Monthly Archives: November 2013

Disenchantment in a Wunderkammer: A response to Viviana d’Auria and Elke Beyer

In one of his essays from the 1970s, Ryszard Kapuściński recalled: “When I came back from Africa, nobody asked me: ‘How are Tanzanians in Tanzania doing?’ but: ‘How are Russians in Tanzania doing?’ And instead of asking about Liberians in … Continue reading

Going South to Meet the West? The Blurred Boundaries of Polish (Post)modernism

With the two richly-illustrated exhibition catalogues on Polish architectural practices and their intertwinement with post-colonialism, (post)modernism, socialism, and globalization, Lukasz Stanek offers us a great deal to ponder. He does this with a reader-friendly lightness of style and wonderful documentation … Continue reading

Going South: Travelogues of Architectural Practice from Socialist Globalisation to Postmodernism

PRL™ by Łukasz Stanek claims to be “an exhibition on magazine’s pages” and its sequel Postmodernism Is Almost All Right would be equally justified to do so. In fact, the two publications document two exhibitions shown in Warsaw, in the … Continue reading

Exporting Socialism–Poland and the Global South

Our second book discussion features two recently published exhibition catalogs by Łukasz Stanek: PRL™. Export Architecture and Urbanism from Socialist Poland / Eksport architektury i urbanistyki z Polski Ludowej, Text: Łukasz Stanek / Design: Metahaven, special supplement to Piktogram 15, 2011. Postmodernism Is Almost All Right: Polish Architecture … Continue reading