I would also like to emphasize that the essence of my work is not an analysis of the historical development of architecture from the times of the Polish People’s Republic, nor an attempt to catalog those styles and examples of existing or non-existent buildings and building complexes. This will be much better done by experts who successively publish publications devoted to the architecture of the second half of the 20th century in Poland. However, I do not hide the fact that I will repeatedly cite numerous examples of construction based on those sources, such as the publications of Przemysław Szafer entitled: “New Polish Architecture. Diary of the years 1966-1970”, or “Durability? Usefulness? Beauty?” edited by Agnieszka Zabłocka – Kłos, and many others. Undoubtedly, it is important for my dissertation to determine, or rather discover, where the new idea and new perspective on the shaping of post-war architecture in the Polish People’s Republic come from, and what are the consequences of this. What is behind this dynamic progression, which took place mainly in the 60s, 70s and 80s of the last century? What slogans and ideas, philosophical trends and social and civilizational revolutions had an impact on the development discussed, undoubtedly modern. Where did such enormous construction and economic progress come from, and what was its quality? In my opinion, the most important question should be directed towards the cause-and-effect aspect of construction, which shapes the space for the life of an individual and the entire society. Reflecting on the differences between what was supposed to be and what was is one of the keys to understanding the content of my dissertation. Undoubtedly, the concept of utopia and myth will be intertwined as synonyms, in order to decamouflage the idea of ​​fix, as an attempt to deceive man at the expense of his freedom. In this contemplation and analysis of the issues of architecture in the Polish People’s Republic, we can often come across paradoxes and contradictions resulting from natural life processes, which are helpful in assessing the identity of this architecture, and consequently of civilization. We can say that the space in which a person lives and functions is a reflection of their mental and cultural condition, and thus architecture is a reflection of this condition of society. If we start using this method of deciphering, stratifying the reflected image, bearing in mind that the essence is what is reflected, we can get closer to the truth. Because it is the truth that is the basic, inseparable part of human nature, which will always accompany them in order to detach the world that surrounds them.

The identity of the architecture of the Polish People’s Republic is a complex issue, bringing with it an industrial, intellectual and cultural revolution, as well as a socio-economic one. The pillar of these changes is the clear and distinct development of the concept of modernism, which, together with its representatives, influenced almost entirely the new form and function in the architecture of the 20th century. Its leading representative was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, known as Le Corbusier, an outstanding architect, ideologist, revolutionary. The current of thought flowing with Le Corbusier’s manifestos clashed at the same moment with the idea of ​​Soviet Constructivism, which was not by accident born in the era of social revolutions in Tsarist Russia, and subsequently Bolshevik – Soviet. The October Revolution was predicted in the earlier work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels entitled: “The Communist Manifesto” from 1848, as the necessity of the clash of social classes as a result of their wars with each other, which was to result in the creation of an ideal society of proletarian communism. The new worker as a proletarian became the main hero of the communist state of the Polish People’s Republic. If architecture is created as a result of social needs, and such needs appeared in a new meaning of construction and structure, then the new architecture responds to each of their assumptions. If the proletariat class was to develop on the foundation of an economy stripped of property, i.e. the new citizen became equal to others from the perspective of social class, then the nature of construction was subordinated to this assumption. But what was our hero supposed to be like, since modernist architecture in the approach of Corbusier assumed the development of consciousness through contact with the ideal proportion in the composition of the image, as the landscape of architecture¹? Subjected to the idea of ​​equality and the development of consciousness through contact with the surrounding city landscape, he was put in a new light of the process of dialectical evolution. Has the emerging myth of the proletarian, as the person of the future of a new, better and equal world, not in reality turned into a utopia? Has the architecture that assumed the concept of “open form”², the massive development of construction, multifunctionality and collectivity, including the improvement of social hygiene conditions, turned out to be perfect? ​​Can we say today, with hindsight, that these modern social assumptions brought the expected results? The answer to these questions is key to putting forward the thesis about utopia, which I will deal with in the series of paintings, as a set of concepts based on the myth described above.