Artisanal Microclimates: at the Intersection of Architecture, Nature, and Collective Memory

The lecture explores CENTRALA’s research into memoryscapes and artisanal microclimates, investigating how architecture can partner with the forces of nature and influence the very air we breathe. It considers how built environments do more than provide shelter, instead actively shaping the sensory and climatic conditions of everyday life. Through this lens, architecture becomes a practice of atmosphere-making as much as space-making. The talk draws on the layered history of Warsaw to illustrate how collective memory is embedded in materials, landscapes, and urban form. Particular attention is given to the work of Bohdan Lachert, whose architectural thinking engaged deeply with the social and material context of the city. The lecture also reflects on the contributions of landscape architect Alina Scholtz, whose projects demonstrated how greenery and terrain could participate in shaping urban climate. Their work serves as an entry point into a broader discussion about how heritage practices can cultivate shared atmospheres. Another historical layer examined in the lecture is the postwar regulation of the Vistula River, where the immense wreckage left after the World War II was reused to stabilize riverbanks and reshape the water’s course. This transformation is understood as a symbiotic and metabolic process, in which destruction was reabsorbed into the environment and redirected toward the making of new ecologies. The river landscape thus becomes a palimpsest—an assemblage of culturally driven decisions that simultaneously produced new climatic conditions for the city. The lecture also introduces the work of Zespoł Wisła, an office that operated throughout socialist Poland and beyond, dedicated to large-scale infrastructures and landscape strategies for water bodies around Warsaw. Its plans reveal how technical expertise, hydrology, and landscape design were mobilized to shape the metropolitan climate and public space in and around water. Examining these projects highlights how microclimates can be intentionally crafted through materials, vegetation, water management, and air movement. Building on these examples, the lecture introduces the notion of “celestial architecture,” which frames the sky as a collective home shaped by the interactions of environment, memory, and infrastructure. In this view, the atmospheres above us are not abstract but the result of historical, ecological, and cultural processes. Ultimately, the talk proposes that caring for atmosphere—both literally and metaphorically—can guide a more conscious dwelling in our planet between memory, climate, and collective responsibility.

The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous interpretation.

Speakers:
CENTRALA — a Warsaw-based research architecture studio founded by Małgorzata Kuciewicz and Simone De Jacobis. Their practice combines architectural design, research, and curatorial projects, engaging with themes of memory, materiality, and the interaction between architecture and natural processes. CENTRALA’s work includes research and exhibition initiatives focused on post-war architecture, the history of exhibition design, and the interaction of cities with natural processes. Drawing on the legacy of Warsaw designers — Zofia and Oskar Hansen, Viola and Jacek Damięcki, and Alina Scholtz — they revive forgotten knowledge for contemporary practice: the grammar of Polish exhibition design in the 1950s–60s, a shared post-war modernist vocabulary, and the application of hydrobotany in architecture. Through their engagement with memory and materiality, the studio also initiates public discussions on the preservation of post-war architectural heritage. Guided by the idea of “Amplifying Nature,” CENTRALA develops projects exploring the interrelationship between architecture and natural processes. For them, architecture is understood as a flow rather than a static form: its building elements include gravity, water circulation, atmospheric and astronomical phenomena. In this vision, architecture that bridges the human scale with the planetary scale can attune us to the rhythms of the world, enhance our sense of connection to nature, and enable us to experience its fragile and fleeting cycles.

CENTRALA won the FUTUWAWA – How We Will Live in the Warsaw of the Future competition (2021). Their projects have been presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018, 2023), London Design Biennale (2021), Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2022), and the Gwangju Biennale (2023). Since 2017, they have collaborated regularly with the Kharkiv School of Architecture.

Simone De Jacobis — an Italian architect, researcher, and co-founder of CENTRALA in Warsaw. His practice explores the interplay between architecture, natural processes, and environmental phenomena. His projects often integrate architectural design with atmospheric, hydrological, and astronomical phenomena, treating space as a dynamic system. Together with CENTRALA, he develops installations, research projects, and architectural concepts that enhance human sensitivity to natural rhythms and environmental change.

Małgorzata Kuciewicz — a Polish architect, curator, and researcher, co-founder of CENTRALA. Her work focuses on how natural phenomena — water, air, light, and gravity — shape architectural space and human experience. In her projects, she often works with installation and exhibition formats, presenting interdisciplinary research combining architecture, art, and science. Her practice reconsiders architecture as a process closely linked to the ecological cycles of the planet.

Event co-organizer: Polish Graphic Design

Partner of Kharkiv School of Architecture Public Program: Lviv Cultural Hub

The event is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Institute in Kyiv.

Location:
“Lviv Cultural Hub,” 6 Kniazia Romana Street, Lviv

Date:
March 27

Time:
6:30 PM