Szewska Street in Vrotslove, Poland

What has braid to do with a street livability?

by Anna Rumińska, Wroclaw [Vrotslove], Poland 8th January 2012 Tradition and Names Szewska Street. It is the longest street of Old Town in Wroclaw. Spell it phonetically like “Chevska” - the word is derived from a shoe-maker. Long before the Second World War there were many shoe-maker workshops here; but now none remain. But the song remains the same, so people in Wroclaw still call this street Szewska, and they use this administrative name too. In the Old Town of Wroclaw [spell: Vrotzlove] there are still five shoe-maker workshops located nearby. But let’s forget for a while about shoe-makers and concentrate on the town and the street, especially the Old Town. Wroclaw is an old (I must say this: beautiful) medieval town described in historical texts yet in 1000 due to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese found here. The town is very old. In 6th century Ślężanie, one of the Silesian tribes, build the first burgh here in the Cathedral Island (Ostrów Tumski). Later on the town was still more and more famous and was already one of the main “towns” in Poland as it is still now - especially having won lately the Polish title of the European Capital of Culture 2016 (European Union title created by Melina Mercouri in 1985). Due to the medieval habit and economical status many of the Wroclavian streets owe their names to the craftsmen locating here their workshops: Kuznicza to a forge, Rzeznicza to a butchery, Garbarska to a tannery, Kotlarska to a kettle workshops, Nozownicza to a knife workshops and finaly Szewska for a sho-maker. These names are an important part of the town heritage and they are protected by the municipality units. So now you know already where comes the street’s name from.

Braiding and Un-braiding What does it have to do with placemaking and livability of streets? Pretty much but let’s start from the beginning.

Being an architect and cultural anthropologist I cannot simply design houses and produce scientific texts - it’s not my style. Raised up in a family with long traditions of social work it is essential for me to use my two professions to do work that is both practical and culturally satisfying - to join science, municipality administration, business and social activity. And what is more useful than making it in the way that makes people and myself happy? Let’s take a closer look at the Polish and Slavic tradition: one of the ethnographer’s duties is to explain roots of holidays, rituals, tradition customs and magic practices, especially their annual applications and celebrations, which we know almost by heart from our personal childhood experience. Being a teenager, I remember the feeling of kitsch and cropper while carrying to church a traditional Easter basket full of food and eggs which I was supposed to decorate the previous day. There was a sense of cultural value in these meetings with all the estate inhabitants in the church…

Although church no longer holds for me the resonance that it contained in the past, the sense of being part of a community still do. The experiences of youth later connect to the anthropological studies in the form of all these memories surfacing with new freshness and understanding. I happened once to take part in village wedding having the rare occasion to see “rozpleciny”, a tradition Slavic ritual. The sense of rozpleciny is to un-braid the hair of the maiden to let her pass into so called (scientifically) liminal phase of the ritte de passage. In this liminal phase the woman has no social status - before she was a young and joyful virgin, later she will be a serious disciplined wife.

Both women and men function socially in the rhythm of growth and change. If you then look at all the people in this way you can see lots of life status changes, the symbol of braids being braided and un-braided one by one. In Poland we can call it also “Splot”. Based on the rozpleciny-ritual: urban (rural as well but it’s a different story) public spaces like city streets and squares are like life: full of changes. City streets should not always be teeming with people clients, workers, inhabitants or pedestrians. Public spaces must take a rest from time to time - just as each living person requires down time. So a street like Szewska Street can function based on a cycle: typical working day - calm and easy, cycle holiday - active and crowded.

Komentarz [AR1]: https://picasaweb.g oogle.com/105259009233878765810/Sze wskaSplotSzewskaNaCoDzien Komentarz [AR2]: http://pl.wikipedia. org/wiki/Ulica_Szewska_we_Wroc%C5%82 awiu Komentarz [AR3]: http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Wroc%C5%82aw

This phenomenon exhists all over the world, in diverse cultures. We all know and love public markets of many towns all over the world. The cycle life of a street or a square is clearly visible not only in the week-cycle but hour-cycle as well, especially when there are markets: in a week the public space is empty and peaceful (cafes, shops etc. - stable life) - calm and well organized as a wife (status No 1). On Friday here comes the market and all the vendors spread out their tents (status No 2 - liminal phase). Since 8 am till 1 pm - a market: the space becomes crowded and joyful, very active, full of energy. After they finish since 1 pm till 3 pm there comes cleaning (liminal phase continued). In the end everything comes to its beginning and the street is peaceful again (status No 3). This is what rozpleciny (unbraiding) is about. We can make the rozpleciny of any street like Szewska Street to make it crowded and joyful for a while and to encourage people to stay in public spaces.

In this way Szewska Street during Splot Szewska event is a normal and typical public space which does not function here every day. I have been thinking about another Wroclavian street, Kiełbaśnicza Street - it's been blocked for cars lately but nothing social nor cultural is happening there now. No placemaking, no public space or street reanimation, nothing. Only pubs. Does this satisfy us? Not at all. I don't think it is a good public space at all although it is pedestrian public space for sure. There are also other crowded streets in Wroclaw which may seem liveable but are not, they are only full of transit pedestrians - like Oławska Street for instance. Szewska is usually much more quiet but instead much more ambitious and filled with cultural and educational activities which just have to be dragged out to public.

Komentarz [AR4]: http://maps.google. pl/maps?q=kie%C5%82ba%C5%9Bnicza,+w roc%C5%82aw&hl=pl&ie=UTF8&sll=51.111 282,17.029647&sspn=0.008231,0.026157& vpsrc=0&t=h&z=16

Placemaking, Co-operation and Splot It would be the easiest thing in the world - to make the street joyful. How to do it? It is so simple: invite actors, musicians, food-trucks and the job is done. But that was not the point in the anthropological placemaking that I practice. The problem was of different kind: Szewska Street was described in 2010 in Wroclaw as a slack or defunct street only because it became a tram-sidewalk with no cars allowed. The street has become a full transformation (here you can see how it looked like before being changed to sidewalk) however still nowadays we cannot say that it is as it should be - trams are riding here as in motorway and pedestrians still do not know their rights. The target then was to make the street show its advantages. I wanted and I still want to prove it is not slack at all. My point is to show that these wrong and somehow discriminatory opinions about a street and essentially its people were distributed by people who did not know the street at all as they used to work in completely another part of the town. These people were architects and this was probably the additional stimulant for me as an architect. The job to do was to promote the street’s potential - its people and space.

This is how we came to this event in the street. It is not a typical cultural event. I do not call it event at all - I call it Splot which in English means braid. Together with cultural anthropology student we made field research on how people understand this term “Splot”. To my greatest surprise pedestrians interpreted this also as “social cooperation of partners” beside all these typical understandings like braid, stitch, lover’s span or medical convolution.

In order to make the Splot I contacted and invited lots of friends and partners from Szewska Street whom I have known since years: asked many inhabitants living in Szewska Street to come out into the public space, asked several vendors and stakeholders working here to do their activity in public space - I asked all these people to un-braid the street in order to show what we actually do here in Szewska Street. There are still many stakeholders left to invite into Splot but it needs time. All this work is done with no funds, I act as a voluntary still trying to show to the municipality that this kind of activity is worth investing public money.

Splot Szewska is then a typical placemaking activity but based on cultural anthropology and local tradition and habits. Therefore I call it anthropological placemaking. Splot Szewska gathers various people who are the social capital of the street. We all know each other or we work here or send our friends here into Splot - we are all linked in. I never hire special people or bands to involve them in the street - I take what we have in here, in Szewska Street or people strongly linked in and visiting this street pretty often. We braid our ideas and unbraid our activities - we are just doing something together.

Pedestrian Zone

Komentarz [AR5]: http://fotopolska.eu /Wroclaw/u150190,ul_Szewska.html

After we filled the street in with people and activities I wanted the pedestrians to dare walk along the street center just to make them finally benefit the regulations of the “pedestrian zone”. The blue sign with kid running, man walking, a house and a car far behind is well known all over Europe as “pedestrian zone” sign (in Polish: “strefa zamieszkania”). Cars are not allowed here in Szewska Street but it is a tram-sidewalk so pedestrians are unfortunately eclipsed by trams in a big rush breaking the law of course with the heavy foot of the tram-drivers. I wanted very much to remind to pedestrians the regulations of pedestrian zone: this is the pedestrian who has here the right to walk with no stress and all vehicles are supposed to wait till pedestrian will pass. Every pedestrian is the priority, not a bike, not a tram, not a car. This must have been carried finally into the effect so we had a really good time playing badminton in the very street as the law permits. Trams finally drove more slowly. The day after - it was the same and still is so my target is now to encourage all to insist on these regulations and push through the bikes, trams and cars (inhabitants’ and some ignorants’ cars still drive in). So behind the anthropological and reanimational issues Splot is to educate pedestrians about their inhabitant and citizen rights.

You may ask why there are so many books in the street? Well just because Splot Szewska 3 was a book-edition - we invited all the scientific institutes, libraries and book-shops from Szewska Street to present their books in one place.

The idea was then a BOOK because Szewska Street is an academic center in peak hours full of students (who by the way were forgotten by the architects saying the street is dead). In the residential area we can sit, lie, read, eat, drink, talk, sleep, play, whatever we want - we just live in the city. I wanted also to help another neighbor Kuznicza Street which is being renovated now and turned into a sidewalk, pedestrian zone. During this renovation the street became a building-site and clients went away to Szewska Street. So I felt a bit obligor to help the guys from Kuznicza Street.

Hopefully this street will not have the same problems with being called “slack and dead” when it is finally opened as sidewalk. If so I will make Splot Kuznicza 

Website: https://sites.google.com/site/splotszewska Youtube film on Splot Szewska 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL84d3KxuGc Youtube film on Splot Szewska 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fuxJTUKrjw