The Polish Love Story: Reconnection through affection

An analysis and a reconnecting urban strategy for three waves of Polish immigration of West London

Ania Folejewska Murray Edwards College Design Thesis

The Polish Love Story Reconnection through affection

An analysis and a reconnecting urban strategy for three waves of Polish immigration of West London

Ania Folejewska Murray Edwards College Design Thesis word count: 15 500 words 21/05/2016 A Design Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil Examination in Architecture & Urban Design (2014-2016)

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Minna Sunikka-Blank and Ingrid Schrรถder for their invaluable guidance, commitment and enthusiasm. In addition, I would like to thank Michael Oades, Derek Draper, Max Fraser and Karina Sarah Mahiouz for their advice and support. Special thanks to Zbigniew Mieczkowski, Andrzej Morawicz and Adam Czarnecki for the time they devoted to help me and to all my interviewees who agreed to share their fascinating stories.

All images by author unless otherwise stated. This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text.

Contents 1 9 25 50 67 70 71 72 73

Introduction Chapter 1: The Romance / The Ornament Chapter 2: The Family / The Building Chapter 3: : The Community / The City Conclusion Literature References Interviews, Meetings, Observations Bibliography List of Illustrations

Previous Pages: Polish wedding photograph, London 1946 Polish society in their community building during Polish Independence Day ceremony, London 1950. Unknown Polish couple, photographed in Kensington Gardens, London 1940 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

Introduction

On a sunny yet chilly Wednesday afternoon in April 2015, in a palace on the edge of North Ealing, a Polish prince Jan Zylinski decided to challenge Nigel Farage to a duel. Sitting proudly in his Louie 16 armchair next to a 30-foot gold statue of his war hero father, he presented an old sword to the camera and said: ‘This is my father’s sword. I am his son, I have his blood. I’ve realized that now I have to stand up in defence of my people in the UK.’ He made a long pause to send a fierce gaze addressed to the UKIP leader. ‘I’ve had enough of discrimination against Polish people in this country. Enough is enough Mr Farage. Therefore I would like us to meet in Hyde Park one morning with our swords and resolve this matter in a way that an 18th century Polish aristocrat and an English gentleman would traditionally do.’ Cheeks of prince Zylinski blushed in excitement when he then asked: ‘Are you up for it, Mr Farage?’ Nigel Farage did not accept the challenge, being too busy with ongoing UKIP campaign, but the video became very popular, as did its author. The Prince’s challenge recording was published on youtube soon after Farage blamed migrants for traffic jams on the M4 and since then it has been viewed by almost 400,000 people, turning Jan Zylinski into the top celebrity within Polish immigrant societies. He has been asked to give his autographs when doing grocery shopping in the Polish markets and pose for a number of pictures with his passing-by Polish fans. (28/02/2016, interview with Jan Zylinski) The power of the prince’s speech united the main three inflows of Polish immigrants for a couple of months: the 1940’s inflow of the Polish war heroes, the generation of their children, born and raised in the UK and finally the post-2004 incomers, the new England’s workforce. These three generations of Polish society, conflicted due to background and lifestyle differences, found a temporary common language through the video, understanding each other like they never did before. Elzbieta Wojcik, a psychologist from the Polish University in London, finds two elements in the Prince’s speech, that could contribute to its temporary unifying force: ‘Prince Zylinski invoked the two values, existing in the Polish culture as extremely strong powers: family and tradition. He refers to his Polish-soldier-father in the very first sentence, presenting him as part of his own identity. Then he brings up tradition of a duel, a historic Polish way of conflict-solving. Family and tradition in the Polish culture exist as foundations of one’s pride, which is why the speech moved and unified so many Poles.’ (22/04/2016, interview with Elzbieta Wojcik) Time travel is required to understand that binding role of family and tradition for the West London Polish social structure: It is 11th of November 1947. General Wladyslaw Anders, wearing an olive-green military uniform, accompanied by the trumpets’ melody of the national anthem, pins a military badge to another soldier’s collar. In the opposite corner of the Polish Hearth Club hall, the young actress Irena Jaroszewicz (a few months later known as Irena Anders) flutters her eyelashes and blushes. (10/09/2015, interview with Anna Anders) In December 2010 inside the same room, a group of ladies wearing black hats paired with strong make up, participate in a series of funeral banquets, giving an end to the generation of their immigrant soldiers-fathers. (10/09/2015, interview with Anna Anders) Finally, on 21st February 2012, 6 months old Alex Drzewiecki, a son of a Polish stucco worksman, screams when the priest pours cold sacred water onto his forehead inside the Polish Church in Hammersmith. (05/11/2015, interview with Kris Drzewiecki). A tradition of rite in all its various forms has always served for the Polish communities of London as an important linking tool, which generated first Polish marriages in the late forties and sustained family relations in the later decades. Family is the key word here, a real necessity of each Polish society-binding rite. Mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, sisters and brothers meet regularly, as ritual protagonists inside Polish churches or institutions. Yet for the rite to succeed as a civic masterpiece, there must be a shared space housing actions around it: a before-ceremony-weather-talk, an after-church-kiss, a Sunday lunch inter-generation dialogue about school, love and rheumatism pills. Although the three generations of Poles in London have established churches, institutions or businesses in various West London areas for their own ceremonies and everyday routines, these exist currently as exclusive spaces, available only for selected groups, based on social background and family links. Such a spatial division deepens even more the conflict existing within London Polish society since 2004. Poles’ urban dispersal and lack of a truly common space disallow a build of civic pride, that could reconnect Poles, just like the Prince Zylinski’s pride-generating video did.

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1-2 shots from the Prince Zylinskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s challenge video (source: www.telegraph.co.uk)

Three Polish generations’ rites’ examples: 3 Polish army during the ceremony of badges’ pinning, London, 1947 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 4 condolences’ exchange during the funeral of Irena Anders, wife of Polish veteran Wladyslaw Anders, London 2010 (source: Anna Anders’ photographs) 5 baptism ceremonies in the Polish church in Ealing, London, 2012 (source: St Ignatius Jesuits Parish Archive, London) Next page: Map 1 (source: own map)

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6 5

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Acton Central

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ition R

Exhib

South n Kensingto

Hammer

scourt

Raven

smith

2 1 3

Br Th e

South Kensington: 1: Polish builders‘ past refurbishments’ sites 2: Polish Hearth Club 3: Sikorski Institute 4: Daquis Restaurant

Hammersmith: 1: Polish Specialities first store 2: PSCA building + Polish Jazz Club 3: flat and studio of a Polish dj, Michal Cielewicz 4: Andrew Bobola Church

g Ealin ay w Broad

- places of the first Poles’ inflow

Ealing Broadway: 1: Polish Specialities second store ‘Parade’ 2: Plasterwork Brothers’ office (Kris Drzewiecki’s flat) 3: Polish Specialities fridges at Sainsbury’s 4: Polish Nuns House 5: Polish Church of Our Lady Mother 6: John Paul 2 Foundation 7: PAFT office 8: Polish Funeral House (the Church’s property)

oa dw ay

Acton Central: 1: house and nail studio of Katrina Kocialkowska, a Polish manicurist 2: house and studio of Aleksandra Szczepaniak, a Polish eye-lashes’ artist 3: Polish hairdresser and beauty services ‘Effekt’ 4: Polish Specialities’ branch, ‘The Eagle’ 5: Polish hairdresser and beauty services ‘Kadus’ 6: MGM Builders’ office (at Maciej Bilkiwiecz’s - owner - house) 7: Polish hair extensions‘ and make up artist’s home-studio, Magda Wolska 8: Polish Specialities’ branch, ‘The Eagle 2’ 9: Polish manicurists’ home-nail-studio, Jola Szczepanska 11: Verona (Polish stoneworks) 12: Vitpol (Polish carpenters)

- places of the second generation

Acton Town: 1: House of Halina and Marta Boczek, Polish confectioners 2: unofficial Polish ‘Saturday School’ (collaboration of local Polish teachers) 3: Adam Korzen‘s house. Adam sells and delivers Polish spirits’ 4: Polish language teacher’s house, Joanna Czarnecka

cto

ow nT

- places of the third inflow - Poles’ residential areas

Existing 5 West London Sites scale 1:5000

The aim of this paper is to develop a reconnecting strategy through a civic-pride-building urban scheme, that would address the division within Polish immigrant community and promote Polish culture to the wider London society. In order to do so, an understanding of the origins and character of the three Polish immigrant generations is necessary, joined with an analysis of their existing social, economical and urban representations. What does “Polishness” mean in the context of immigration - is it visible in physical architecture or is it limited to a reconnection at the city scale and the provision of certain services? An analysis of the existing context leads to another question about the future: how could all the existing layers be connected within new Polish architecture, becoming an authentic and timeless representation of Poles’ urban existence? The research focus is placed on previous and current urban patterns of each of the immigrant groups, which reveal the potentials for further architectural re-connections in the Poles’ city fabric. It is hypothesized that the proposed buildings, in order to be relevant to all conflicted Polish groups, should be devoted for family - the strongest social and economical element within Polish immigrant social structure. This thesis follows that family pattern by drawing its three chapters around the process of starting a family, simultaneously developing the proposed scheme at three different scales. The first chapter therefore explores how ornamentation of the three Polish immigrant inflows generated affection and love, leading to the first Polish immigrant marriages. Ornamentation is understood here as both physical decoration, attached to one’s body or clothing, as well as non-physical means to enhance one’s attractiveness in the eyes of the opposite sex. The idea of ornamentation is explored further in the chapter’s conclusion, presenting it as a number of ‘mass figures’, collectively formed in the public space during community rites and habits. The chapter concludes with proposed reconnection at a detail scale, presenting the idea of the new Polish ornament revealed in the proposed buildings’ skin and interiors. The second chapter presents the outcome of the Polish love stories: the emergence of the next generation of Poles in London and establishment of the three Polish spatial typologies – the legacies passed from one generation to the next. The proposal of reconnection of these political, social and economical Polish potentials is presented in the chapter’s conclusion through fundraising strategy and proposed buildings’ programmes. The third chapter zooms out to explore urban context and Polish families’ ceremonies, believed to carry the prospect for broader community interactions. Three Polish procession routes are presented here in order to highlight the importance of public spaces’ correlations and propose the new Polish urban strategy, based on such buildings’ reliances. This research adopts a combined methodology: 1 – Etnographic Study (November 2014-April 2016) - 40 interviews with Poles, representing the three immigrants’ inflows, served as the main research method for this thesis. These were conducted as unrecorded, semi-structured conservations with individuals or small groups – the ‘ordinary’ people sharing their stories - rather than mass interviews or gathering statistical data. Collection of information based on personal Poles’ experiences and views was enriched through my participation in a number of Poles’ daily routines, events and ceremonies. The first part of my ethnographic studies was conducted between November 2014 and April 2015, when I focused on studying the history of Polish immigration to London through 13 interviews with the first inflow’s representatives and attendance at the events organised by the Polish Hearth Club and Polish Embassy. These first contacts with the Polish veterans’ generation (such as Zbigniew Mieczkowski or Mateusz Makowski), gave me the access to my next interviewees. The second part of my etnographic research, conducted during my fieldwork between April 2015 and April 2016, was focused on the second generation of Poles and the recent post-accession inflow. For this period of my studies a mixture of qualitative research methods was applied. 13 in-depth interviews and 4 organised focus groups’ conversations in September 2015 were focused on various Poles’ interests, habits and routines, whereas interviews with non-governmental Polish bodies and foundations such as Polish Aid Foundation Trust (PAFT) in September 2015 and Polish Social and Cultural Association (PSCA) in February 2016, explored possible fundraising and procurement possibilities hidden in the existing organisations or Polish properties. Participant observations of existing sites, based on the Polish clubs’, builders’ factories’, grocery stores’ and beauty salons’ visits enabled an analysis of everyday Poles’ behaviour whether during social interactions or at work. 2 – Fieldwork (April 2015 to April 2016) – Fieldwork in London was focused on site research conducted through visits, photographs, mapping and drawings of the five selected sites: South Kensington, Hammersmith, Ealing Broadway, Acton Central and Acton Town. Recording the sites’ physical context was enriched through visits to the existing Polish places situated within their surroundings, such as Polish clubs and foundations in Kensington, churches in Ealing and Hammersmith, food stores, nail salons, hairdressers and building companies in Acton. The aim of these visits was to gather information about each place’s history, management structure and way of working in order to develep successful social, political and economical links between the proposed scheme and the the existing Polish layers. 3 – Research through Design (October 2014-May 2016) – Propositional design research happened simultaneously with literature review and was a way to look for the answers to both academic questions and existing Polish context research findings. Resulting from this process architectural interventions: ornamental details, buildings layouts and programmes, fundraising strategy, consideration of procurement and urban schemes test these answers on a variety of scales. The full list of interviews and observations is given at the end of this thesis and the next page’s table visualises this paper’s structure in relation to methodology. 5

chapter 1

chapter 3

chapter 2

LEGACY 3: - economical profit - service and craft - Family Tree 3

LEGACY 2: - Kensington properties’ sale - PSCA’s donations and lands - Family Tree 2

LEGACY 1: - Kensington property - National Treasure > PAFT - Family Tree 1

PROCESSIONS 3: - baptisms processions URBAN MAP 3: - dispersal based on private spaces - there is no common public space for all ceremonies

PROCESSIONS 2: - funeral processions

URBAN MAP 2: - dispersal based on private spaces - all routs pass by one public spce (the Brompton Cemetery)

ROUTE AS COMMUNITY-GENERATING ELEMENT.

URBAN MAP 1: - enclosed network - each route has got a public beginning and destination space

PROCESSIONS 1: - army parades - wedding processions

ESTABLISHING NEW TYPOLOGY MOBILE + TEMPORARY SPACE

RE-IMAGINING POLAND AS A ‘TOURIST’ SOUVENIR-SPACE

LIVING WITH THE PAST, FOR POLAND DREAM-SPACE

BUILDING AS FAMILY-GENERATING ELEMENT.

BUILDING CASE STUDIES 3: - businesses: Polish Specialities Plasterwork Brothers, Vitpol - Map of ownership 3

BUILDING CASE STUDIES 2: - PSCA - Polish Hearth Club’s refurbishment - Jan Zylinski‘s palace - Map of ownership 2

SETTING 3: - Polish beauty salons in Acton Central - Polish refurbishment sites in Kensington and Chelsea

BUILDING CASE STUDIES 1: - Polish School of Architecture - Kensington institutions - Map of ownership 2

ORNAMENT AS LOVE-GENERATING ELEMENT.

SETTING 2: - Little Brompton Oratory in Kensington

ACTIVITY 3: - beautifying treatments - walls’ plastering

ACTIVITY 2: - Sunday Mass

SETTING 1: - Polish Hearth Club in Kensington

ACTIVITY 1: - patriotic ceremony

ORNAMENT 3: - acrylic nails, hair and eye lashes’ extensions - refurbishment works‘ walls’ ornamentation > income

ORNAMENT 2: - catholic ornament - church clothing + make-up

ORNAMENT 1: - military uniform’s details,

third inflow

second inflow

first inflow

URBAN CONTEXT

- Proposed Urban Map - Proposed Local Routes’ Map

- reconnecting dispersed 5 Polish areas > urban strategy - reconnecting existing Polish places with the proposed > local strategy - proposing family-generating rites’ procession’ routes to unify the community

BUILDINGS

- Proposed Fundraising Diagram - Proposed Layouts drawing

- incorporating the family focus > 5 buildings for 5 love/family stages - reconnection of 3 spatial typologies > mix through buildings’ layouts - reconnection of 3 legacies to create shared ownership > fundraising

ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL

- Proposed detail’s drawing

- being visible in the public space > opened public areas - reconnecting Poles through the visual element > proposed ornaments - adaptable proposed skin and interiors through > detachable ornament onto generic structure

proposed

scale of proposed intervention

DESIGN THROUGH RESEARCH: - developing the urban scheme: mapping

FIELDWORK: - recording the site (photographs) - re-visiting the 5 sites’ existing Polish places

LITERATURE REVIEW ARCHIVES’ MATERIALS’ REVIEW: Sikorski Institute, Polish Hearth Club

- participant-observations: visit at Plasterwork Brothers’ refurbishment sites’ visit at the Polish grocery shops in all 5 sites visits at the Polish Catholic foundations and churches visits at the Polish beauty salons visits at the Polish clubs and bars

ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY: - individual interviews with first, second, third inflow of Poles (conversations focused on family ceremonies) - group interviews with first, second, third inflow of Poles

DESIGN THROUGH RESEARCH: - developing the buildings’ layout: plan drawings

FIELDWORK: - recording the site (photographs, sketches) - visiting the 5 sites’ existing Polish places

LITERATURE REVIEW ARCHIVES’ MATERIALS’ REVIEW: Sikorski Institute, Polish Hearth Club

ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY: - individual interviews with first, second, third inflow of Poles - group interviews with first, second, third inflow of Poles - interviews with Polish bodies: PAFT, PSCA, PHC - participant-observations: visits at the PSCA, prince Zylinski’s palace and PAFT visits at the Vitpol factory visit at Plasterwork Brothers’ refurbishment sites’ visit of the Polish Specialities’ stores - photographic experiment (photographing interviewees in their domestic spaces)

DESIGN THROUGH RESEARCH: - developing the ornaments and details’ design, - materials research and collages

LITERATURE REVIEW ARCHIVES’ MATERIALS’ REVIEW: Sikorski Institute, Polish Hearth Club

ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY: - individual interviews with first, second, third inflow of Poles - group interviews with first, second, third inflow of Poles - participant-observations: visits at the Polish Hearth Club, participation in the Polish Mass in Ealing and Hammersmith churches manicure at the Polish salon ‘Effekt’ visit at the refurbishment site of Plasterwork Brothers

methodology

This

research begins on a chilly evening at the end of November. I open the door of the Polish Hearth Club situated on 55 Princes Gate road and enter a crowded reception: five ladies in their mid-eighties are taking off their mink-fur-coats, while the old parquet crackles under their heels. A thick hairspray-cloud rises into the air from their freshly-styled grey hair. One of them covers her wrinkled lips with a pearl-pink lipstick while the others whisper between each other with excitement. I discretely follow them towards the bar. Four generals send them suggestive looks, thrusting out their chests to exhibit the medals pinned to their military uniforms. The ladies feel these glances, but avoid looking back, pretending to be inaccessible. Finally cherry liqueur increases their confidence and they turn towards the generals. Their eyes are shining, they sigh affectionately. Yet the generals stay unmoved, trapped in the golden frames. War heroes are this particular type of men that find it difficult to reciprocate love - especially those caged in the portraits, hanging at the immigrantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s walls - observed during my first visit at the Polish Hearth Club, 30/11/2014

The record was broken by the general, who has been simultaneously a lover of a daughter, a mother and a grandmother in one of the English towns. (S. Cat-Mackiewicz, p.112)

Chapter 1: The Romance / The Ornament. This chapter finds the three Polish generations’ ornaments and related to them activities: the patriotic ceremony, the Catholic Sunday Service and work as the elements generating physical attraction, leading to the first Polish relationships and marriagies. The resulting from this study first reconnection strategy is presented at an architectural detail scale in the end of this section.

order to understand female affection towards a man wearing military uniform we need to go back to the early forties, when Polish migration created its country’s prosthesis in empty Kensington’s buildings. South Kensington became the main Poles’ destination soon after capitulation of Paris in 1940 when they were forced to search for other non-Hitler lands. A building on Eaton Place was given as a welcome gift to the Polish immigrants surviving from the war battlefields, offering their support in return. This building became the first Polish headquarter in London, gathering more and more Poles around. By the end of 1940 over 30 000 Polish immigrants – mostly men with military backgrounds – arrived to the UK and begun to impress the surrounding women (Winnicka, 2012, p.27-47): ‘It was these boys that used to break our hearts in the forties. We saw them as heroes, so masculine, so brave!’ (interview with Anna Sabbat, 01/12/2014) Indeed, photographs taken during the Polish Independence Parade organised in London in November 1941, reveal great splendour of the Polish army: soldiers move rhythmically, cheered by the Polish crowd, a line of dressed-up ladies look out for future husbands in the rows of marching men, so elegant in their uniforms. This popularity of a Polish soldier, resulting from his powerful appearance, could never be achieved without his carefully-detailed military outfit - a real sex appeal symbol at the time. ‘God is in the detail’ – General Sikorski said, when asked about the changes applied to the Polish uniforms in 1940. (interview with Anna Sabbat, 01/12/2014) The uniforms, worn by Polish soldiers in the UK in between 1939 and 1945, although provided by the British army and looking alike the English outfits, were edited through through the addition of a symbolic ornament, giving it a more ‘Polish’ look. The greyish-green of the fabric was decorated with buttons, which had the symbol of a Polish Eagle engraved on their surface.. A traditional snake-shaped pattern, frequently joined with a coloured ribbon was added to the soldiers’ collars. All details were to remind both the wearer and the viewer about patriotic values. This carefully crafted uniforms’ ornament, uplifting patriotic spirits, additionally turned them into elegant pieces of clothing, making the men look distinguished and glamorous.

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Polish ladies looking affectionately at the Polish Generals’ portraits (source: own collage made after the visit at the Polish Hearth Club, 30/11/14)

3 5 6666 6666

2 Polish Independence Parade, London, 1941 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 3-4 Polish soldiers in their uniforms London, 1941 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 5-6 Polish soldiers andGeneralsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; uniformsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ornamentation , 1939-42 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 10

We are so simila r,

so different

We are so simila

r, so different

lish Macho: The General

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Celebrating mascu linity: 11, 12 - photogra ph and postcard showing the “mach and his horse o”general 16 17 18 13, 14 - gene rals on immigratio n in later years, 19 20 21 next to their car ph otoghraphed s - the new symbo 25 22 23 24 16-25 - rew ls of masculinity arding bravery du ring the second wo (All images com rld war’s battles e from the Archiv es of the Institute ki) postcard shSik of General owors ing the “m

ating masculinity : - photograph and horse acho”general generals on imm igration in later ye ars, photoghraphe their cars - the ne d w symbols of mas culinity rewarding braver y during the seco nd world war’s ba ges come from th ttles e Archives of the Institute of Gene ) ral

777 8 9 8 10 9 9 11 11 11

7 8

9 10 11

General Sikorski pinning medals after the Battle of Britain, London, 1940 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) General Wladyslaw Anders as respected and admired Polish leader and symbol of strength

(source: Polish Hearth Club’s Archive)

Polish “macho”-Generals with their masculinity symbols: pre-war horse, after-war car (source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

Military ornamentation keeps significance until today: Polish Pilots’ Reunion’s ceremonies, London 1996

(source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

Polish soldier’s wedding, London 1948 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

The next level of ornamentation was added under the cover of medals, indicating soldiers’ positions in the military hierarchy. The soldiers with particular battlefield merits stood out from the crowd with badges pinned to their uniforms’ fabric and ‘army ropes’, marking each heroic deed. (12/12/2014, interview with Zbigniew Mieczkowski)

It was these shiny details, that developed the image of probably the most desirable sex icon for women on immigration at the time - the Polish General. They were frequent guests of the immigrants’ clubs, always wearing flawless uniforms and a moustache highlighting their manliness. All types of medals of each possible colour decorated their strong wide chests, the post-battlefield scars marked their muscular arms and their overpowering smiles revealed surgically white teeth. They never spoke quietly, but thundered with male bass and were often presented in the war-times postcards as proud handsome men sitting on their horses, later on replaced by first cars. Probably the most apparent General-macho symbol at the time was Wladyslaw Anders. He had everything the Polish General should have: the heroic past, the later political significance, the beautiful-actress lover, the moustache, the medals. His name backed each case, spoke in two syllables about everything, which required explanations from the others, it substituted patriotic declarations. During national gatherings, there were two dependable moments of meltdown (…): sounds of the national anthem and the General’s appearance in the room” (Winnicka, 2012, p.122) Polish Generals symbolised physical strength and bravery – the features desired by the 40’s female society due to war’s dangers. Medals, marking Generals’ uniforms served as evidences of their physical and mental strength, turning them into the most sexually desired men in the eyes of the opposite sex. Physical attraction soon turned into love, which would not surprise Sigmund Freud, who found the co-relation between the two already back in 1912: Freud (…) modified his view of romantic love, concluding that ‘to ensure a fully normal attitude in love, two currents of feeling have to unite - (…) the tender, affectionate feelings and the sensual feelings. (Sternberg, Barnes, eds., 1988, p.112) Sensuality of the Polish General’s image, achieved through his uniform’s ornamentation, generated affection that played crucial role in the creation of first Polish relationships. These became official in relation to law and religion: in the years between 1942 and 1947, according to Little Brompton Oratory Archives, over 15 000 Polish couples married. (Winnicka, 2012, p.27-45)

With this speed it did not take long time for the next generation to come into being: a baby boom within London Polish immigration, was recorded in 1950, when number of baptisms doubled since 1940. (Sikorski Institute Archive) This is how the scale of Polish births in London of the early 50’s is described in E. Winnicka’s book The Londoners: General Stanislaw Sosabowski (...) reminisces hundreds of letters sent from girls. They informed that they were pregnant with Polish officers. Sosabowski commandeered an officer for the family cases who dealt with the ladies’ correspondence twice a week and sent them financial help. Yet the officer soon had to begin to work on a full-time basis. (Winnicka, 2012, p.33) Raising children abroad was challenging due to cultural confusion experienced by the new generation. Although a lot effort was put into shaping cultural and patriotic awareness through a number of educational initiatives, it was not these that bridged various notions of national identity. The new understanding of the Polish status came, once again, from the ornament. In 1940 Polish catholic priests established relations with London Brompton Oratory, a church in South Kensington. (Sikorski Institute Archive) The Little Oratory chapel started housing Polish Mass service - extremely influential visual experience for the London-born Polish children: ‘It was like a theatre of shapes and colours! I used to stare at the priests’ ritual movements, their colourful albas, decorated metal monstrances and goblets. The Polish Sunday service was my first individual experience of ‘Polishness’, as it appeared in my own mind as a visual, uninfluenced by the rest of the Polish society and their political views.’ (02/04/2015, interview with Stanislaw Sulimirski) Polish Military ornamentation, attached to the uniform: 12 Medals (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 13 ‘Army ropes’ of a General (1), first offcer (2), second officer (3) (source: 73pp.pl)

Ornamentation of evangelical rituals and objects led to fascination of the second Poles’ generation with catholicism, the key component of Polish culture. Religion enabled them to develop their own perception of ‘Polishness’, understood through subjectively captured details. This new concept of Polish values was free from political influences, allowing it to develop based on universal visual experience. Psychologists see the reason for this great strength of the visual sense in its immediate relation with the thought: The most highly-relationed feelings are the visual, and these are of all feelings the most easily reproduced in thought. (…) The sensations of sight make more than any other thing, perhaps more than any other things put together, the materials of thought, memory, imagination. Vision is the most retentive of most senses. (S. Heath, p.13) Visual splendour associated with the catholic Service frequently influences its participants’ self-representation. This phenomenon was exposed in the ‘Vatican Fashion Show’, a satirical fragment of Fellini’s movie ‘Roma’: priests and nuns, wearing ornamental cassocks, present their outfits to the Vatican’s upper crust onto the catwalk. That Holy Mass-fashion relationship also appeared within the Polish immigrant society:

‘I had a special Sunday mass outfit that combined the most expensive dress I had with my best lacquered shoes and white frilly knee-socks. I was only allowed to wear these clothes for the church and they were kept in a separate wardrobe in our living room.’ (10/09/2015, interview with Anna Anders)

Church-clothing reached even more decorative form on the occasions of special Mass services, such as the first communion: ‘My mother and grandmother prepared my communion look with greatest care. They attached extra layers of white chiffon frills to my dress and decorated it with fresh flowers and bands. Pink and cream bowes were plaited in my hair and white gloves covered my hands. My mother used to say that meeting God required an elegant look.’ (10/09/2015, interview with Wanda Makowska) God was not the only addressee of the Poles’ church-appearance. Participation in the Mass meant an exposure to the rest of the Polish society, co-existence in the public space, which made appearance extra important. Church enabled participation in the co-making of eucharist’s rituals and allowed the space for following it social interactions. After-church matchmaking was one of these. Polish community gathered together in the Little Oratory’s entrance for a talk with their friends and neighbours, introducing their children to each other. For the first immigrants’ generation it was important that their sons or daughters marry another Pole. Participation in the Polish Mass was therefore a substantial element of matchmaking process: catholic service guaranteed meeting other religious Poles and informality of the after-church social interactions provided spontaneity necessary for seduction to occur. (10/09/2015, interview with Wanda Makowska) With time, immigrants’ children church-look stopped being addressed to God and society, to turn onto the opposite sex. White ribbons and frills got replaced by a dress and a lipstick. Polish church filled with a choking smell of heavy rose perfumes and young dressed-up ladies, fluttering their eyelashes. Men did not stay emotionless towards these tricks. It was Sunday afternoon of 1964 when, at the Little Oratory’s door, Jan Jeziorski saw the woman of his life: ‘She walked out of the church in that red flowery dress. She looked stunning! From that moment I knew I wanted to marry her!’ (10/12/2014, interview with Jan Jeziorski) 12 out of my 17 male interviewees, representing the second generation of Poles in London, met their wives, by spotting their dresses at that church’s door. This dress-driven romance gave the beginning to further Poles’ reproduction, increasing the UK’s Polish population to 93 thousands in the late 80’s. (17/09/2015, group interview) Moreover, the church-look is still in fashion: during my interviews held with the second generation’s representatives, 16 out of 17 ladies admitted they wore stronger make up and their most showy dresses for the Sunday Mass, seeing it as a way of ‘beautifying’ themselves. (24/09/2015, group interview) 13

14-15 scenes from the Catholic fashion show in Vatican (source: Federico Fellini’s movie Roma, 1972)

5/6/2016

matchmaking.jpg (535Ă&#x2014;340)

16 16 16 17 17 17 18 18 19 19 19

16 17 18 19

Polish catholic ceremonies in London 1941-48 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) Polish girls dressed up for their first communion, London 1955-60 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) Polish immigrants in church: ladies and men, London, year unknown (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) Polish ladies dressed up for church, participating in the after-mass social gatherings

(source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

20 21

22 22 22 22

20 Manicure studio in London (source: S. E. Shapiro, Nails : the story of the modern manicure, 2014) 21 The final result: baby-blue acrylic nails, manicure studio in London (source: S. E. Shapiro, Nails : the story of the modern manicure, 2014)

22 photographs of Basia Pietruszka and Jola Szczepanska’s manicure-portfolio (source: Effekt’ Salon’s portfolio-catalogue)

Lipstick and dress are now an outdated strategy, according to Jola and Basia, whom I meet in March

2016 in the Polish beauty salon ‘Effekt” in Acton. It is a small place with salmon-orange walls and laminated flooring, filled with a smell of nail-polish-remover. Jola and Basia, Polish manicurists, show me the summer trends pointing their gel nails at the ‘Acrylic Planet’ catalogue. ‘You’re in good hands, my love’ - says Basia - ‘Beautifying is my profession!’ (21/03/2016, interview with Basia Pietruszka and Jola Szczepanska) Professional life is the main driver of the latest Polish inflow that appeared in England in 2004, after the EU Poland’s accession. Opened British working market tempted new immigrants with higher incomes paid in pounds and better living conditions. The focus on the economically driven nature of this migration has been strong; many researchers have highlighted, for example, the high levels of unemployment in Poland – 20 per cent in 2003 (Drinkwater et al.2006:2) (…) which led to a drastic increase of emigrating Poles. After 2004 the number of Poles staying abroad increased from around 100 000 to 300 000 in 2007. ( Burrell, 2009, p.9) The importance of a visual experience stays relevant also within the UK’s Polish workforce, which is revealed through fast development of beauty Polish businesses established in West London over the last decade. Today there are 16 Polish beauty salons in Acton Central, employing 184 Polish manicurists and hairdressers. Every day an average Polish salon welcomes an estimated number of 50 Polish females. These long-nailed-ladies, entering the salons for their acrylic-refilling and hair-extending procedures became an integral element of today’s Acton’s townscape. This ‘Acton-Beauty-Zone’ generated the post-2004 Polish beauty canon, identified with artificial nails’, eyelashes’ and hair’ attachments. Beautifying techniques entered artificiality era already back in 1978, when Dr. Stuart Nordstrom invented the professional liquid and powder system, revolutionising fake nails’ market. Since then beautifying interventions could reach its more extreme level, becoming actual physical attachments, more permanent than easily-removable lipstick. (S. E. Shapiro 2014, p. 24) Chemicals and materials applied to female body’s surfaces influenced the beauty concept itself, revealing artificiality in the actual look. Interviews with the ‘Effekt’ salon’s clients reveal the importance of self-expression, enabled by artificiality of varnish colours’ range: ‘I am going for baby-blue today as that is now in fashion. I always follow the latest trends. I think of it as my own ‘business-card’: my nails reveal my style but also my personality. They give me this eye-catching look which, I believe, makes me more attractive.’ (21/03/2016, short conversation with Studio Effekt’s regular client A, name unknown) My colour-decisions depend on my mood but also many other factors such as weather, inspiration I gain from the street. I like the temporariness of it, I can easily change the style of my nails anytime. And – giggling – men love coloured nails!’ (21/03/2016, short conversation with Studio Effekt’s regular client B, name unknown) Female appearance is an important aspect of male to female relations in the Polish society. Same cultural background shaped a common understanding of what is tasteful and beautiful for the Polish immigrants. Artificial beautifying additions became the code easy to read and like for the Poles representing the opposite sex. Traditional female wisdom teaches us that a woman’s face is her fortune, her sex appeal the bait, her body the promised payoff. Appearance, we learn, will either assure or deny a woman access to lust, love, acceptance, protection, social position and security. (W. Chapkis, p.139) We are constantly assured that beauty will transform men into admirers and drab reality into romantic gestures. (Chapkis, 1988, p. 95) Artificial appearance achieved with detachable ornaments of acrylic nails, fake eye lashes or hair extensions, is seen as a key to success in the modern Polish love-searching process. According to the manicurists Jola and Basia, it is the pre-date beautifying treatments that are most popular in their salon. (21/03/2016, interview with Basia Pietruszka and Jola Szczepanska) I follow Jola’s advice and pick purple. She firstly prepares my nails’ by trimming and rubbing their surface with a special sponge. Then she applies the first coat of translucent base-polish, followed by the next layer of shiny purple varnish. We now need to let it dry so that the next coat can be applied.

Meanwhile, 4 miles to the East, in a victorian Chelsea house, a Polish plasterer Adam prepares an old wall for the first coat to go. He rubs it carefully to achieve a perfectly clean and even surface and applies two base coats with a trowel. The wall needs some time now to dry for the next plaster coatings to follow. Refurbishments are the next ‘beautifying-works’ sector mastered by Poles: The current construction workforce is male (91 per cent) and white (87 per cent). (...). During 2004- 2005 the largest official numbers of non-UK entrants in the construction sector have been Polish (13,115) (Home Office 2007)(Burrell, 2009, p.195) Male character of the builder’s profession is easy to spot in the high-end-refurbishments’ area of Kensington and Chelsea. Electric drills roars and hammers pattering spread across, coming from edwardian tenements, covered with scaffolding.Tall muscular men walk down the streets in a bouncy manner, leaving their male-only refurbishments’ caves for a cigarette break. They look like the Eastern Europe’s Rambo versions – tall, strong, tattoos and scars decorate their arms and torsos. They beautify interiors in a similar way the Acton manicurists beautify Polish women: by adding an ornament. The existing site context they work on, frequently located within conservation areas and inside listed buildings, has an impact on the type of refurbishment works builders deal with. These are mainly small interventions, which are to refresh the interior or reproduce the walls, floors and joinery details. Following that ornament-refreshments’ need, a number of Polish companies came into being, specialising in high-quality refurbishment services. Plasterwork Brothers, founded by Adam Czarnecki and his brother in law, is one of them, employing Polish plaster works experts. When I meet Adam for the first time on one of his sites, he explains the ornament’s importance in his life, whilst finishing a venetian-stucco wall: ‘Apart from it being my real passion, beautifying the surroundings improved quality of my life. Work provided me with money and allowed me to settle. Back in Poland I would probably be jobless or would be earning too little to survive. Whereas here I already own a suburbian house!’ (05/11/2015, interview with Adam Czarnecki) Ornaments produced by the Polish builders are not decorating their clothing, faces or bodies and are unrevealed in the public sphere. Yet detailing work provides them with another power of the Polish dating culture – the income: ‘Whenever I ask a Polish girl out, I am expected to pay for her drinks or a dinner. Money gives me the ability to date as many girls as I like so that one day I can meet the one I will marry.’ (05/11/2015, interview with Adam Czarnecki) Elzbieta Wojcik, a psychologist from the Polish University in London, explains the cultural aspect of that money-driven power: In Polish society traditionally it used to be the man who earned for his family’s living. And, although that pattern changed now and a great amount of Polish females is financially independent, financial aspect is still important, especially for the latest inflow of immigrants, who frequently experienced poverty back in homeland. Being resourceful is seen by the ladies as an attractive feature due to material safety it gives. (22/04/2016, interview with Elzbieta Wojcik)

23 Beautifying nails and walls through attaching decorative layers: manicure and plasterwork comparison 17

(source: K. Mansfield 2002 Dec, p. 44-45; P.N. Hasluck 1906, p. 49-71)

24 25 24

26 26 26 26

27 27 27

24 25 26 27

Plasterwork Brothers’ portfolio: frescos made by Kris Drzewiecki (source: venetianplasterbykris.blogspot.co.uk) Adam photographed in his work site, London, 05/11/2015 (source: own photograph) Plasterwork Brothers’ portfolio of wall finishes (source: Adam Czarnecki’s photographs) Plasterwork Brothers at different refurbishment sites (source: Adam Czarnecki’s photographs) 18

Is a good job and high income then a new layer of Polish males’ ‘ornamentation’? Wendy Chapkis sees male achievements, revealed not by his physique but actions and work, as an equivalent to what beauty is for women: While men are busy conquering and controlling world, women are obsessed with controlling their own bodies, Man believes he survives through his enduring achievements. Woman is her mortal body. (Chapkis, 1988, p.15/16) The romantic power behind beauty and financial achievement - the two immigrant post-2004 ‘ornaments’ - is visible today in the Polish online dating sphere through hundreds of announcements appearing daily on the website londynek.net: ‘I am an attractive, well-kept, light-blond, blue-eyed 30 years old woman. Am searching for companion of a preferably older, sociable and resourceful man.’ - Anna (londynek.net) ‘A tall, slim financially independent, hard working, well-prospering man would like to meet an attractive, slim, well-kept and positive-thinking lady (20-30 years old).’ - Waclaw (londynek.net)

Let’s

zoom out for a moment to see the three Polish ornaments in their broader contexts. Continuous repetition of Poles’ lives’ milestones is marked by the events’ rythm: annual soldiers’ parades, weekly Holy Mass, daily work and habits. These could be demounted further, revealing layers of repetitive components: hundreds marching soldiers’ legs, tens whispering prayers lips, a few hands applying next coating to the surface. At this scale the Polish rituals and habits become more physical: The ornament, detached from its bearers, must be understood rationally. It consists of lines and circles (…) and also incorporates the elementary components of physics, such as waves and spirals. (…) Arms, thighs, and other segments are the smallest component parts of the composition. (S. Kracauer, p.78) It is the mass that is employed here. Only as parts of a mass, not as individuals who believe themselves to be formed from within, do people become fractions of a figure. (S. Kracauer, p.77) Repetition of movements, words and gestures, is essential for the collectively-formed figures to occur as it turns diverse individuals into equal components. For one moment all differences disappear, frozen in a civic composition.

28 ‘The mass ornament’ (source:Kracauer, 1995, cover image) 19

29 30 31

The three Polish ‘mass ornaments’: 29 Polish soldiers photographed before the army parade, London, 1940 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 30 Polish girls in a Catholic procession, London, year unknown (source:Sikorski Institute Archive) 31 Plasterwork Brothers’ at work (source: Adam Czarnecki’s photographs) 20

The setting is important here – whether a Polish club’s hall, church or a beauty salon, the space must be public, where one is heard and seen. According to Habermas (...) The public sphere - Öffentlichkeit - is a place of appearance, representative publicness and publicity among private citizens. (P.G. Rowe, p. 62) The proposed settings for civic compositions house extraordinary moments, during which various individuals with different backgrounds and characters reveal common sense of belongingness, become unity. The space should therefore celebrate the moment, rather than hide it - make it visible. 1 - 50mm fluted glass 2 - metal frame structure 3 - plaster render 4 - 100mm insulation 5 - 50mm lackered plaster render for walls and flooring light blue colour 6 - lackered plaster font, gold colour

n er

b ta

le ac

1 - 50mm fluted glass 2 - metal frame structure 3 - plaster render 4 - 100mm insulation 2 5 - 50mm lackered plaster render for walls and flooring light blue colour 6 - lackered plaster font, gold colour 3

baptism space

4 1 5

n fo

n er

b ta le ac

ht lig

t ry y ) en ller ts’ ga es g gu win ie (v

it ex

t ies pr

+ ch

’s ild

r pa t en t en s’ ry

baptism space

The Font Room Polish Baptistery Building Acton Town, London scale 1:50

viewing space

4 1 5

n fo t

ht lig t ry y ) en ller ts’ ga es g gu win ie (v

t ies pr

’s ild

r pa t en t en s’ ry

The Font Room Polish Baptistery Building Acton Town, London 1:50 The viewingscale space

32 One of the proposed spaces: The Polish Baptistery’s ground and first floors’ plans at 1:200. situated above the font room allows community to participate in the ceremony, keeping its intimate atmosphere. (source: own drawings)

That public visibility generates the need for further ornamentation materialised through physical form. Polish immigrants have been decorating their bodies and surroundings through various details: a detachable military badge, a washable lipstick, chemically-removable acrylic or a hammer-demountable plaster. The increasing permanence of existing Polish details’, suggests that the next Poles’ ornament should materialise through even a more solid and durable form. The addition to the city should be now more extreme, visible, long-lasting. The first proposed element is therefore both universal and solid. Repetitive standard metal framework is to create the boundaries for public activity and support the ornamental layers following it. It does what an English military uniform does to a Polish badge or Chelsea house’s wall does to a plaster render, applied by the Polish builder. Yet, although so simple in its form, the permanence of that building’s piece brings a substantial change to the cityscape, being fixed to existing walls and roofs and becoming their symbolic continuation. The additional skin’s layer - the ornament - is attached to the metal frame, similar way the Acton manicurist attaches acrylic surface to her client’s nails. Polish soldiers, catholics and workers gradually disappear under the subsequent layers of their shiny objects. That cosmetic Polish phenomenon, although may be seen as superfluous, actually reveals their truly selves: their backgrounds and tastes. The proposed skin follows that existing pattern and mixes the various Polish individualities’ stories. Polish builders’ plaster is lacquered to reflect as the acrylic nails’ varnish. Medals-inspired engraved metal is coloured gold like the catholic vessels. Vodka bottles’ glass pieces form new stained windows. The new Polish ornament is achieved through the joinery between generic, ‘democratic’ frame and individual, ornamental attachments, reflecting this way an existing phenomenon of Polish immigrants’ beautifying additions to the generic English rented interiors or own bodies. The proposed joinery also connects renewable with permanent, leaving gaps for the next components to be added by the future immigrants’ generations and inflows. This beautifying procedure is a never-ending process and the new Polish building is never completed. The study of Poles’ physical representations is continued in the next chapter, with the Polish community expanding and their first buildings emerging.

m fra al e et ur m r uc t st

s las dg te s flu anel p

ed h e r ni s qu r fi lac laste p

n fo t

33 The proposed ornament achieved through materials’ connection: generic metal frames supporting the lacquered and demountable Baptistery’s interiors. (source: own drawing) 22 ht lig

34 Concept axo drawing and montage view of the proposed Wedding Venue building, showing the universal structure supporting the ornamental interiors (source: own drawing)

This

happened in spring 1965, at the names-day party of Duchess Zylinska. Ball room of White Eagle Club filled with immigrant generals and earls, drugged with litres of bubbly wine. The Duchess opened a mysterious gift. She looked at the content and screamed. She could hardly breathe. Jan Zylinski quickly approached. ‘Grandma...’ - he said – ‘What is it?’ It was a photograph showing a palace. Its columns were pitted by bullets and plaster cracked walls unrevealed brick structure. The building was roofless – probably the Soviet bombs’ result. He read the photograph’s title scribbled in the corner: Gozdowo, 1964. Jan Zylinski felt how his blood pressure raised in anger. ‘Grandma, don’t cry.’ - he asked - ‘I will rebuild it for you.’ - based on a true event, WInnicka 2014, p.149-160

Chapter 2: The Family / The Building. This chapter gives an insight to the three Polish family-legacies: institution buildings’ ownership, built projects and businesses, representing three different ways of approaching own identity when on immigration and three different visions of homeland. The study leads to the proposal of the new Polish building typology, incorporating the existing family-ran potentials through its programme and fudraising process.

Unwanted

life on emigration was supposed to be temporary state for the first Polish immigrants, living with their memories. Yet it quickly turned into permanence due to the war aftermath in Poland. German and later Soviet invasions ruined Polish aristocrats’ homes: only 2,8 out of 12 thousands manor houses survived the war, out of which 2 thousands stayed in complete decay. Polish immigrants had nothing to come back for. They kept their chateaus in old photographs and paintings, proudly exhibited on Kensington’s basements’ walls. Their homesick soon materialised in a number of reproduced institutions, a valuable national treasure for the next generations. (21/01/2016, interview with Zbigniew Mieczkowski) Everything started from a dream of recreation. Awareness of the Second World War’s damages in Poland generated the need for country’s reconstruction. In 1942 General Sikorski, in collaboration with University of Liverpool, inaugurated the Polish School of Architecture. The common belief was that Poland would regain its independence and the school was to prepare the accurate vision of the homeland’s rebuilt cityscape. (Szmidt B. Aug.1945 p. 390-397) The students’ urban strategies and public buildings were characterised by unique national style: ‘The forms employed are in the main familiar, but they are given an unmistakably Polish inflection – and the result is the more interesting and vigorous for that.’ (from Professor Lionel Budden’s commencing speech, November 1942) The Polish students’ architectural projects, although never completed, gave a beginning to a dream of Poland’s reconstruction, which evolved further. In 1939 Polish army purchased first three buildings in London. These tenements, situated in Kensington, were to become the immigrants’ political institutions founded by the Polish Goverment-In-Exile. The Second World War had a huge impact on house prices in Kensington and Chelsea. House ownership was a risky investment in the times of constant bomb attacks, which made residents desperate to sell their properties. Within 10 years since 1935 an average Kensington’s house decreased 85 percent of its original value. (Samy, 2015, p.40-47)

1 25

Palace of Gozdowo destroyed during the Second World War (source: Sikorski Institute Archives)

2 333 4 4 5

2 Jan Zylinski photographed next to his mother and grandmother London, 1965 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 3 Second World War damages in Poland, 1946-47 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 4 Polish School of Architecture, Liverpool 1943 (source: liverpool.ac.uk) 5 Warsaw Broadcasting Centre, Thesis project of the Polish School of Architecture student, London 1945 (source: B. Szmidt, 1945 Aug, p. 390-397)

6 7 8 9

6 ‘Blessing ceremony’ - a form of catholic baptism given by the Polish communities to their purchased properties - of Sikorski Institute building, London, 1947. (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 7 Photograph taken after the blessing ceremony of the Polish Hearth Club, London 1940 (source: Polish Hearth Club’s Archive)

8 Photograph of the Polish Government-In-Exile, taken in the Government’s Headquarters in South Kensington, 1940 (source: Polish Hearth Club’s Archive) 9 General Wladyslaw Anders during a patriotic ceremony in Sikorski Institute’s building, 1951 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) Next page: Map 2 (source: own map)

That situation led to a series of transactions, achieved by the Polish soldiers between 1939 and 1946, which enriched the government-in-exile with 11 properties in South Kensington. These buildings were used as the sites for political institutions in order to keep Polish Government’s continuity during the Nazi invasion. This Polish independence symbol, embodied in physically existing cityscape, made the immigrants’ dream of come back more real. Gradually expanding political zone in Kensington attracted Polish soldiers to buy their own flats and properties on Gloucester Road, which soon turned into Polish residential area, commonly known as the “Polish Corridor” (12/12/2014, interview with Zbigniew Mieczkowski) ‘Living in that area at the time was uplifting’ – tells me General Makowski, Polish veteran who purchased his flat on Gloucester Road in 1948 – ‘Life on emigration was hard, especially after the war finished and the Polish army had to face unemployment problem. Being surrounded by other Poles and all these splendid Polish institutions, made us recognizable within own community which re-shaped our pride.’ (13/10/2015, interview with Mateusz Makowski) The Polish General’s pride was shaken following the war’s end. Generals used to fame, won during countless battles, were not recognized in England and were unable to do their military service. Lack of English language skills forced them to do physical jobs, degrading their actual professional positions. Each day of the Generals’ life could therefore be divided into two halves: the one inside Polish places, allowing mental survival, and the one outside, focused on earnings and physical existence. 10

On Saturday evenings Polish army released tension caused by humiliations experienced during weekdays. (The Polish officer) watched over an office or underground stations. Or he worked in the factory (…) But on Saturdays they turned out in carefully ironed military uniforms. They found friends they made before war. They led their pre-war lifestyle which had a therapeutic meaning (Winnicka 2012, p.121) If medals and badges were Polish Generals’ insignia, then the Kensington institutions buildings were their temples. This is were they were recognised by the community and surrounded by their therapeutical objects: portraits of the greatest war heroes, national flags and Polish aristocrats’ wooden furniture. And, naturally, the language – loud debates, conversations, gossiping and flirts led in Polish mother tongue filled the institutions’ rooms. (Winnicka 2012, p.121) This homeland’s prosthesis, recreated in Kensington, celebrated the atmosphere of pre-war Polish splendour, placing the General as its male physical representation, respected by men and adored by women. The Poland which they stood for was the Poland of the past, kept in their memories – the memories so blurry that they needed a physically strong symbol – the building – to keep it in existence.

10 29

professional structure of the former Polish officers in the UK in years: 1947-1950, (source: M.Janeta 2012, p.14)

13 12 12 14 14

11 Polish social gatherings in the Polish Hearth Club (left) and White Eagle Club (right), London 1947 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

12 Polish institutions’ interiors’ details: statue of General Sikorski, Polish Hearth Club salon and carpet with patriotic pattern, London 1940 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 13 General Wladyslaw Anders and Polish soldiers, photographed in South Kensington, 1941 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

14 Community gatherings at the Polish Hearth Club, London 1941 (source: Polish Hearth Club’s Archive) 30

15 15 15 16 16 16 17 18

New Polish generation following the fathers’ footsteps: 15 Polish family photographs, London, 1947-65 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 16 Polish Folk Dance Club played an important role in shaping the new generation’s cultural identity , London 1955 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

17 Polish soldier teaching his daughter horseriding, 1957 (source: Mateusz Makowski’s family album) 18 Photograph of the Polish pilot, GA Jerzy Stopa with wife, Joanna and son Marian, sitting in their garden, London 1969; both Jerzy and Marian held managers’ positions in the Polish Pilots Organisation, (source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

The love-motivated 50’s Polish baby boom gave a second meaning to the purchased properties: they stopped being understood as English buildings borrowed for the wartime. They turned into Polish homes, a lasting legacy for the immigrants’ successors. The succession happened firstly within the institutions’ structures. Being born to a soldier-father and raised in the patriotic spirit of led by himself Kensington organizations, made many Polish children born in London want to follow their fathers’ footsteps, replacing them in their prestigious, positions in the Polish institutions’ management. (12/10/2015, interview with Andrzej Morawicz and Christoph Barbarski)

Diagram 1

This informal and family-motivated process of positions’ inheritance had its financial reflection: 11 Polish organizations’ buildings, regaining their pre-war value, stayed in the hands of their Polish founders’ children. The financial phenomenon reached next stage in 1949, with first death of the Polish General Jan Stepien, who decided in his will to donate his Gloucester Road’s apartment for Polish community , starting this way a fashion for property donations through will in the unmarried Polish veterans’ environment. These started being officially collected in October 1949, when National Treasure was established – institution, working as bank of Polish immigrants’ properties’ donations and financial inherits, gathered for the use of future generations. (12/10/2015, interview with Andrzej Morawicz)

Diagram 1: Family tree showing links within selected management structures of the main Polish institutions created in the 40ies, management members highlighted in red (source: own diagram, produced with help of Polish Hearth Club’s , Sikorski Institute’s and PAFT Archives)

Kensington

’s Polish finances and properties found their use twenty years after the war ended. Political situation stabilised, the institutions which housed military uses were no longer needed and, what is most important, the buildings’ values increased significantly. (Garlinski, 1989, p.15-16). The first immigrants’ investments led to their children’ sudden rush of wealth. For the first time Poles could actually afford to implement their dreams into a built reality. This reality, though, varied from the early 40’s concepts, being now reinterpreted by the next generation. Poles born in London after 1950 were raised in the surroundings which shaped their personality into two directions. Firstly, they grew up in an illusion of previous Polish lifestyle, recreated by their parents in Kensington, where, surrounded by upper society and army, they participated in patriotic ceremonies. Secondly, they also lived their ordinary lives in England – they studied in English schools, spent time with English friends and understood local Englishmen better than their parents. Andrzej Morawicz, a Polish General’s son born and raised in London, sees this ‘double identity’ as the generation gap’s source: ‘Being in between the two worlds has raised great expectations towards ourselves. As the children of all these national heroes, we wanted to fully understand the Poland they missed so much. Despite our efforts this was almost an impossible goal as we were born in a completely different reality.’ (16/12/2014, interview with Andrzej Morawicz) The new Polish patriotism was constructed from shreds of information – photographs and paintings on the walls, conversations in the Polish clubs and sporadical trips to Poland. Trying to understand the Poland of their parents they decided to re-build it in own way, with the use of inherited properties and funds. On 21st of January 1969 all Polish institutions’ committees met for a joint conference, which concluded with decision of selling eight Kensington’s governmental buildings to finance the new project - the Polish Social and Cultural Association (PSCA). This institution, was to become a new typology of the Polish centre, adjusted for the next generations’ needs. Sale of the buildings in Kensington, joint with private donations, which were paid into the National Treasure accounts, resulted in the budget of £4.000.000.(Garlinski, 1989, p.9-71) The building opened in 1971, becoming the first self-built, self-managed Polish physical representation in London, with vision, expressed by one of its founders, Jozef Garlinski: There is no doubt that the PSCA should be led by the generation of Poles born in the UK (...) It is them who should take over, it is them that we trust, devote our thoughts, intentions, best wishes. (Jozef Garlinski 1989, p.95) The PSCA building was not only an inherit of ownership. The vision for the future was also included in this legacy. This would not be possible if not a great amount of trust between the founders and successors, which again resulted from family links existent between previous organizations and Association (29/02/2016, interview with Krystyna Bell and Joanna Mludzinska):

Diagram 2

Diagram 2: family tree showing links within selected management structures of the main Polish institutions created in the 40ies, management members highlighted in red (source: own diagram, produced with help of Polish Hearth Club’s , Sikorski Institute’s and PAFT Archives)

19 20 21 22

Photograph from the joint conference of Polish organisations’ committees, London 21/01/1969 (source: PSCA Archive) ‘Blessing ceremony’ of the PSCA building, London 1971 (source: PSCA Archive) Construction of the PSCA building, 1970 (source: PSCA Archives) PSCA’s restaurant ‘Lowiczanka’, 1970 (source: PSCA Archives) 34

27 23 28 24 28 25 29 26 35

Polish immigrants’ gatherings 1970-2004: living with the past and re-imagining inherited Poland: 23-25 Polish Veterans’ Reunions, PSCA building, London 1992-96 (source: PSCA Archive) 26 Polish Government-In-Exile Reunion, Polish Embassy, London 1993-2004 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 27 General Zbigniew Mieczkowski visits his family house in Poland with his London-born children, 1990 (source: private Zbigniew Mieczkowski’s archive)

28-29 Social gatherings in the POSK building, London 1971-96 (source: PSCA Archive) Next page: Map 3 (source: own map)

> SOLD value: £37.500

> SOLD value: £34.500

> SOLD value: £30.000

> SOLD value: £37.500 > SOLD value: £30.500

> SOLD last will donations

> SOLD value: £27.500

> SOLD value: £36.200 > SOLD value: £20.500 PAFT (The Polonia Aid Foundation Trust)

PSCA’s investment: Ravenscourt Ave residential project

PSCA (Polish Social and Cultural Association)

Polish properties sales in 1969

South Kensington & Hammersmith PSCA’s investment strategy, 2012

The PSCA building, established as a collage of re-accommodated Kensington’s institutions, gained its new character, the next generation’s vision. Polish restaurant Lowiczanka, located on the first floor, started being visited by English guests, introduced to the place by their Polish schoolmates. Polish discos playing international music and spectacles, welcomed guests representing various nationalities, frequently unaware about venue’s Polish roots. (29/02/2016, interview with Krystyna Bell and Joanna Mludzinska) Transformation also affected Polish Hearth Club – the institution not included in the 1969 buildings’ sales. From a place of patriotic celebrations it turned into a touristic attraction. Its social spaces opened for English society which started visiting them on a regular basis in order to try the “typical” Polish goods. The Club transformed into a patchwork of commercialised Polish symbols: its rooms filled with tempting smell of cooked pierogi, stinging taste of vodka served in the carved crystal glasses and dramatic Chopin’s music inside its concert halls. The place started resembling a fancy souvenir shop, promoting Polish culture to the outside world. This golden Polish re-building era ended in 2009 with the last re-imagined building’s completion. Like he promised, Jan Zylinski rebuilt his grandmother’s palace. This Versailles-inspired white structure in the middle of Ealing looks like a surreal piece of Polishness, surrounded by English modest houses. Its ornamental facade, decorated by sculptures and columns looks exactly the same as the one in the Duchess’ photographs from the past. What is mostly striking, though, is what happens inside: long-legged models pose for the GQ magazine photo-shot, a famous opera singer gives an interview sitting in a Louie 16 armchair, Hindi couple celebrates their wedding day in a ballroom with the Polish-food-buffet. The whole mixture of all kinds of events celebrated in these rooms for rent with Duchess’ Zylinska paintings on the walls, the re-constructed Polishness on display. Early 40’s homeland’s dream-concept was re-interpreted by the second generation of Poles through a set of built forms, enabled by inherited finances. That recreated Poland of the soldiers’ sons and daughters was a country perceived from a tourist’s viewpoint as, indeed, they were tourists themselves inside their parents’ Kensington reality. They saw Poland as a souvenir which could satisfy nostalgia of their grandmothers, bring them profit and position.

, 12 years after Polish accession, there are 853 000 Poles living in Britain, ( London Home Office), Today meaning that Polish population increased almost 30 times since 1940. This enormous group is a generation formed by different homeland’s experience. Unlike the first incomers, the new immigrants were never landowners. Paintings of magnificent palaces do not decorate the walls of their poky rented bedrooms, located in far London’s suburbs. Their recall of Poland does not evoke pompous ballrooms but communism and poverty. The previous Polish dream of built form reshaped therefore into a new, non-physical goal of economical status’ improvement, simultaneously generating a new Polish space: the shop, the factory, the workplace. Post-2004 map of London filled with small Polish businesses, frequently started as ways of solving immigration struggles. Polish grocery market could serve here as an example, created to answer the longing for native food. ‘When we arrived to the UK in 1999, there were no Polish delis in London’ – tells me Tadeusz Honek, the founder of Polish Specialities, currently the biggest Polish food business in the UK. - ‘We missed Polish cuisine, same as our neighbours and friends, which is why we started bringing Polish products when visiting home, in order to sell them here. We realised how much profit we could make on Polish products.’ (17/03/2016, interview with Tadeusz Honek) The first shop was opened by Tadeusz and his wife in 1999 in a rented space in Hammersmith, the London’s area most populated by Poles at the time. Mrs Honek’s sister and her husband helped in the store and four years later they could afford to rent another space in Ealing to run the second branch. Starting a business as a family initiative is a frequently followed pattern by the last Polish inflow’s representatives, enabling trust within its management structure and motivating further company’s development. ‘I felt great responsibility, bringing my family abroad. I wanted to provide them with the best quality of living, which mobilised me to establish next shops. I viewed my business as an economical power, something that I can pass for my children to take over.’ (17/03/2016, interview with Tadeusz Honek)

30 31 32 33 34 35

30-31 Polish Hearth Club after being refurbished by the second generation of Poles (source: Polish Hearth Club’s Archive) 32 Fragment of an article talking about the Polish Hearth Club’s international programme, year unknown (source: Polish Hearth Club’s Archive)

33 Jan Zylinski’s palace in Ealing, the ‘White House’ (source: whitehouselondon.com) 34 Jan Zylinski in his grandomther’s recreated palace’s ballroom (source: Winnicka 2012, cover image) 35 Zbigniew Mieczkowski’s children in his father’s family house on a trip to Poland, 1990 (source: private Zbigniew Mieczkowski’s archive)

36 36 37 37 37 38 38 38

36 ‘Blessing ceremony’ of the new Polish Specialities’ branch, London 2006 (source: private photos given by Michal Honek)

37 Polish Specialities’ branches in various West London locations (source: private photos given by Michal Honek) 38 some of the Polish Specialities’ fridges in the UK supermarkets (source: own photographs)

Diagram 3

There are currently 10 members of Honek family within the business management structure, including the founders’ children, who work in the company’s office. In between 2003 and 2009 Polish Specialities continued to expand its network of rented shop spaces in Hammersmith, Ealing and Acton, owning today a chain of over 30 franchised deli stores ran by the Honek’s generations. Although so successful, the company dealt with a crisis in 2009 due to other Polish delis being opened in same areas. This motivated management’s decision to open whole sale service, at the same time detaching the business from its initial shop spaces. That detachment of service from its bases was taken further in November 2009, when Polish Specialities started products’ distribution to international chains: Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s and Londis. These UK supermarkets offer now various Polish goods in their ‘world food’ fridges. The decision appeared to be a great success, reaching in 2015 distribution to over 1000 convenience stores and supermarkets in the UK and enforcing Polish Specialities’ market position. (17/03/2016, interview with Michal Honek) Withdrawal from physical spaces, so celebrated by the previous incomers, is characteristic for the new Polish inflow, de-emphasizing role of a building in own urban presence. The next family-led Polish business in London, offering building and refurbishment services, exists as entirely mobile practice, unlinked to any of its sites for longer. ‘We travel from one site to another, finishing refurbishment works and recording our progress. Although this may seem exhausting, I personally enjoy it as it makes working environment more interesting’ - tells me Kris Drzewiecki, Polish plasterer, who runs Plasterwork Brothers together with his brother in law, Adam Czarnecki. The brothers tell me about the company’s beginnings. (05/11/2015, interview with Adam Czarnecki) Everything started in a Polish disco party in 2005, where Kris, who worked at the time as a church fresco painter, met Dorota Czarnecka, by accidentally pouring his beer on her top. This was love at first sight and a few months later Kris moved to London in order to date Dorota, who shared a room there with her brother, Adam. Adam and Kris soon started working together on refurbishment projects. Yet the urge to establish own business came not from the brothers’ experience but, once again, from family: ‘After me and Dorota married and expected a child, I had to become more serious about things. I wanted to possess something on my own to pass it to my children one day.’ (05/11/2015, interview with Kris Drzewiecki) In 2006 Kris and Adam opened their business, offering plaster and stucco works. Family served for the brothers not only as mobilisation but also as support in further business development. Plasterwork Brothers increased throughout last years, setting an office in Kris’s house in Ealing and employing family members. That family character of their business structure gave second meaning to their craft: ‘I already started teaching my sons’ – says Kris, showing me the pictures of his two boys in his mobile, plastering a wall – ‘I like to think that they will take over the company one day.’ (05/11/2015, interview with Adam Czarnecki and Kris Drzewiecki)

Diagram 3:

Polish Specialities’ family tree

(source: own diagram, produced with help of Michal Honek) 40

Diagram 4

Like in the case of the Polish food sector, building business also grapples with competition, pushing companies to change their original expertise profile to offer general refurbishment works: ‘Popularity of Polish builders in the UK encourages next Poles to establish their own building businesses. The Polish building industry used to be based on specialists, qualified in narrow construction areas, but currently competition is pushing everyone to expand offered services and become even more mobile.’ (05/11/2015, interview with Adam Czarnecki) That relationship between competition and mobility also influenced Vitpol, one of the largest Polish builders company in London, based in Acton. The business started in the 90’s when Vitek Szamfeber, coming from Polish carpenters family, came to London with his wife, Dorota, to work as refurbishment builder with his cousin, Jacek Kowalski. In 1999 Vitek and Dorota decided to create their own business, related to Vitek’s passion – Vitpol was established as a carpenters’ workshop, making high quality timber fittings. With more and more orders appearing, the Szamfebers offered jobs to their nephews, struggling with unemployment in Poland at the time. Since then, Szamfebers nephews settled in London and started their own families with Polish ladies, who currently also work for the company, helping in accounting.

Diagram 5

During my visit at Vitpol’s timber joinery factory in North Acton, Vitek Szamfeber walks me through a sequence of spacious workshops, decorated with John Paul 2 portraits and finished timber pieces. We enter cutting rooms, covered with timber dust and drying spaces smelling of fresh paint. This large factory still reminds the previous Vitpol’s years of glory, when it existed as highly specialised timber craftsmen, focused around its warehouse building. This changed in 2010, when competition in building sector generalised offered services: ‘The situation pushed us to offer mass manufactured products and site works.’ - says Vitek. - ‘That is the only chance for us to survive. The factory is not used as often as it used to, having our builders spread around various refurbishment sites.’ (11/02/2016, interview with Vitek Szamfeber)

Diagram 4: Family tree of the Plasterworks Brothers company (source: own diagram, produced with help of Adam Czarnecki) Diagram 5: Family tree of Vitpol company (source: own diagram, produced with help of Vitek and Dorota Szamfebers)

39 40

39 Adam Czarnecki and Kris Drzewiecki in one of their refurbishment sites (source: Adam Czarneckiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s private photo)

40 Vitek and Dorota Szamfembers in their office, Acton, London 2016 (source: own photograph, taken during interview 11/02/2016)

41 42 42 42 43 43 43

41 Vitpolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s factory building (source: own photograph) 42 Photographs taken inside Vitpol factory, Acton, London, 2016 (source: own photographs) 43 Vitek Szamfeber posing for a photograph inside his factoryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s detailing workspace (source: own photograph) Next page: Map 4 (source: own map)

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Competition influenced many post-2004 Polish businesses by changing the approach to their base-spaces. The concept of a physical place housing the service got replaced by the service itself. Increasing mobility and temporariness of the recent immigrants’ working sites developed a new, unbuilt type of Polish legacy, passed to the next generations of Poles – the craft and family business, seen by the new incomers as more solid than buildings.

It started as a dream, expressed by pencil-broadcast-centres drawn onto graph paper. It also existed as

an political institutions, caged inside Kensington’s tenements. Then it turned into built reality of magnificent concrete blocks and contemporary-baroque-palaces. In 2004 a new vision appeared, replacing a building with a rented fridge or unfinished wall. Over the last few decades Polish immigrants’ spaces have evolved as a number of spatial interventions. These very different interpretations are the outcomes of different experiences of Poland, deepening the division within Polish immigrant society. Generals who survived the war, constantly dreaming about coming back to free Poland, can not understand the builders’ decision of leaving their homeland for such a trivial reason as money. (13/10/2015, interview with Mateusz Makowski) Whereas the post-accession society sees the “Polishness” of the Generals’ half-British sons as non-authentic. (05/11/2015, interview with Adam Czarnecki) The main distinction lies in the fact that the Generals assimilate the homeland they remember with something pleasant, reminding them youth, the pre-war splendour. This is an opposite to how Poland is seen by the new immigrants: as a still fresh reminiscence of poverty. Different perception of Poland became the source for further differences relating to immigrants’ built legacies. The Polish conflict is additionally en-strengthened through exclusive sense of ownership, generated by the Polish places. Family has served as the foundation for Polish existence in London, providing Poles with valuable social and economical potentials, existing till now. Yet, family nostalgia, although so helpful in establishing these powers, led to later exclusiveness and seclusion. The PSCA and Kensington’s Clubs are focused only on a small section of related Polish groups living with the past, whereas the post-2004 businesses exist as new, privately owned workplaces. What Polish society needs now is a building that is shared and this can not be achieved in any other way than through a collective input. That should begin in the very first project’s stage through collectively raised budget, allowing to buy selected lands and generate a new sense of shared ownership. The proposed funding strategy therefore mixes existing Polish legacies, representing all three Poles’ inflows. Opportunity of selling one of the National Treasure’s (today’s PAFT’s) properties located in Kensington, like Sikorski Institute, unused at the moment for community purposes, brings a financial potential of around £15 000 000. (12/10/2015, interview with Andrzej Morawicz) PSCA could become the client, supporting the project financially with funds coming from sale of its properties, lands and from donations it has collected, an estimated total value of £12 000 000. The next legacy of Polish businesses could support the project, based on their regular customers’ networks or manufactured products. Trust and authority Polish Specialities gained within the network of customers reveals an opportunity of crowd funding or fundraising events. Polish building companies, such as Plasterwork Brothers or Vitpol, if skilfully reconnected in collaboration, could become the project’s great materials and crafts potential, offered in a high quality on a reasonable price through donations of leftover products and discounts. That builders’ collaboration could also solve the competition struggles, allowing them to work within their own expertise areas. This imagined fundraising strategy, developing a sense of shared ownership through collective inputs, is presented in the next page’s Diagram. The next stage of the three inputs’ reconnection happens through the proposed programme, achieved by linking the existing Poles’ spatial typologies. All today’s Polish political and economical powers have been established, motivated by one value – the family. It was the Polish baby boom that motivated Kensington’s properties’ sale to fund the next buildings. It was the family that pushed Polish incomers to establish own businesses, willing to leave something for their children. It is the family members that keep all these legacies in existence.

PLANNING PROCESS The project needs to comply with: ONE NATIONAL POLICY THREE LOCAL POLICIES

1 Council: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Conservation area: Queensgate

NATIONAL PLANNING POLICY

2 Council: Hammersmith & Fulham Conservation area: Ravenscourt & Starch Green

3 Council: Ealing Cons. areas: Ealing Town Centre Haven Green Acton Park

Diagram 6

Diagram 6: Proposed Fundraising Diagram, incorporating all immigration inflowsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; financial potentials (source: own diagram)

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The proposed buildings keep this focus, by offering a mix of families-generating spaces, enabling a gradual build-up of affection and love feelings, crowning it with marriage and birth. Existing Polish institutions, understood here as stable, valued, recurring patterns of behaviour, are re-accommodated within the proposed buildings’ programme and layouts. The spaces form this way a collage of mechanisms, supporting the family-building process, relevant for all three Polish inflows: legal and political activity (inspired with the first immigrants’ Kensington’s network), cultural promotion and social interaction (developed by the second Poles’ generation), economical growth (established by the post-accession incomers) and religious rituals (common for all Poles). be au ty

Proposed Buildings Layouts:

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Drinking is an important element of the Polish dating culture, usually occuring before and after the date. The proposed building accommodates existing Polish food and drinks businesses and celebrates various Polish successes in the awards’ ceremonies’ room.

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Wedding Venue, situated next to the Polish catholic church in Ealing, proposes spaces for typical Polish wedding’s traditions and activities.

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Diagram 7

Negotiation between all three inflows’ funding potentials and spaces’ typologies significantly reduces the risk of creating another exclusive Polish centre. The resulting from this ‘collage’ process buildings produce common confidence and identification with the space, unifying the community through the process. Having the proposed buildings located within five West London areas, a successful urban strategy is necessary, linking the proposed through one common route. The next chapter therefore examines the existing Polish urban paths, trying to identify the successful pattern.

Diagram 7: Proposed Buildings’ layouts (source: own diagram) 48

Bottoms

up everyone! - Kris Drzewiecki raised a glass of vodka high above his head. Strong palms of Polish plasterers and their wives’ manicured-hands met over the table with a loud clink of glass, a fourth of such clinks this afternoon. - Let’s drink for my son, Alex, the next best plasterer in the world! All guests leaned back to absorb the alcohol. Meanwhile, three meters to the side, Alex Drzewiecki was breastfed by his mother. She did not like it when Kris drunk that much but had to be more understanding today. Own son’s baptism happens once throughout whole life in the end. - based on astory told by Kris Drzewiecki during the interview, 05/11/2015

Chapter 3: The Community / The City This chapter presents the three rites’ ceremonies routes, created spontaneously by the three Polish inflows’ representatives in between the established by them spaces. The study explores only selected processions, seen as characteristic for each inflow - the army and wedding parades, the funeral routes and the baptisms’ motions. These case studies lead to conclusions incorporated in the proposed urban strategy, reconnecting Poles in the broader West London context and in their local surroundings.

There

is a saying that only the first time counts. A woman who married three times will keep a fresh reminiscence of her first wedding, similarly to a girl who will always remember the first time receiving communion. () That individual’s ‘initiation’ moment’s importance is highlighted by presence of the public. Rites, celebrated by each Polish immigrants’ generation, happen inside the established by them spaces, setting the edges of rituals’ transit-routes - the Polish processions. The first of such processions was the Polish army parade that happened in August 1940, soon after signing the ‘military agreement’ (05/08/1940) between Polish and British armies. The parade was Poles’ initiation into foreign lands – it introduced Polish soldiers to England by exhibiting them onto London streets, same as the Polish community, walking behind their soldiers. The parade’s route was assembled between first purchased Polish properties: long procession of soldiers and crowds of their admirers, walked from the 43 Eaton Place building, where the President-In-Exile’s insignia were kept, down Cromwell Road up to Kensington’s Government-In-Exile headquarter, housing military flags and symbols.(13/10/2015, interview with Mateusz Makowski) With new Polish institutions appearing on Kensington’s map, the next parades’ came into being. Regular military marches celebrated next Polish regiments’ arrivals to the UK or ceremonies of military-ranks-giving. ‘They always begun and ended inside one of the institution’s buildings. And were connected by that community walk from point A to point B.’ (13/10/2015, interview with Mateusz Makowski) Territorial journey, constructed upon buildings’ entries and exits had its deeper symbolic meaning. Leaving the interior in order to walk together to the outside world and re-enter the next interior space, highlighted each space’s importance. The procession was a gradually building-up process, which stages could only be conducted in specific sequence of specific buildings. Arnold van Gennep in his book The Rites of Passage, writes about traditional walked-processions, seeing door as the boundary between rituals’ stages:

(…) The door is the boundary between the foreign and domestic worlds in the case of an ordinary dwelling,

between the profane and sacred worlds in the case of a temple. Therefore to cross the threshold is to unite oneself with the new world. (Van Gennep, 1977, p.20)

interior

exterior

interior

A ceremony begins

Cromwell Road

B ceremony ends

President-In-Exile’s office

Government-In-Exile’s Headquarter

Army parade displaying Polish soldier, was another attraction-building component, accompanying his medal-ornament and institution-building. Increasing affection within Polish community soon originated a new parade - the wedding procession. These, apart from being conducted as walked journeys, additionally resulted in literal transitions, both in relation to territory and society.

To marry is to pass from the group of children or adolescents into the adult group, from a given clan to another, from one family to another, and often from one village to another. (Van Gennep,1977, p.124) Polish weddings’ explosion of 1942 begun a series of just-married Polish ladies’ movings within Kensington area. ‘Many soldiers owned flats at the time, due to the British Council support and low properties’ prices. It was common to move into the husband’s house after the wedding. ‘ (09/12/2014, interview with Anna Sabbat) The moving happened symbolically during the ceremony, constructed as a common route for each General’s wedding. Firstly, Poles gathered around bride’s house and walked her to the Brompton Oratory, where the ceremony was conducted. Then, the couple and participants walked together across Oratory Gardens, singing Polish songs and throwing rice to the couple (luck and fertility symbol) up to the Polish Hearth Club – popular spot for Generals’ wedding parties. The procession had its end at the groom’s house’s door, where the bride was walked by wedding guests, to symbolically conclude her home’s transition. (09/12/2014, interview with Anna Sabbat)

Diagram 8

interior A ceremony begins

exterior Oratory Gardens

Brompton Oratory

interior B ceremony ends Polish Hearth Club

The 40’s processions’ routes, although created by spontaneous crowds, could not exist without the Polish institutions’ buildings, assembling their solid boundaries by setting starting and ending points. Van Gennep highlights importance of physical pieces in shaping the community’s awareness of the place’s ‘possession’: When milestones or boundary signs (…) are ceremonially placed by a defined group on a delimited piece of earth, the group takes possession of it in such a a way that a stranger who sets a foot on it commits a sacrilege analogous to a profane person’s entrance into a sacred forest or temple. (Van Gennep, 1977, p.16) The ‘boundary signs’ - in this case the buildings – provided Poles with spaces necessary for their rituals to happen. These walks joined their destination-buildings together, forming this way an interlinked urban network, reminisced by Zbigniew Mieczkowski as a solid composition: This was an unusual phenomena of the country within a country, with its own government, president, military forces and administration, kept awaiting for the change of fortune in order to come back to homeland. (Mieczkowski, 2013 p.126)

Diagram 8: Axo drawing of the Polish wedding procession’s route (source: own drawing)

1 2 3

1 the Polish Army Parade, 05/08/1940, London (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 2 photograph of the typical Polish wedding procession (source: Polish Digital Archive: www.nac.gov.pl) 3 typical Polish weddings’ walked-dance ‘the polonaise’ (source: Polish Digital Archive: www.nac.gov.pl) 52

4 5 6 78

4-5 Polish community gathering at the Polish Hearth Clubâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entrance, waiting for the married couple to arrive to welcome them with bread and salt, London, 1948 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 6 Polish couple at the churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entrance, London, 1947 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 7 Polish couple, surrounded by Polish community enter the car to arrive to the church for her wedding day 8

(source: Sikorski Institute Archive)

Polish groom carries his bride upstairs in his flat after the wedding party, London, 1955

(source: Sikorski Institute Archive) Next page: Map 5 (source: own map)

- Polish Institutions - Polish residential areas 1: Office of Polish national Commander 2: Grosvenor Hotel: workplace of many Polish soldiers 3: Polish Government-In Exile office 1 4: Polish Government-In Exile office 2 5: White Eagle Club 6: Grabowski pharmacy 7: Brompton Oratory 8: Yalta Field: outdoor ceremonies 9: Daquis Restaurant 10:Polish University-In-Exile 11: Sikorski Institute 12: Polish Hearth Club 13: Polish Government-In-Exile Headquarters 14: Royal Albert Hall: Polish Veterans’ Reunions 15: Brompton Cementery 16: Polish Veteran House 17: National Independance Council + National Treasure 18+19: Polish Pilots Organisation 20: Immigrant Women Society 21: Swiderski Publishing 22: Publishing Building

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between Polish buildings lost its durability with their users’ deaths. Kensington’s properties’ sale of 1969, erased Poles’ institutions from the map, bringing end to the Polish processions. Urban enclosed network was replaced by the PSCA’s building and a few refurbishments. Community walks transformed into commemoration journeys - the funerals. With recent deaths of 3 Polish Generals’ wives, a study of the second Polish generation’s processions may be carried out based on their funerals’ routes: Funeral Route A: Irena Anders, wife of General Anders: Generals’ sons and daughters gathered in front of the funeral house in Ealing on a cloudy morning of December 2010. They welcomed each other with a kiss on both cheeks. The coffin of Irena Anders was carried outside by six tall soldiers, followed by Polish crowd of family, neighbours and friends. They walked to the Church of Our Lady Mother, located in Ealing Broadway, where the service was conducted. Next, Anna Anders and family received condolences to then drive towards the Brompton Cemetery, the Kensington’s graveyard for Polish Generals’ coffins. After the burying, closest family and friends drove back to PSCA’s booked restaurant space in Hammersmith for a funeral meal. (10/09/2015, interview with Anna Anders)

A burying ceremony Brompton Cemetery

Funeral Route B: Maria Makowska, wife of General Makowski: Maria Makowska’s coffin was carried by her children from the Polish Nun House in Ealing to the nearby Church of Our Lady Mother. It was a hot morning of August 2012 and the guests were waiting outside the church, grasping last pre-Autumn sun. The service was short and official, after which the coffin was placed in a black limo. General Makowski did not want to accept condolences, absolutely devastated with his loss. The procession of cars drove to Kensington, in order to bury the body in the Brompton Cemetery, from where all the guests drove to the close-by Polish Hearth Club for a dinner. (13/10/2015, interview with Mateusz Makowski)

A burying ceremony Brompton Cemetery

Funeral Route C: Anna Sabbat, wife of the former President-In-Exile Kazimierz Sabbat: Anna Sabbat’s body was kept in the Sabbats’ house on Cromwell Road to follow the pre-funeral tradition of body-watching. On the funeral’s day, in April 2015, the coffin was transported to the Andrew Bobola Polish Church in Hammersmith, where the Polish society gathered. After the ceremony, Anna Sabbat’s children carried the coffin out, followed by all participants in a slow procession. Guests arrived to the next, distanced destination – the Brompton Cemetery – by cars and after the burial, the closest family and friends drove back to the Sabbats’ house for the after-funeral meal. (Informations’ source: www.msz.gov.pl )

A burying ceremony Brompton Cemetery

9 9 10 11 11

9 Photographs taken during General Andersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; funeral (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 10 Brompton Cemetery, London, 1950 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 11 Polish veteransâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; funeral ceremonies, London, 1950 (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 56

12 13 13

12 Photographs taken during Anna Sabbatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funeral, London, 2015 (source: www.fakt.pl) 13 Photographs taken during Irena Andersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; funeral, London 2010 (source: www.fakt.pl) Next page: Map 6 (source: own map)

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Polish routes no longer exist in between two points but all pass one – The Brompton Cemetery, where most Polish soldiers’ graves are located. This graveyard is the only unchanged element of the post-Generals’ Kensington network, the authentic ‘souvenir’ of the past. The second Poles’ generation, when attending the ceremony of the buried, simultaneously re-visits all the Polish graves from past: their soldier-fathers, uncles and grandfathers. The Brompton Cemetery unifies them all through a shared experience of separation from their loved ones. That ‘separation’ moment builds up, again, through a set of ritual’s stages, expanding distance between alive participants and the dead: starting on an opened coffin inside a house, through closing it and placing in the church, up to burying it in the cemetery and leaving behind. () Just like the Generals’ weddings were the journeys of unification, the Polish funerals are the journeys of separation. That is reflected in the urban map. Unlike the 40’s enclosed network, the new Polish urban map exists as dispersal, having a common stop of the cemetery in between. The second generation re-assembled their own routes in various combinations, incorporating own private spaces of homes, exclusive clubs or booked restaurants’ spaces joint back with the post-war souvenirs. The funeral ceremony stayed within the places that are shared and public, whereas the social ritual’s stage – the routes’ destination points – is now private. Arnold van Gennep highlights the importance of funeral’s meal in generating community bondings: Among rites of incorporation I shall first mention the meals shared after funerals and at commemoration celebrations. Their purpose is to reunite all the surviving members of the group with each other, and sometimes also with the deceased, in the same way that a chain which has been broken by the disappearance of one of its links must be rejoined. (…) (Van Gennep, p.165) The public point A of the Polish funeral’s journey – the cemetery - is missing its equally public point B - the after-ceremony social interaction - the new route’s destination.

the second generation is linked by their relatives’ deaths, then the third inflow reconnects through relatives’ births. “Childbearing Report”, published in 2014 by Office for National Statistics announced that an average Polish woman in the UK gives birth to 2.13 children, making them, next to Lithuanian and Pakistani women, the top UK’s childbearing immigrant group. It is not surprising then that currently the most frequent ceremonies, reported by the Church of Our Lady Mother and the Andrew Bobola Church are baptisms. () Although baptisms’ ceremonies are also built upon transitions from one space to another, these journeys are entirely incidental and non-symbolic. The two of my interviewees representing that most fertile Polish inflow, shared with me their baptisms’ stories. Baptism Routes A and B: Alex Drzewiecki and Mikolaj Drzewiecki, sons of Kris Drzewiecki, a Polish plasterer: A day before the ceremony, back in August 2003, Kris went to pick up his mother and mother-in-law from the airport. He drove them home, in Acton Town, were they had a family dinner together. The next day in the morning his wife, Dorota took their mothers to her befriended Polish beauty salon “Effekt” in Acton Central, where ladies had their hair and nails done. The ceremony began at noon time in the Andrew Bobola Church in Hammersmith, from where the family with their guests – mainly the Plasterwork Brothers’ employees drove back to Drzewiecki’s house, where the home-made dinner was served, followed by vodka shots – the Polish products bought in the local corner shop “Polish Specialities”. Mothers of Kris and Dorota stayed in London for the whole weekend and took a returning flight on Monday morning. Their second son’s baptism in February 2012 had a similar pattern, with mothers travelling from Poland, having their hair done in the same beauty salon and ceremony conducted at the Hammersmith church. Yet the after-church meal was held in a new Drzewiecki’s place, who had to move houses in 2011. The new rented flat in Ealing Broadway welcomed the same guests for a home-cooked dinner and vodka, provided by the nearby “Parade” shop. (05/11/2015, interview with Kris Drzewiecki)

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15 Polish baptism ceremonies in Polish Jesuit church, London (source: St Ignatius Jesuits Parish Archive, London) Next page: Map 7 (source: own map)

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Baptism Route C: Lucja Pietruszka, daughter of Basia Pietruszka, a Polish manicurist: In September 2010 family of Basia flied to London, where they were picked up by Basia’s husband, Roman, a Polish roofer. Basia took her sisters and mother to ‘Effekt’ salon the same day, in order to make their nails for the ceremony. They also stopped in the local Polish shop in Acton Central, in order to buy products for the after-baptism meal. The event was held at the Polish Church of Our Lady Mother in Ealing Broadway, after which all the guests – Basia’s and Roman’s families and Polish co-workers – drove to Acton Central’s house rented by Pietruszka family. Home-made Polish dinner was followed by vodka shots and guests stayed until late, with the last person stepping out of their flat at 4 am. Basia’s mother and sisters returned the following day in the evening. (21/03/2016, interview with Basia Pietruszka) Polish processions of baptisms are stretched out in time and territory, in relation to the previously given processions examples. The route begins not as a walk to the ceremony’s space, but back in Poland, where the participants’ planes take off. From a walk of the early 40’s, the Polish procession transformed into a series o transitions, including airplane-travel, car-drive and a late intoxicated-walk down the stairs. Moreover, the new route is unestablished by any Polish solid landmarks, having a number of temporary places instead: grocery corner shops that no longer exist and flats, rented for some period. The baptism route is a reflection of its participants’ urban dispersal, built around temporary places or non-physical services. The post-2004 Polish procession exists now as invisible journeys’ sequence. These recent routes require solid and shared buildings – the permanent beginning and destination points – which, supporting the existing businesses and services stages, could consolidate the whole network.

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‘ urban expansion gradually erased their architectural landmarks from the West London map, damaging the first processions’ routes. These collective rituals firstly lost their public destination-points back in the 70’s, when the institutions’ network’s shrinkage placed the new focus onto family links and privatised, family-owned spaces of Hammersmith and Ealing. Next, around 2004, they also lost the public starting points, generating dispersed businesses, shops and rented houses instead, moving further and further away up to far Acton. Moving all previous institutions into one PSCA’s block was a good idea back in the seventies, when the Polish society of London existed as a much smaller and homogenous group. However nowadays the dispersal with the biggest percentage of Polish residents in the areas of Hammersmith, Ealing and Acton suggests a more urban strategy. A case study of the first Polish network, created in Kensington throughout the 40’s, proves that connections between buildings, resulting from their functions and localisations, are key in the development of community-bonding network. Yet, the patterns of Kensington’s network must not be thoughtlessly repeated onto the new ground, but be adjusted for the recent, dispersed character of today’s Polish urban existence. The proposed urban strategy is therefore spread around five Polish residential areas, associated with all immigrants’ inflows. The new Poles’ procession happens in between proposed landmarks, connected by their love- and family-generating functions. The new procession begins on a Friday afternoon in Acton Central, where a platinum-blond Polish girl has her nails done by befriended manicurist inside the new Beauty Building. She then shares vodka cocktails with a just-met Polish plasterer at Kensington’s Drinking Hall. From there it only takes 15 minutes on a train to reach the new Dating Hall in Hammersmith. There is jazz, there is attraction, a gentle touch, an intoxicated kiss. The next procession’s stages happen few months’ after, with a crowd of Polish plasterers and hairdressers throwing rice onto the couple at the Ealing’s Wedding Venue. A year later the same crowd gathers at the Acton Town’s Baptistry’s chapel to welcome the new Pole to their immigrant world. This urban ‘procession’, connected through the buildings’ functions is additionally strengthened by the connection of their localisations. Each building is situated within the underground station’s site so that existing infrastructure eases transition from one stage of the proposed route to another.

Next page: Map 8 (source: own map)

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There is a second depth to this new Polish Love-Route. The love-driven life stages, accommodated by the scheme, are relevant to all Poles and are often marked with an identical rite - love celebrated in weddings, birth celebrated in baptisms. These rites, conducted the same way for all, highlight the universality of human life – the fact, that each human being experiences identical life changes. Rites therefore hold a great unifying power, as they set each individual as equal nature’s part: Thus we encounter a wide degree of general similarity among ceremonies of birth, childhood, social puberty, betrothal, marriage, pregnancy, fatherhood, initiation into religious societies, and funerals. In this respect, man’s life resembles nature, from which neither individual nor the society stands independent. (Van Gennep, p. 3) Participation in an individual’s life changes’ rituals inside the public space unifies whole community in this act. In this moment the participants are set alike: they are all humans, they all experience the same life stages and same rituals in the same public space. The rite therefore becomes the next central point of the proposed urban scheme. Inside their new buildings Polish community witnesses an individual’s life changes, participating in the process through own presence (by observing Polish baptised child), services’ provision (by providing Polish wedding with own grocery store’s products or by beautifying nails of the ceremony’s guests), further socialising (by gathering together in the after-parties’ dance floors, restaurants and bars). Insertion of a building into an existing urban context regenerates its immediate surrounding through relinking all existing Polish layers by giving them their common destination. Therefore the proposed venues’ bars and restaurants are sustained by the local Polish spirits’ and grocery shops. The new beauty salons re-accommodate Polish manicurists, currently renting their small stations at the local hairdressers. The old and empty churches, members’ clubs and post-war souvenir-places become the beginning points to the new Polish processions, ending inside the proposed.

Next page: Map 9: Proposed Polish Reconnecting Strategy (source: own map)

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Conclusion Although driven by love, the West London Polish society is divided. There is a clash of homeland’s experience, seen as a dream-land, a souvenir, a birth-origin. Then contrast between recognised values: valiant patriotism, the battlefield’s death’s glory, commodities of earthly living. Distinctions have been transferred further, onto the physical ground. Interviews with the representatives of all three Polish inflows, conducted during the ethnographical part of this research, revealed that the current Polish division, as much as being the outcome of the distinct inflows’ backgrounds, is also the result of their urban dispersal. Conversations with the existing Polish organisations’ managers and businesses’ founders have shown that the existing Polish places such as PSCA, Polish Hearth Club, the grocery stores or building companies are owned, managed and finally visited by only a narrow part of the Polish society. The three generations of Poles therefore co-exist within same urban area as a number of separate buildings and routes, which, by functioning in separation from one another, deepen the division further. However, the distinctions, that currently exist as the conflict’s origins, if connected sensibly, carry a potential of diversity, which may flourish into a new, less exclusive form of Polish urban existence. The chance for reconnection lies in mixing these components – the three Polish generations’ economical powers, crafts and interests - and bringing out their common denominators. That takes place on a number of scales. The beginning of this research, based on the first inflow’s representatives’ interviews, revealed the value of love – the feeling especially important when on immigration. This was proven by the further conversations with next immigrants’ generations. Poles described their love stories as enforcing experiences, turning their immigrant life’s strangeness into coziness and saw the beginnings’ of their own romances in the power of the visual – ways of attracting the opposite sex through decorative attachments such as military medals, dress or acrylic nails. Study of the three Polish generations’ dating habits presented these visual emblems as symbols of one’s identity, found attractive by the other Poles. The proposed buildings incorporate this visual’s importance in the most literal of forms: by reflecting the Polish beautifying phenomenon. Panels of materials, finishes and and junctions, inspired with various Polish love stories, shared during the interviews, are attached to the proposed generic construction of the proposed buildings. That physical mix of stories on the architectural detail level is believed to create the space recognisable by all Polish inflows’ representatives, able to associate with different built components. The further fieldwork research, built upon visits to the existing Polish spaces: Kensington’s institutions, Hammersmith and Ealing’s organisations and Acton’s businesses, divulged their common beginnings as family initiatives, proving that the Polish love phenomenon is not only about beauty but also about fruitful actions. Motivated by their marriages and first children’ appearance Poles were ready to concur the world. However, developed in complete separation from each other, the impressive Poles’ legacies exist today as a dispersal of political and economical layers. Consultation with PAFT’s managers, Andrzej Morawicz and Christoph Barbarski led to the conclusion that only a shared ownership could connect the existing legacies into a much more powerful potential, and this can only be achieved by the collective input of funds. The proposed fundraising strategy therefore connects all the three immigrants’ legacies by a mix of ways – each crafted for the individual legacy’s character. The institutions gain their re-accommodation within the scheme in return for their property sales, the businesses gain the chance to expand further through services’ provision and products’ distribution. Conversations with the Polish Hearth Club and PSCA’s managers, and founders of various building and grocery companies highlighted the advantages and drawbacks of family-exclusive initiatives, leading to the conclusion that a proposed area should allow public cross-over, simultaneously keeping the existing Polish layers’ independence. That was additionally proven by tracking the three different Polish urban patterns, existing first as a strong network based on procession links between shared public buildings to then gradually fall into dispersal, constructed upon exclusive clubs or private home and businesses spaces. Therefore the proposed scheme of five public buildings creates links between dispersed Polish areas, through the proposed love-generating and family-supporting programme. The reconnection also occurs in the proposed buildings’ immediate surroundings by incorporating the local Polish places and creating the co-relations between these currently separate layers. The new urban routes motivate shared experience. The Polish prince and the Polish plasterer may walk out of the Ealing Church together in a long procession, walking behind the just-married Polish couple. They could be welcomed at the new Wedding Venue by the local Polish shop’s owner with bread and salt. The Hammersmith-based Polish dj gets the party going with his new disco set. The local Polish restaurant serves traditional zurek soup made out of Polish Specialities-delivered products.

All that, of course, is only envisioned. The final use of building and the way it affects its surrounding is always unpredictable and in the case of the buildings that belong to Polish immigrant societies The chance of unpredictability of the spaces’ use is even higher. As past examples have shown, each inflow and each generation are shaped by very different experiences and backgrounds, which results in distinct ways of their architectural representations. The recent emergence of the new generation of Poles in London – the post-accession inflow’s children – joint with ongoing waves of Polish incomers suggest that the described in this paper urban and social context will be evolving further and the expectations, and following them use of the proposed Polish buildings, will change in time. It is the architect’s responsibility then, to assure that the proposed accommodates not only the present, but also the future. That brings up the necessity of the spaces’ universality, achieved in parallel to diversity of inputs employed. The new Polish love-driven processions relinks divided Polish societies through both diversity of inputs and universality of housed activities. The scheme adapts for future users both physically and programmatically, allowing a gradual build-up of individual layers, ornaments and behaviours. In this way the new Polish buildings reflect their city as a never ending process, being collaged by the locals, incomers, next generations, future inflows and so on. This Polish Love story may not have a typical ending. The Polish societies may not live happily ever after, with no arguments, no conflicts, affairs or divorces. They might not end up madly in love. However, it is believed that they will respect each other and the buildings they’ll share. For better, for worse, in sickness, in health. 1 2 3

1 General Wladyslaw Anders, first inflow’s representative (source: Sikorski Institute Archive) 2 Zed Zawada, second generation’s representative (source: Winnicka, 2012, p.45) 3 Karol, third inflow’s representative (source: Burrell, 2004, p.202)

Literature References Little Brompton Oratory Annual Report. (1940-1971), Little Brompton Oratory Archives, London. Samy L. (2015) University of Oxford Discussion Papers in Economic and Social History, Indices of House Prices and Rent Prices of Residential Property in London, Number 134, April 2015 Burrell, K. eds. (2009) Polish Migration to the UK in the “New” European Union After 2004, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Cat-Mackiewicz, S. (2013) Londyniszcze, Cracow: UNIVERSITAS Chapkis, W. (1988) BEAUTY SECRETS Women and the Politics of Appearance, London: Women’s Press Controlling Our Borders: Making Migration Work For Britain (2005), London: Home Office, Garlinski J. (1989) The Miracle Over Thames, Sussex, Polish Cultural Centre Shapiro S. E. (2014) Nails : the story of the modern manicure, New York: Prestel Stenberg R. J., and Barnes M. L., eds. The Psychology of Love (1988), New Haven and London: Yale University Press Szmidt B. (1945) The Polish School of Architecture: students’ designs, Official Architect, p. 390-397, August 1945 Winnicka, E. (2012) The Londoners, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Czarne Van Gennep (1977) The Rites of Passage, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd

Limite,

RIBA. 2013. RIBA Plan of Work. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ribaplanofwork.com/. [Accessed March 2016]. Londynek Magazine. 2010. Londynek Homepage [ONLINE] Available at: http://londynek.net. [Accessed September 2015, May 2016]. The Government of Poland: Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs: Repulic in Exile [ONLINE] Available at: www.msz.gov.pl [Accessed April 2016]. Moynihan D.P. (2010) Civic Architecture, Architectural Record 142 December:107

Interviews, Meetings, Observations 30/11/2014 - first visit at the Polish Hearth Club in South Kensington, London 1/12/2014 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Stach Pruszynski, Stanislaw Sulimirski, Andrzej Blonski – the next generation of the postwar immigrants, during the Annual Members’ Event, Polish Hearth Club, South Kensington, London, 9/12/2014 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview with Urszula Kozlowska and Anna Sabbat, Polish representatives of the first post-war immigrant generation, flat of Anna Sabbat, Gloucester Road, London, 9/12/2014 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview with Basia Kaczmarowska-Hamilton and Andrzej Morawicz, Polish former chiefs of the Polish Hearth Club, Basia Hamilton’s Studio, Gloucester Road, London 10/12/2014 - semi-structured,unrecorded interview with Jan and Wanda Jeziorscy, a Polish couple representing the second Polish generation in London, in their flat in Ealing 11/12/2014 - semi-structured,unrecorded interview in Polish with Joanna Czarnecka, a representative of the first Poles’ inflow, in her flat in Kensington, London 12/12/2014 – attendance at the film premiere (Republic-In-Exile) at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Zbigniew Mieczkowski, the Polish veteran and representative of the post-war immigrants’ generation, London, 12/12/2014 – visit at the Sikorski Institute, South Kensington, London 2/04/2015 – second, semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Stanislaw Sulimirski – the former chief of the Polish Hearth Club, son of the former minister of education in the Polish Government-In-Exile, in his flat, South Kensinton, London. 16/03/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Ewa Winnicka - the author of book ‘The Londoners’, English pub in Tower of London 17/03/2015 – semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Maciej Bilkiewicz – the construction and refurbishment builder, post-ac cession immigrant, in refurbishment site in South Kensington, London 17/03/2015 – photographic experiment in various construction sites in Kensington and Camden: Polish builders took photographs of each other and then dictated me ther comments for their photographs. This served as an important research source for chapter 2 of this essay and is the beginning of the further life events that will happen during my fieldwork. 18/03/2015 – semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Wladyslaw Kowalewski – the Polish builder and the post-accession immigrant, in his flat, Ealing, London. 10/09/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Anna Anders and Wanda Makowska - daughters of Generals Wladyslaw Anders and Mateusz Makowski Anna’s flat, South Kensington, London. 17/09/2015 - visit at the White House in Ealing, Jan Zylinski’s palace 18/09/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Marcin Samborski, a Polish musician and third inflow’s representative in his house in Ealing, London 15/09/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Michael Cielewicz, a Polish DJ, in his studio in Hammersmith 29/09/2015 - visit at a lecture event ‘The Elixir of Freedom’ at the Polish Hearth Club, South Kensington, London. 12/10/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Andrzej Morawicz and Christoph Barbarski, members of the PAFT Foundation and Polish Hearth Club and Sikorski Institute’s management in PAFT office in Ealing, London. 12/10/2015 – visit at the Institute of General Sikorski, South Kensington, London. 13/10/2015 - interview with General Mateusz Makowski, representing the first inflow, in his flat in Gloucester Road, London. 17/10/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Maciej Bilkiewicz – owner of the MGM Builders company in his house/ office in Acton, London. 05/11/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Adam Czarnecki and Kris Drzewiecki, owners of the Plasterworks Brothers company in one of their refurbishment sites in Chelsea, London. 11/12/2015 – own participation: one day of work as a waitress in the Polish restaurant Daquise, which used to be the main restaurant in the political emigration times, unrecorded conversation with the staff: – the representatives of the post-accession generation of immigrants – Piotr Ciecierski (main chef), Kasia Rutowska (waitress), Daquise Restaurant, South Kensinton, London, 19/01/2016 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in English with Oliver Domeisen - baroque architecture, craftsmanship and materiality 11/02/2016 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Vitek and Dorota Szamfebers, owners of the Vitpol company in their office in Acton, London + visit of the Vitpol factory. 12/02/2016 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Polish confectioners Halina and Marta Boczek in their house in Acton, London 12/02/2016 -semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Adam Korzen, selling Polish spirits in his house in Acton, London 14/02/2016 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Katrina Kocialkowska, Aleksandra Szczepaniak, Magda Wolska, Marzena Watrobka - Polish manicuritsts - in Katrina’s house in Acton Central, London 28/02/2016 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with prince Jan Zylinski 29/02/2016 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Krystyna Bell and Joanna Mludzinska, members of the PSCA management in the PSCA’s ofices, Hammersmith, London. 17/03/2016 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Tadeusz Honek and Michal Honek, managing the Polish Specialities in the company’s offices in Croydon. 21/03/2016 - visit and manicure treatment at the Polish beauty salon Effekt, semi-structured unrecorded interview in Polish with Basia Pietruszka and Jola Szczepanska, the post-accession inflow’s representatives, short conversation with two Polish regular customers, names unknown, Acton Central 22/04/2016 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with Elzbieta Wojcik, psychologist from Polish University of London, in the PSCA building, Hammersmith GROUP INTERVIEWS: 17/09/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with a group of 17 men, representing the second generation of Poles in London: Andrzej Morawicz, Andrzej Blonski, Jan Czarnecki, Robert Bulawa, Stanislaw Sulimirski, Jan Jeziorski, Andrzej Chmurzysty, Pawel Kowalewski, Szczepan Sosnowski, Michal WInnicki, Jan Stanislaw Potomski, Andrzej Kedzierski, Filip Mieczkowski, Mateusz Wiosna, Marcin Makowski, Stanslaw Dab; PSCA cafe, Hammesmith, London 24/09/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with a group of 17 ladies, representing the second generation of Poles in London: Wanda Jeziorska, Anna Anders, Wanda Makowska, Basia Hamilton, Magdalena Piotrowska, Marta Wajda, Joanna Czarnecka, Anna Balinska-Jundzill, Zofia Czarnecka, Weronika Czarnecka, Justyna Kowalewicz, Marta Brunka, Karolina Kaczorowska, Basia Stankiewicz, Zofia Andruszkiewicz, Joanna Mludzinska, Krystyna Bell, PSCA cafe, Hammersmith, London 24/09/2015 -semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with a group of 9 men, representing the third Polish inflow: Andrzej Debek, Marcin Samborski, Adam Czarnecki, Kris Drzewiecki, Konrad Jagodzinski, Maciej Bilkiewicz, Vitek Szamfeber, Michael Cielewicz, Tomasz Bulinski; PSCA cafe, Hammesmith, London 17/09/2015 - semi-structured, unrecorded interview in Polish with a group of 9 women, representing the third Polish inflow: Marta Kozon, Agnieszka Bulinska, Dorota Czarnecka, Dorota Szamfeber, Basia Pietruszka, Jola Szczepanska, Aleksandra Szczepaniak, Katrina Kocialkowska, Halina Boczek; Hammesmith, London

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(1994) Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Etnographies, London: London Routledge (eds.). Garlinski J. (1989) The Miracle Over Thames, Sussex, Polish Cultural Centre Glazer N., Lilla M. (1987) The Public Face of Architecture: Civic Culture and Public Spaces, New York: The Free Press. Kubal, A. (2013) Socio-legal integration : Polish post-2004 EU enlargement migrants in the United Kingdom, Surrey: Gower Publishing. Hasluck, P. N. (1906) Plasterers’ work : materials, tools, plastering ceilings and walls, mouldings and cornices, plaster casting, estimating and measuring, repairing plastered surfaces, London: Cassell Harris N. (1999) Building Lives, Constructing Rites and Passages, New Haven: Yale University Press Kracauer S. (1995) The Mass Ornament, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press Latham D. (2000) Creative Re-Use of Buildings, Volumes 1 and 2, Shaftesbury, Donhead Publishing Ltd Markus T. A. 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List of Illustrations Map 1: my drawing Map 2: my drawing, made with the use of the PAFT’s data Map 3: my drawing, made with the use of the PSCA Archive’s data Map 4: my drawing Map 5: my drawing Map 6: my drawing Map 7: my drawing Map 8: my drawing Map 9: my drawing Diagram 1: own diagram, produced with help of Polish Hearth Club’s , Sikorski Institute’s and PAFT Archives Diagram 2: own diagram, produced with help of Polish Hearth Club’s , Sikorski Institute’s and PAFT Archives Diagram 3: own diagram, produced with help of Michal Honek Diagram 4: own diagram, produced with help of Adam Czarnecki) Diagram 5: own diagram, produced with help of Vitek and Dorota Szamfebers Diagram 6: own diagram Diagram 7: own drawing Diagram 8: own drawing

Introduction 1-2 - www.telegraph.co.uk 3 - Sikorski Institute Archive 4 - Anna Anders’ photographs 5 - St Ignatius Jesuits Parish Archive, London Chapter 1 1 - own collage 2-7 - Sikorski Institute Archive 8 - Polish Hearth Club Archive 9-12 - Sikorski Institute Archive 13 - www.73pp.pl 14-15 - Federico Fellini’s movie Roma, 1972 16-19 - Sikorski Institute Archive 20 - S. E. Shapiro, Nails : the story of the modern manicure, 2014 21 - Effekt’ Salon’s portfolio-catalogue 22 - Effekt’ Salon’s portfolio-catalogue 23 - K. Mansfield 2002 Dec, p. 44-45; P.N. Hasluck 1906, p. 49-71 24 - venetianplasterbykris.blogspot.co.uk 25 - own photograph 26-27 - Adam Czarnecki’s photographs 28 - Kracauer, 1995, cover image 29-30 - Sikorski Institute Archive 31 - Adam Czarnecki’s photographs 32-34 - own drawings Chapter 2 1-3 - Sikorski Institute Archives 2 - liverpool.ac.uk 5 - B. Szmidt, 1945 Aug, p. 390-397 6 - Sikorski Institute Archive 7-8 - Polish Hearth Club’s Archive 9 - Sikorski Institute Archive 10 - M.Janeta 2012, p.14 11-13 - Sikorski Institute Archive 14 - Polish Hearth Club’s Archive 15-16 - Sikorski Institute Archive 17 - Mateusz Makowski’s family album 18 - Sikorski Institute Archive 19-25 - PSCA Archives 26 - Sikorski Institute Archive 27 - private Zbigniew Mieczkowski’s archive 28-29 - PSCA Archive 30-32 - Polish Hearth Club’s Archive 33 - whitehouselondon.com 34 - Winnicka 2012, cover image 35 - private Zbigniew Mieczkowski’s archive 36 - 37 - private photos given by Michal Honek 38 - own photographs 39 - Adam Czarnecki’s private photo 40-43 - own photograph Chapter 3 1 - Sikorski Institute Archive 2-3 - Polish Digital Archive: www.nac.gov.pl 4-8 - Sikorski Institute Archive 9-11 - Sikorski Institute Archive 12-13 - www.fakt.pl 14-15 - St Ignatius Jesuits Parish Archive, London Conclusion 1 - Sikorski Institute Archive 2 - Winnicka, 2012, p.45 3 - Burrell, 2004, p.202 73