This album of photographs by Czesław Olszew­ski is a unique cul­tural testament to the decade just prior to the out­break of World War II. It is a fascinating voyage to the “Warsaw of the future” via the city’s moder­nist architec­ture.
The album is an attempt to revive the integrity of the Warsaw Architec­ture School of the inter­war period. Yet it is also a nar­rative of the visionary moder­nist per­spec­tive, of how architec­ture creates a new spatial and aesthetic order, and how photography invokes an awareness of this order within us.
The album presents close to 300 archive photographs of selec­ted architec­tural struc­tures in Warsaw, inc­luding public buil­dings, residen­tial estates and villas, as well as the moder­nised high­ways of the 1930s. These photographs were scan­ned from the original, glass negatives. When possible, the photographer’s original frames were restored on the basis of existing notes.
The album is preceded by an essay by Profes­sor Marta Leśniakowska and Piotr Jamski, specialists at the Art Institute at the Polish Academy of Scien­ces (PAN). The text casts a closer look at the life and works of photographer Czesław Olszew­ski, and also explores the significance and specific charac­ter of architec­tural photography as a historical document.