The interiors of the administrative buildings of the Lenin Steelworks in Nowa Huta compared to the interiors of the interwar period
The interiors of the administrative buildings of the Lenin Steelworks in Nowa Huta compared to the interiors of the interwar period

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to the interior design, furnishings, and functions of social-ist realism-style buildings of the Administrative Centre of the Lenin Metallur-gical Plant in Nowa Huta. It is a complex consisting of two buildings, of which the Z Building – the northern one – was intended for the factory’s management, and the S Building – the southern one – was intended for “social” amenities. Each of the two buildings, despite their external appearance of nearly identical twins, received a different interior design, consistent with its intended use. Deciphering the original arrangement of individual rooms was possible thanks to the survival of some of the interiors in a relatively good condition, as well as the analysis of the meticulous executive documentation of the entire complex preserved to this day, and the so-called perspektywki [“perspectivettes”] – published drawings by the head of the interior design team, professor Marian Sigmund, depicting the appearance of selected spaces. The Z Building served official functions, therefore the most important representative rooms were placed in its first floor: conference rooms, official halls, offices for the Metallurgical Combine’s managerial staff, as well as a number of office facilities. The whole was designed as a Gesamtkunstwerk. The interior design refers to the tradition initiated by Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz at the Wawel Royal Castle, continued in pre-war representative and office interiors, and even in those designed for the chancellery of the governor general in the 1940s. Building S was meant to serve another purpose, as it was conceived as a “social house”, and therefore its interiors were designed accordingly. The central room within the walls of the S Building is the theatre hall with a common room above it. In addition, the building contained: a dining room, a hotel, reading rooms, and a health centre. The interiors were arranged in a way that was devoid of pathos; they were given some features of modernist solutions, albeit dressed in a historical costume. The furniture was also created to match the interior design of individual spaces.

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