Abstract
One of the characteristic features of the architectural landscape of the Stalinist era in Poland (post 1949) was the widespread use
of standard designs. Initially these were not part of the propaganda of socialist realist architecture. The ideological justification of the
use of standard designs as a “reflection of the era in which they arise” only began in 1953. During the following three years, a period
in which the slow process of undermining Stalinist dogmas in architecture took place, supplanted by an openly technocratic vision of
an industrialized architecture, the problem of standard designs regularly arose in contemporary discourse. One aspect was the growing
criticism of the monotony of housing estates erected throughout the country by the state Workers Housing Department. The issue of these
typical projects also came up at the National Conference of Architects in March 1956, where severe criticisms of socialist realism were
voiced. The criticism arising from the architects’ milieu was heard alongside positive assessments from those close to the construction
industry, who saw standard projects as instruments for producing an “architectural background worthy of a socialist society” in the Polish
landscape. The adoption of “theses on typification” in 1959 (probably unwittingly repeating the words used by Hermann Muthesius
in 1914) by the team of Władysław Gomułka finally terminated this period of intellectual fermentation, administratively imposing the
use of standard projects and industrialised building technologies.One of the characteristic features of the architectural landscape of the Stalinist era in Poland (post 1949) was the widespread use
of standard designs. Initially these were not part of the propaganda of socialist realist architecture. The ideological justification of the
use of standard designs as a “reflection of the era in which they arise” only began in 1953. During the following three years, a period
in which the slow process of undermining Stalinist dogmas in architecture took place, supplanted by an openly technocratic vision of
an industrialized architecture, the problem of standard designs regularly arose in contemporary discourse. One aspect was the growing
criticism of the monotony of housing estates erected throughout the country by the state Workers Housing Department. The issue of these
typical projects also came up at the National Conference of Architects in March 1956, where severe criticisms of socialist realism were
voiced. The criticism arising from the architects’ milieu was heard alongside positive assessments from those close to the construction
industry, who saw standard projects as instruments for producing an “architectural background worthy of a socialist society” in the Polish
landscape. The adoption of “theses on typification” in 1959 (probably unwittingly repeating the words used by Hermann Muthesius
in 1914) by the team of Władysław Gomułka finally terminated this period of intellectual fermentation, administratively imposing the
use of standard projects and industrialised building technologies.
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