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Planning to be in Warsaw this May?

Starting the 21st, you can see an exhibit here that features the work of Mr UD‘s father, Jerzy Soltan.

Margaret Soltan, January 6, 2018 1:41PM
Posted in: snapshots from warsaw

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4 Responses to “Planning to be in Warsaw this May?”

  1. dmf Says:

    I’ll have to look into his work, you might find this interesting:
    http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/interview-with-esther-leslie-for-marxist-poetics-science

  2. Polish Peter Says:

    Indeed, I would find it interesting, and if I’m there later this year, I’ll check it out. To get some idea of the context in which Jerzy Sołtan was working after World War II, check out the photos taken by Henry Cobb, now one of the principals of Pei, Cobb, and Freed (yes, I.M. Pei), but in 1947 a young architecture student who went to Poland on a study trip. They appear to have arrived unexpectedly, and the Red authorities didn’t have a chance to organize a proper chaperone, so Henry was able to take color slides of everything in sight. These slides then sat in his closet for decades. They finally saw the light of day a few years ago in an exhibit called The Colour of Ruins (Barwy Ruin), and a sample can be seen here: http://milimetr.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/WARSAW_AUGUST_1947_CHenryNCobb.pdf . There’s a nice book that came out of the exhibit, but it’s hard to find in the US (I got it on interlibrary loan to check it out.)

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Polish Peter: I’ve copied your entire comment to Mr UD. Thanks.

  4. Polish Peter Says:

    To my knowledge, this is the only color documentation of scenes that we normally have only seen in black and white. Henry designed a building at my university, and we enjoyed working with him. In another strange twist, on a flight from Warsaw to London in 1977, I found myself sitting next to an architect whom I believe to have been Helena Syrkus (I didn’t get her name, but the pieces fit) who told me a bit about her work in this era. As we took off, she looked out over Warsaw with evident satisfaction.

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