Poland

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Design

A Mesmerizing Glow-in-the-Dark Bike Path Unveiled in Poland

Seeking to make bike paths safer and more accessible in the evening and night hours, urban planners in Lidzbark Warminski, Poland just unveiled a new glow-in-the-dark bike lane. The path is made from small crystal-like particles of phosphor called ‘luminophores’ that charge during sunlight hours and can glow for up to 10 hours. The lane was built by TPA Instytut Badań Technicznych Sp. z o.o who were partially inspired by Studio Roosegaarde’s stunning solar-powered bike path in the Netherlands mentioned here in 2014. Unlike the Netherland’s concept which uses solar-powered LEDs, this new path in Poland requires no external power source. The design is currently being tested to see how it withstands regular wear and tear. You can read more over on Inhabitat.

Art

Artist Leon Tarasewicz Covers the Poland National Gallery’s Great Hall Staircase in Splatter Paint

The Great Hall during the exhibition “Polish Painting of the 21st Century,” Leon Tarasewicz, 2006, photo: Sebastian Madejski. All images via We Are Museums

Back in 2006, Warsaw’s National Gallery of Art, Zachęta, held a group exhibition titled “Polish Painting of the 21st Century.” Painter Leon Tarasewicz contributed a site-specific work to the 60-artist exhibition, redoing the museum’s Great Hall in a bath of red, yellow, blue, and green splatter paint. The work splattered the stairs and crept up the surrounding walls, creating a dramatic entrance for anyone entering the exhibition. (via ArchAtlas which was inexplicably deleted by Tumblr last week?)

Art

A Colorful Organic Blob Overtakes a 100-Year-Old Building Facade in Lodz

Hyperbolic, 2016. Wire armature, rip-stop water proof and UV protective nylon, cable ties.

Artist Crystal Wagner just unveiled her latest site-specific installation titled “Hyperbolic” in Lodz, Poland, a piece that creates an unusual juxtaposition of an unwieldy organic growth against the backdrop of a 100-year-old art nouveau facade. Wagner is known for her large-scale mixed-media installations using a variety of materials like braided nylon, wire mesh, and cable ties that create colorful forms affixed to buildings or suspended from galleries. This latest work was created for the UNIQA Art Lodz project curated by Michal Biezynski.

You can see more of Wagner’s work on Instagram and at Hashimoto Contemporary. Hyperbolic will remain on view through December, 2016 and you can see more photos of it on StreetArtNews. (thnx, alley!)

Art Design

Reinvigorating Wroclaw’s Riverside With Site-Specific Chair Installations

All images via No Studio

Collaborative duo No Studio, comprised of Polish artists Magda Szwajcowska and Michal Majewski, have placed several architectural interventions in their native city of Wrocław in an attempt to repopulate an area that has become forgotten about and neglected. The project fits site-specific chairs onto concrete stairs that lead to the city’s river, bright blue furniture that also acts as loveseat sunbeds for passersby. The pieces are installed as a part of the DOFA 2016 Lowersilesian Festival of Architecture, which is comprised of works around this year’s slogan of “Spaces for Beauty.”

You can view more of No Studio’s miniature architectural works on their website. (via Designboom)

Art Illustration

Architectural Watercolors of a Dreamlike Warsaw by Tytus Brzozowski

Architect and watercolorist Tytus Brzozowski imagines a dreamlike world where giant structures rest on towering stilts and trains seem to emerge from tunnels in the side of residential buildings. Unusual motifs like dice and teapots dot the landscape (or float through the air), and yet everything seems in its place, a credibility attributed to elements lifted directly from the architecture seen on the streets of Warsaw, Poland. Brzozowski refers to his watercolor paintings as “the city of his dreams,” and just as dreams seem to defy space and time, his paintings bring together elements of the present and past. You can see more of his work on Facebook and many of his pieces are available as prints through Lumarte. (via Colossal Submissions)

Amazing Photography

The Crooked Forest: A Mysterious Grove of 400 Oddly Bent Pine Trees in Poland

This stand of bent pine trees known as the Crooked Forest is easily one of the strangest places in Central Europe. Located outside of Nowe Czarnowo, West Pomerania, Poland, the nearly 400 trees are widely agreed to have been shaped by human hands sometime in the 1930s, but for what purposes is still up for debate. Each tree is bent near the base at 90 degrees, a form that could possibly be helpful in boat or furniture making. Strangely enough, every tree is bent in exactly the same direction: due North. A quick search online reveals a host of conspiracy theories ranging from witchcraft to energy fields.

Whatever the reason, we’re glad photographer Kilian Schönberger (previously) stopped by to capture these photos. You can see more from the series on Behance.

Update: Thank you all for your many, many suggestions about the trees. We’ve heard everything from floods to furniture to fire. There still doesn’t seem to be a consensus.