The first key creative impulse from his architecture school days, Robert Konieczny, one of the leading architects in Poland, cites not what he learned from his professors or books but a candid conversation with a fellow student. Konieczny, who runs KWK PROMES, an award-winning architectural practice in Katowice in southern Poland, mentioned during our video conversation that he was fascinated by a student’s mysterious drawings for a music centre. Suddenly, he had a revelation that architecture was not merely about walls but could convey ideas and tell stories. The centre’s design was based on the premise that different people may not be able to understand a particular language, but they can all enjoy music. “That’s when I decided to become a conceptualist rather than just another architect,” he told STIR.

Konieczny was born in 1969 in Katowice and grew up in nearby Ruda Śląska. His father ran a company that installed mining equipment and his mother, an Italian, worked in sales. Konieczny studied architecture at the Silesian University of Technology in the nearby Gliwice. One of the best schools in the country, as he relayed and particularly strong in developing conceptual thinking, as championed by several professors who were educated at The Berlage in Delft.

The architect’s education paralleled for several years with an apprenticeship at archistudio studniarek + pilinkiewicz in Katowice, where he was the only employee, often taking assignments home, trying to convince the principals, graduates of The Berlage, to look for alternative solutions the next day. As a student, he won an idea competition with Marlena Wolnik, his classmate and future wife and partner. Their prize was a five-week workshop at the New Jersey Institute of Technology to redesign Governors Island in New York Harbor, for which they also received an award.

KWK PROMES was started in 1999, the year Konieczny and Wolnik graduated. The studio employs 18 professionals, while Wolnik now runs her own practice. The name Promes is made up of PRO which stands for Projects and RObert, M for Marlena and ES acknowledges his parents’ names. KWK represents Konieczny Wolnik-Konieczny but can also be confused with the mines. There are many in this region of Poland; all share this acronym. “People often call us asking for the price of coal,” Konieczny told me amusingly.

Vladimir Belogolovsky (VB): You said that your choice of pursuing architecture was incidental. Yet, your father worked in the mining industry, while many of your houses have a robust relationship with the ground. Isn’t there a connection?

Robert Konieczny (RK): You may be right, now that you bring it up. It was also my father’s colleague whose daughter studied architecture, which influenced my choice. However, looking back, I would point out that I was always into sports and quite competitive. Most of all, I loved soccer. Unfortunately, when I was about 13, a doctor told me that my heart condition would not allow me to do sports professionally. That was a big [setback] for me but I never lost the competitive edge. It still drives me as an architect. 

VB: You present yourself as a conceptualist. You have said, "A concept lets us break free from our own formal preferences and step into the unknown.” How so? 

RK: I always strived for my architecture to have meaning. It is not by following others that one can achieve something unique. I wanted to find my path, my voice. That’s what can bring interesting ideas into architecture. My motto is, ‘I want to challenge the entire world, even if the world has no idea I exist.’ Conceptualism is a methodology that searches for fresh ideas and rationalises them. Even in my studio, I have to fight all the time because I often come up with ideas that no one has ever seen. However, whenever you can explain your thinking logically, you can convince your colleagues and then your client. That’s how we push for unconventional ideas. A logical explanation helps you accept strange-looking designs more willingly and even act against your preconceived habits and tastes.

I used to start every project from scratch, looking for unique ideas every time. However, over time, I realised that some of my projects are evolutionary; they share common ideas. As one of my professors said, ‘Great artists paint one painting all their lives.’ At the time, I found that idea very boring. [Laughs.] Later, I understood that you can improve on your idea repeatedly. So, some of our projects are revolutionary and others are evolutionary. I value the evolutionary approach more. Paradox or not, whenever we try to start with an empty page, we soon realise that we continue what we started before. For example, our Plato Contemporary Art Gallery is an evolutionary project that elaborates on the idea of moving walls, which was first tested in our Safe House. The Plato Gallery wouldn’t exist without the Safe House.

Conceptualism is a methodology that searches for fresh ideas and rationalises them. Even in my studio, I have to fight all the time because I often come up with ideas that no one has ever seen. – Robert Konieczny

VB: The project was your first venture into exploring mobile architecture. Are there other projects that led to influencing something?

RK: That would be the history museum in Szczecin, Przełomy Dialogue Center, with a public square that became associated with the freedom movement. It is located under the curved plaza, which has become very special for the city. My team had to fight for it to be realised this way. The plaza is a memorial, so when we decided to make it a place for everyone and even accessible for skateboarders, the city did not like it. Once the project was completed, the authorities started giving fines to skaters. In the meantime, the projects received the European Prize for Urban Public Space. So, I contacted the local politicians and said I would make a public handover of the award to the city under the condition that I do it on my roller skates. [Laughs.] They agreed and since then, they have stopped giving out fines.

VB: Based on names such as Safe House, Shutter House, Triangular House, Quadrant House, and Living-Garden House, among others, it seems that you typically focus on one strong design idea in every project. Is that so?

RK: That’s true. One strong idea can make a project successful. All features should be supported by one such idea. If not, maybe the idea is not that good. This way of designing is difficult, but I find it fascinating to figure out the right direction. Each project has a different story and origin. Often, the most unexpected ideas come from listening carefully to my clients.

For example, when my client asked me to design what became By the Way House, he drew his desired layout. I quickly realised that he had drawn a very similar layout to the ugly apartment where he lived. When I confronted him, he said, “Yes, because I enjoy living here.” So, I told him that we can make his new place better. To that, he responded that he didn’t want to risk it. [Laughs.] When he asked to detach the living area from the garden, I refused to take on the project, but he insisted. He wanted me to be his architect, but I had to follow his ideas. Ultimately, I accepted the commission and followed his layout, treating it as a given. As a result, I wrapped the whole two-story volume with the concrete road that led to it, creating interesting folds and connecting the upper floor with the living room directly with the garden and riverfront. Structurally, the wrapped road creates walls, ceilings and roof of the house. In the end, the road made the house, while the layout inside came from the client. This is how a very standard house was turned into something unique.  

VB: Your houses have moving and pivoting parts. They dance with the landscape and get wrapped in the roads that lead to them. What’s your design process like?

RK: The most important is the conceptual stage, which begins after we see the site and talk to the client. Then for a while, we try to cut ourselves off from the whole world and focus on the task at hand. Then the project begins to form some kind of logic because I already have an idea, but sometimes, it is the result of many discussions, in which I often involve not only the best architects from the team but also interns or my family of non-architects. During this process, I get very annoyed if someone looks for some inspiration on websites, magazines, or Pinterest because it distracts me. I try to get people to say sometimes seemingly silly things that come to mind and not be ashamed of it because it can be inspiring. Of course, once the idea is there, the time to refine it can't be short and the most important thing in this is to follow the idea.

I always strived for my architecture to have meaning. It is not by following others that one can achieve something unique. I wanted to find my path, my voice. – Robert Konieczny

VB: Where do you typically derive your inspiration from?

RK: I often tell young architects that inspiration is most often around us. For example, the design of Unikato, where our studio is located, was originally a testimony to modernist buildings in the area that have changed under the influence of years of smog and our building draws inspiration from this. However, the key idea came while playing with the building’s balconies when one was accidentally moved from one façade to the other with the same orientation. I liked it and we kept the same orientation for all balconies in the building. It looked striking. Then we found out that the extended balconies catch the sun for one extra hour!

VB: When you describe your work, you use such words and phrases as movement, variability, monolithic, the result of an argument, and a topographic path. How else would you describe your work and the kind of architecture that you try to achieve?

RK: I would add such phrases as transformation of context or historical context because all these elements make up our projects. We draw ideas not only from the context but also from the history of the place or even associated legends. Sometimes, we deal with invisible traces or connect pre-war and post-war situations. When I was younger, I was concerned about showing ideas that no one had ever seen before and that we had not yet implemented. But now, given the situation with climate change and because I am more mature, I would like to share these ideas because they can inspire others to develop theirs for the sake of the common good. I love projects whose ideas are universal, where form doesn't matter, such as the idea of Sunlight Buildings in the tropics. The way mobile elements shade our buildings continuously following the sun's path preoccupies me a lot.

VB: What issues should architects be concerned with most now?

RK: We should focus more on the tectonics of architecture. We must take more risks, and life will show us whether we are right. I deeply believe collaborating with people with very diverse skills is necessary. It is also crucial to bring individual opinions to various issues. You can be criticised, but if you see logic in what you do, you should keep doing it and raise questions that concern you. We need to follow our minds, not trends. We only take on projects that can help us to advance our thinking. We are not after realising spectacular buildings. I want our buildings to lead to discoveries.