KWK Promes: Architecture that matters

By Malin Norman

Awards have never been the goal for Robert Konieczny. What matters is creating architecture that can spark discussion, inspire others and change the way we think about the built environment.

Robert Konieczny aims for his architecture to matter. Even before founding KWK Promes, the architect wanted to “race with the world,” even if the world did not know about him yet. “Early on, I understood that you can’t create something exceptional by following others,” he says. “I wanted to find my own path, my own voice, and my own way of thinking about architecture. This is what became the foundation of KWK Promes.”

Konieczny is a conceptualist, and KWK Promes works in the same way. “We look for an idea, an overarching thought that provides an answer to the challenges of a project, its problems, needs, context, and so on,” he says. “You detach yourself from your own preferences, from your own taste, and often venture into the unknown, guided by the force of logic, by the strength of logical arguments. This is probably the most difficult approach to design, but at the same time it’s immensely compelling: we might arrive at completely new solutions that surprise not only our users, but often ourselves as well.”

Yaw House — the rotation of the volume allows the house to naturally blend into the slope and open wide to the sun and the landscape. Photo: Jakub Certowicz

Konieczny’s Ark and Przełomy Dialogue Centre

The firm’s approach to architecture is best seen in specific built projects. One is Konieczny’s Ark, the architect’s own house. “The form was not the starting point, but rather resulted from the challenges of the site,” he explains. “Because of the risk of landslides, I treated the house like a bridge, allowing rainwater to flow freely underneath it. The building rests on three supports, whose triangular shape ensures minimal contact with the ground, thereby reducing the risk of landslides. The sloping walls of the ground-level base, shaped by the form of the supports, give the building its distinctive character.”

Another example is the Przełomy Dialogue Center in Szczecin. Here, the key factor was the history of the site. “The site was once occupied by a block of tenement houses, which was destroyed during the war, and for decades the site functioned as an accidental open square,” says Konieczny.

KWK Promes placed most of the museum underground, while the roof became a square accessible to local residents. The architect explains the idea behind this urban hybrid: “The building restores the scale of the city, while adding value in the form of an open public space. Instead of choosing between reconstructing the block and preserving the open space, we combined the two.”

Plato Contemporary Art Gallery — movable walls open the gallery to the city in an unprecedented way. The project was shortlisted among the final five for the EUmies Awards 2024, placing it among the best architectural works in Europe. Photo: Juliusz Sokołowski

Plato Contemporary Art Gallery and By the Way House

In Poland, the client of By the Way House had a beautiful, vast plot of land, but at the same time very specific expectations. “Initially, he wanted to transfer the layout of his existing apartment into the new house,” says Konieczny. The house was to stand in the middle of the plot, so a road had to be incorporated. That is when the idea emerged: since the road was necessary, why not make it the main motif of the project and wrap it around the house? “In this way, the road began to form the walls, floors, and roof, effectively becoming the building itself, and then continued as a path leading through the garden all the way to the river. The entire project grows out of one simple idea that connects the road, the house and the landscape.”

In the Plato Contemporary Art Gallery in Ostrava, Czech Republic, KWK Promes worked with a partially ruined former slaughterhouse building. Over the years, its brick walls had been pierced with successive openings, which heritage conservation officers regarded as a disfigurement. Konieczny saw them as the project’s greatest asset: “Instead of bricking them up, we inserted enormous movable walls into them. Thanks to this, the gallery can open completely to the outside, and art literally moves out of the building and into the city.” This mobility has created an opportunity for culture, in the broadest sense, to become more democratic and accessible to new audiences.

Konieczny’s Ark — the house opens wide to the mountain landscape. The glazing in KWK Promes projects is executed by KER3MR, Polish manufacturer specializing in large-format, minimalist glazing based on Keller minimal windows® systems. Photo: Olo Studio

Genuine transformation of architecture

Reflecting on the greatest challenge of today, Konieczny believes that there is a need for a genuine transformation of architecture. “Above all in response to the climate crisis, limited resources, and the need to protect the existing built fabric,” he says. “At the same time, this is one of the most exciting moments for architecture, because we’re dealing with real problems.”

More than ever, Konieczny is interested in solutions that can lead to discoveries and open up new possibilities for architecture. “We need to find ways of building that are less invasive and don’t come at such a high cost to the world,” adds the architect. “At KWK Promes, we devote a great deal of energy to searching for new ideas that respond to contemporary challenges, while at the same time looking ahead to the future.”

Przełomy Dialogue Center — a museum and public square in one, winner of the World Architecture Festival 2016 and the European Prize for Urban Public Space 2016 (by CCCB). Photo: Juliusz Sokołowski

www.kwkpromes.pl/en
Facebook: KWK PROMES
Instagram: @robertokonieczny @kwkpromes

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