below: the Justice Building,Warsaw. At the point of meeting the Warsaw Insurgents’ Monument (left), the columns are crowned with the symbol of the scale of justice (waga), repeated relentlessly until the colonnade embraces the Warsaw Insurgents’ Monument, and the ornament changes into the symbol of the national resistance (the joined letters PW). The same means used for inscriptions of different weight flatten their sig - nificance: names that recall individual and national tragedy and heroism are written in the same hand as the distant Roman law.
The Justice Building in Warsaw, designed by Marek Budzynski and Zbig- niew Badowski and completed in 1999 is arguably the most important civic building erected after the political change of 1989. It is also one of the city’s most controversial projects, dividing the architectural commu- nity and the public at large. 5 The building frames the Krasinskich Square on two sides, paradoxically creating a thoroughfare rather than a plaza. In front of a curtain-walled mass its long colonnade of pre-aged copper- clad columns reads as a continuous surface.The building announces its program and suggests its civic ‘weight’ through the words that are appliquéd in copper lettering on the columns’ corrugated surfaces (right).These are literal representations of jurisprudence — quotations from Roman law rendered in Latin and Polish.The inscriptions, however, can be only read as a visual pattern; for the pedestrian they are not legible. The expansive rhythm of the colonnade overpowers the former seat of Justice (the elegantly modest 17th century Krasinski Palace) and extends to surround the heavy-handed Warsaw Insurgents’ Monument.While nodding to historical referents it claims to ‘stand at attention in tribute to the culture of past times.’ 6 The building seems preoccupied with its surface(s). Its architecture seeks explicitly to communicate impor- tance and notions associated with justice. Although it proclaims lateral connections, communication and transparency, the building’s potentially meaningful message(s) are stripped of potency when translated into textual patterns and reflective surfaces. It is the connection that architecture is able to make with its public that creates its weight, its importance, its waga . When architecture aspires to be read as a text, when it becomes a surface for inscription or a site for mere message display, it looses its gravity. To quote Daniel Willis,‘Architecture is not so much like a language as it is like the poetic use of a language.’ 7 It is its arrested gesture, or emotion (not in any literal proclamations or semantic games) that architectural meaning takes place. 1 The gravity of language, its sounds, symbols and textures change from one place to the next. According to a Hindi proverb, ‘language changes every eighteen or twenty miles.’ Robert McCrum,William Cran, Robert MacNail, The Story of English. New York:Viking,1989. p 21. 2 The Bureau of Architecture and Urbanism. Toronto Modern: Architecture 1945-1965. Toronto:The Coach House Press, 1987. p 78;William Dendy and William Kilbourn, Toronto Observed: its architecture, patrons, and history. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1986. p 268. 3 Magdalena Wojtuch, ‘Werdykty i uklady ñ jak dzialaja sady konkursowe?’ In Architektura—Murator , 1/2000, 56-59. 4 This was asked of the architects in the competition statement. Nick and Helma Mika, Portrait of Toronto City Hall. Belleville, ON: Mika Silk Screening Limited, 1967. 11. 5 ‘Sad Najwyzszy’, Architectura Murator , 1/2000 (64) 12-33. 6 And the reference to the Doric order is meant to signify ‘the solemnity of things final.’ Witold Jerzy Molicki, ‘Przejrzysta sprawiedliwosc i przejrzyste sumienie.’ 30-34. Architektura & Biznes , July 2000 no. 2 (91) 33. 7 Daniel Willis. The Emerald City and Other Essays on the Architectural Imagination. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. p 57.
Ella Chmielewska was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland. Originally trained as an engineer, she later directed her attention to design and visual culture. She holds a Masters in Urban Planning and a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from McGill University. She is currently a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. Aliki Economides was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She holds a professional Bachelor degree in architecture from the University of Toronto, and a Masters in the His- tory and Theory of Architecture from McGill University. She is currently the Coordinator of the Study Centre at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.
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