell us a few words about your other projects, like creating merchandise based on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet?
In our early days, as a graphic design studio we would do typography based projects, such as a lettering workshops or a design of a prefabricated panel inspired font for one of the modernist housing estates in Poznań, Poland, based on the form of the vitreo mosaic tiles originally present on the buildings' facades before their thermo-modernization. We would also design an illustrated modernist alphabet Blokografia to cut out and assemble back in 2012, and a Hebrew alphabet for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Our other projects included prefab panel nesting blocks for birds, and polaroid-like snapshots of the unseen urban parts to unveil, called Hidden Cities, the series includes London, Berlin, Warsaw and Moscow.
Is there anything new you are working on right now?
We continue to explore different angles of post-war modernist architecture, travelling and photographing in all corners of the world. A publication on the architecture of Hong Kong is our next title to come out this year.
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All answers by David Navarro and Martyna Sobecka (Zupagrafika)