Kim była Eleonora Sekrecka? - Marta Sękulska-Wrońska i Zuzanna Jastrzębska

Architektura Powinna

This episode explores the life and architectural legacy of Eleonora Sekrecka, a pioneering female architect involved in the post-war reconstruction of

Key takeaways

• Eleonora Sekrecka was the primary architect of the Latawiec estate within Warsaw's MDM district.
• Marta Sękulska-Wrońska has been a partner at the WXCA architectural workshop for 18 years.

Main topics

• Eleonora Sekrecka's architectural legacy
• Post-war reconstruction of Warsaw

Notable quotes

If Eleonora could do it, so could I.

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates that historical figures can provide timeless

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) My dears, my name is Klaudia Lachcik and you are listening to the podcast Architecture Should. Today two, although it turns out that actually three guests. I am talking to Marta Senkulska-Wrońska and Zuzanna Jastrzębska. Speaker 3 (0:15) But really, since I met Eleonora, with each of our challenges or challenges with the design, which not only requires the skill of design, but also the skill of diplomacy, the skill of finding a way to communicate with another person. I always think to myself that if Eleonora could do it, so could I. I Speaker 1 (0:44) am curious about how all these processes looked from her perspective and how it was to find yourself in all this and also be as a mediator between all these parties. Speaker 2 (0:59) Marta Synkulska-Wrońska is an architect and partner in the Warsaw office of WXCA. She is an graduate of the Department of Architecture and Urbanism of the Warsaw University of Technology, a member of the Collegium of Judges of the SARP Competition and the Architects' Council. In 2019-2023 she served as the president of the Warsaw SARP department. However, Zuzanna Jastrzębska is a student of architecture, studying at UCL in England and currently at the University of Delft in the Netherlands. In turn, the third guest is the hero of our episode, Eleonora Sekrecka, and she has just become the point of our conversation. And the architects Marta and Zuzanna watched the secret life who designed Warsaw both before the war and engaged in rebuilding the capital. Eleonora Sekrecka is not a recognizable architect, as much as she should be, because she designed one of the most recognizable and today appreciated settlements in Warsaw, the Latawiec estate from the 1950s. So, although the Latawiec estate is part of the MdM, the Marszałkowska District, you can see that it is different from the rest of the MdM in terms of the character, construction and architecture. It is more French, luxurious. However, not only Sekrecka is an architect who was architecturally involved in the reconstruction of Warsaw, who worked in the City Reconstruction Office. It is worth adding names such as Nina Jankowska, Anatolia Hryniewicka-Piotrowska or Halina Skibniewska. Among other things, these architects were the heroes of the exhibition in the Warsaw Zodiac Pavilion, the exhibition entitled Speaker 2 (3:08) My dear, I invite you to talk to Marta Synkulska-Wrońska and Zuzanna Jastrzębska. Speaker 3 (3:16) I Speaker 2 (3:17) would like to ask you, because I am very curious myself, what is currently occupying you most professionally? What kind of activities or projects, what kind of searches are currently cleaning your head the most? Speaker 3 (3:38) Well, I counted this year that it has been 18 years since I am part of WXCA, so the workshop is full-time and I can tell you that I don't feel it yet. We do quite large projects, we work very teamily and this is what shapes the image of architecture that I have, that is, such architecture. Speaker 3 (4:10) which is very group, team and for the community, but also always strongly based in a multidimensional context. And it was probably also a filter through which I looked at our hero Eleonora Sekrecka. Speaker 1 (4:31) I am currently finishing my studies. on the master level. At this point of the year, I'm actually finishing a small, short project before this final, major, major diploma project. Mainly in this project, we lean on different ecosystems. Speaker 1 (5:01) the whole ecology of ecosystems, all the actors who are connected to various processes in them. We are studying how different mechanisms in these ecosystems work and our basis of analysis. At the moment, there is Venice, which is terribly controversial. Speaker 1 (5:30) controversial location, architectural, because a lot is happening there, various processes. And it is also a city where the entire architectural attention of the world is focused, also largely due to Biennale. And we are trying to look for, so to speak, more precise questions. than solutions. Our main goal is to create interventions, but not necessarily design by itself. Nothing that Speaker 2 (6:11) is there Speaker 1 (6:11) at this moment will lock my head for the most part. The Speaker 2 (6:16) pretext for our conversation was the exhibition in the Warsaw Zodiac Pavilion, which was dedicated to... women who rebuilt, designed and changed Warsaw and other Polish cities, mainly after the war. And one of the duets consisting of a renowned architect and the environment that enters the architectural world is you. And you chose Podlupę, as Marta already mentioned, as a work by Eleonora Sekrecka. And the first question, why this architect, perhaps not the most obvious and not the most well-known architect, became a source of search and inspiration for you? And what were you really looking for there? Or what did you really want to learn about her? Speaker 3 (7:13) Eleonora Speaker 2 (7:14) probably Speaker 3 (7:14) found us. Speaker 3 (7:18) Honestly, I don't remember how it was from the perspective of time, that we were dealing with it. However, we were drawn by the fact that we didn't know it Speaker 2 (7:31) at all. Speaker 3 (7:31) And in Warsaw, the Speaker 2 (7:35) buildings that she built are Speaker 3 (7:38) very significant. For example, the Latawiec estate. Speaker 3 (7:46) at the Warsaw MDM. We wanted to learn more about the person who was missing in the textbooks. So we started to study her character, her life, looking for source documents. Speaker 3 (8:12) Eleonora was a member of the Warsaw Sarp. Thanks to that, we found some materials about her in the archives of the Warsaw Sarp. There are very few memories on the Internet. Speaker 3 (8:34) which were mutually contradictory. We discovered Eleonora a little, we gave her interpretation, her work and her life, complementing the gaps that we did not find in Speaker 2 (8:55) the source materials. Speaker 3 (8:58) She was very colorful and ambiguous. We were also very interested in discovering how multilayered her life was. We noticed that it certainly had an impact on her creativity. For me personally, she also became a mentor. So you could say that it was a three-generation mentoring program. Because it really worked after all and with its activity showed that you can Speaker 2 (9:41) do Speaker 3 (9:41) anything, there will Speaker 2 (9:44) always Speaker 3 (9:44) be a way and the spirit Speaker 2 (9:48) of Speaker 3 (9:48) the creator will always come out. Speaker 2 (9:51) Exactly. Can you tell us a little bit more about what the secretive professional life looked like? How did it find its place in post-war reality, in various, basically strong contexts and various ideological conditions? Speaker 3 (10:12) It is worth mentioning that it was already active before the war. Speaker 1 (10:18) From what we have learned, she ran her own workshop for Speaker 3 (10:23) the Speaker 1 (10:23) design of residential houses. And for those times it was amazing for us that she was actually designing herself. That is, she was an independent designer in the environment. And Speaker 3 (10:39) full Speaker 1 (10:39) of Speaker 3 (10:40) women. Speaker 1 (10:40) Yes, and full of women. who runs her own studio, her own office. There are many characters from that time who have come out of nowhere. Speaker 1 (10:57) They cooperated with other designers in the workshops. There are many characters who performed in duets with their husbands or other famous architects. That's why it's amazing for us that... Leonora seemed to be very independent and modern to us, as it was in those days. She was really incredibly entrepreneurial and she was realized in architecture independently from the very beginning. Later, of course, the war came and a lot of things changed, but she continued later. It was still a very independent organization. It was another element that fascinated us. Speaker 3 (12:08) It was part of the city's reconstruction office. My colleagues and I came to Lublin to assess the damage and what could be done. Speaker 3 (12:20) but after two years she worked in the United Architectural Works. There were also changes, that she was a link between the world of architects and the world of the then government. We noted that she distributed projects among her colleagues. Speaker 3 (12:45) She was a high-ranking investor and a designer. She was a business angel