Polish Greatness

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Julian Ochorowicz
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Julian Ochorowicz
Julian Leopold Ochorowicz (['juljan lɛˈɔpɔld ɔxɔˈrɔvit͡ʂ]; outside Poland also known as Julien Ochorowitz; Radzymin, 23 February 1850 – 1 May 1917, Warsaw) was a Polish philosopher, psychologist, inventor (precursor of radio and television[1]), poet, publicist, and leading exponent of Polish Positivism.

Contents

• 1Life
• 2Prus
• 3Bibliography
• 4See also
• 5Notes
• 6References
• 7External links

Life[edit]
Julian Ochorowicz was the son of Julian and Jadwiga, née Sumińska.

Ochorowicz studied natural sciences at Warsaw University, graduating in 1871. He subsequently studied at Leipzig University under Wilhelm Wundt; in 1874 he received his doctorate there with a thesis On Conditions of Consciousness.

Returning to Warsaw, in 1874-75 he was editor-in-chief of the popular Polish-language periodical, Niwa (The Field). From 1881 he was assistant professor(docent) of psychology and natural philosophy at Lwów University.

In 1882 he was sent to Paris, France, where he spent several years. Later, from 1907, he would be co-director of the Institut General Psychologique.

Returning to Warsaw, from 1900 Ochorowicz was president of Kasa Literacka (the Literary Fund). He published his pedagogical papers in Encyklopedia Wychowawcza (the Encyclopedia of Education).

Ochorowicz was a pioneer of empirical research in psychology and conducted studies into occultism, Spiritualism, hypnosis and telepathy. His most popular works included Wstęp i pogląd ogólny na filozofię pozytywną (An Introduction to and Overview of Positive Philosophy, 1872) and Jak należy badać duszę? (How Should One Study the Soul?, 1869).

Ochorowicz the poet published in Przegląd Tygodniowy (the Weekly Review) under the pen-name Julian Mohort. He wrote the poem, "Naprzód" ("Forward," 1873), regarded as the Polish Positivists' manifesto.


Bolesław Prus
Ochorowicz, a trained philosopher with a doctorate from the University of Leipzig, became the leader of the Positivist movement in Poland. In 1872 he wrote: "We shall call a Positivist, anyone who bases assertions on verifiable evidence; who does not express himself categorically about doubtful things, and does not speak at all about those that are inaccessible."[2]

In 1877 he elaborated the theory for a monochromatic television, to be constructed as a screen comprising bulbs that would convert transmitted images into groups of light points.

In 1885, on several occasions, he demonstrated his own improved telephone. In Paris, he connected the building of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraph with the Paris Opera, 4 kilometers away. At the Antwerp World's Fair, he set up a connection with Brussels, 45 km distant. He linked St. Petersburg, Russia, with Bologoye, 320 km away.

He experimented with microphones and with apparatus for sending sound and light over distances, and so is regarded as a precursor of radio and television.

Ochorowicz conducted experiments at a psychological laboratory that he established at Wisła.

Prus[edit]

Eusapia Palladino, Warsaw, 1893

Psychologist Ochorowicz watches closely as Polish telekinetic Stanisława Tomczyk, in a trance, levitates scissors. Wisla, Poland, 1909.[3][4]

Monument to Ochorowicz at Wisła, which he built into a health resort and tourist destination
Julian Ochorowicz was a former Lublin secondary-school and Warsaw University schoolmate of Bolesław Prus, who portrayed him in his 1889 novel, The Doll, as the scientist "Julian Ochocki." Ochorowicz, after returning to Warsaw from Paris, in 1893 delivered several public lectures on ancient Egyptian knowledge. These evidently helped inspire Prus to write (1894–95) his sole historical novel, Pharaoh. Ochorowicz provided Prus books on Egyptology that he had brought back from Paris.[5]

Also in 1893, Ochorowicz introduced Prus to the Italian Spiritualist, Eusapia Palladino, whom he had brought to Warsaw from her mediumistic tour in St. Petersburg, Russia.[6] Prus attended a number of séances conducted by Palladino and incorporated several prominent spiritualist-inspired scenes into his 1895 novel Pharaoh.[7]

Ochorowicz hosted Palladino in Warsaw from November 1893 to January 1894. Regarding the phenomena demonstrated at Palladino's séances, he concluded against the spirit hypothesis and for a hypothesis that these phenomena were caused by a "fluidic action" and were performed at the expense of the medium's own powers and those of the other participants in the séances. Ochorowicz, with Frederic William Henry Myers, Charles Richet and Oliver Lodge, investigated Palladino in the summer of 1894 at Richet's house on the Île du Grand Ribaud in the Mediterranean. Myers and Richet claimed that furniture moved during the séances and that some of the phenomena were the result of a supernatural agency.[8] However, Richard Hodgson claimed there was inadequate control during the séances and that the precautions described did not rule out trickery. Hodgson wrote that all the phenomena "described could be accounted for on the assumption that Eusapia could get a hand or foot free." Lodge, Myers and Richet disagreed, but Hodgson was later proven correct in the Cambridge sittings as Palladino was observed to have used tricks exactly the way he had described them.[8]

After Ochorowicz's wife left him, he decided to make some changes in his life: he bought a piece of land at Wisła in Poland's mountains, built himself a villa as well as four additional houses for tourists, and proceeded to live on the rentals.[9]

About 20 June 1900, Prus and his household arrived to visit. In July Prus traveled to nearby Kraków, where until the beginning of September he underwent treatments for his multifarious medical complaints by an ophthalmologist, a neurologist, and a physician who treated his thyroid.[10]

In 1908–9, at Wisła, Ochorowicz studied the mediumship of Stanisława Tomczyk.

In the latter half of the 19th century, Spiritualism was not an unusual subject of study for noted psychologists. A prominent American psychologist who looked favorably on Spiritualism was William James.

Bibliography[edit]

• Jak należy badać duszę? Czyli o metodzie badań psychologicznych (How Should One Study the Soul? On the Method of Psychological Studies), 1869.
• Miłość, zbrodnia, wiara i moralność. Kilka studiów z psychologii kryminalnej (Love, Crime, Faith and Morality: Several Studies in the Psychology of Crime), 1870.
• Wstęp i pogląd ogólny na filozofię pozytywną (An Introduction to and Overview of Positive Philosophy), 1872.
• Z dziennika psychologa (From a Psychologist's Journal), 1876.
• O twórczości poetyckiej ze stanowiska psychologii (On Poetic Creativity from the Standpoint of Psychology), 1877.
• De la Suggestion mentale, deuxieme édition (second edition), Paris, Doin, 1889.
• Psychologia, pedagogika, etyka. Przyczynki do usiłowań naszego odrodzenia narodowego (Psychology, Pedagogy, Ethics: Contributions toward Our National Rebirth), 1917.

Translations:

Julian Ochorowicz - Wikipedia

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

And when you think about Poland remember this, what one of England’s greatest minds, G.K. Chesterton, once said:



“I can certainly claim to have been from the first a partisan of the Polish ideal, even when my sympathy was mainly an instinct. (…) It was almost entirely founded on the denunciations of Poland, which were by no means rare. I judged the Poles by their enemies. And I found it was an almost unfailing-truth that their enemies were the enemies of magnanimity and manhood. If a man loved slavery, if he loved usury, if he loved terrorism and all the trampled mire of materialistic politics, I have always found that he added to these affections the passion of a hatred of Poland. She could be judged in the light of that hatred; and the judgment has proved to be right.”
It still holds.

A Different View of Poland.

 

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Karol Pollak
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Karol Pollak

Karol Pollak, Polish Edison
Born Karol Franciszek Pollak
November 15, 1859
Sanok, Poland
Died December 17, 1928 (aged 69)
Bielsko-Biała, Poland
Nationality Polish
Occupation Inventor, businessman
Karol Franciszek Pollak (November 15, 1859 – December 17, 1928) was a Polish electrotechnician, inventor and businessman.

Contents

• 1Early life
• 2Activity
• 3Most important inventions
• 4References
• 5Bibliography

Early life[edit]
He was born in Sanok, Poland. His father was Karol Pollak (1818–80) who was a printer, bookseller and publisher, well known in Sanok. Karol (not to be mistaken with his father) worked in his youth as an electricianand showed great technical skills in it. In 1883 he was employed in the laboratory of British company "The Patent Utilisation Co". He designed and recorded his first patents in that period. In 1885 he attended electrotechnics studies at the Royal Polytechnic University in Charlottenburg.

Activity[edit]
In Berlin, Pollak ran electrotechnical factory "G. Wehr Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt". Later he returned to Britain to commercialize his patents, which were released under anglicised version of his name, "Charles Pollak". In 1886, he became the director of a Paris company of electric tramways of his design. In the meantime he worked on the design of Electrochemical cell. He was very successful in this topic and it made him famous. Later he founded battery factories in Frankfurt, Germany and Liesing, Austria. Many battery-manufacturing companies have licensed his designs.

In 1899 he founded his own laboratory and proceeded with further research. He obtained 98 patents on his inventions.

In 1922 he returned to Poland, where a year later he founded a factory in Biała, which exists to the present day.[1] The company started under the name of Polskie Towarzystwo Akumulatorowe and was co-founded by professor and president of Poland, Ignacy Mościcki. However, Pollak was the first president of this company.

Pollak is sometimes referred as the Edison of Poland. In 1925 he received the title doctor honoris causa of Warsaw University of Technology.

Most important inventions[edit]

Battery constructed by Karol Pollak
His numerous inventions also cover other areas, among them: electric motors, color printing device, and a type of microphone. His main activity was related to chemical sources of energy - galvanic cells and batteries. He obtained a patent for manufacturing lead-acid batteries.


Design of full rectifier included in Karol Pollak patent
He also has designed commutator and electrolytic rectifiers. In 1895 he was the first to suggest the use of full bridge diode rectification circuit,[2] later known by Leo Graetz. In 1896, Pollak invented the electrolytic capacitor[3]


Karol Pollak - Wikipedia

 

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Love at First Sight
Wislawa Szymborska, 1923 - 2012
They’re both convinced
that a sudden passion joined them.
Such certainty is beautiful,
but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Since they’d never met before, they’re sure
that there’d been nothing between them.
But what’s the word from the streets, staircases, hallways—
perhaps they’ve passed by each other a million times?

I want to ask them
if they don’t remember—
a moment face to face
in some revolving door?
perhaps a “sorry” muttered in a crowd?
a curt “wrong number” caught in the receiver?—
but I know the answer.
No, they don’t remember.

They’d be amazed to hear
that Chance has been toying with them
now for years.

Not quite ready yet
to become their Destiny,
it pushed them close, drove them apart,
it barred their path,
stifling a laugh,
and then leaped aside.

There were signs and signals,
even if they couldn’t read them yet.
Perhaps three years ago
or just last Tuesday
a certain leaf fluttered
from one shoulder to another?
Something was dropped and then picked up.
Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished
into childhood’s thicket?

There were doorknobs and doorbells
where one touch had covered another
beforehand.
Suitcases checked and standing side by side.
One night, perhaps, the same dream,
grown hazy by morning.

Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

“Love at First Sight” from MAP: Collected and Last Poems by Wislawa Szymborska, translated from Polish by Clare Cavanaugh and Stanislaw Baranczak. Copyright © 2015 by The Wislawa Szymborska Foundation. English copyright © 2015 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Wislawa Szymborska
Wislawa Szymborska was a Polish poet whose work was widely translated into English. In 1996, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

read more
by this poet

Love at First Sight

 

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This Poetic Love Story Set in 1950s Poland is one of 2018's Best Films
DESIGN & LIVINGFILM IN FOCUS

Cold War (2018)
We meet the stars of Paweł Pawlikowski's award-winning new drama, Cold War, to discover the story behind its masterful realisation
SEPTEMBER 03, 2018
TEXTDaisy Woodward







7Cold War


In 2015, Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski scooped his first Oscar for Ida, the stunning black-and-white tale of a young trainee nun in 1960s Poland, who sets out on a voyage to unearth the secrets of her war-torn past. Speaking to the director prior to the film’s release, he told me with a chuckle that it was like a “fairy tale” that this “tiny Polish film… black and white with unknown actors” was his most commercially successful film to date – his previous three features, Last Resort, My Summer of Love, and The Woman in the Fifth were all made in English, and starred renowned actors.

Fast forward three years and the auteur, now 60, has returned with Cold War, another Polish film, also shot in monochrome, starring (admittedly more famous) Polish actors. The passionate and tumultuous love story between a mischievous and mysterious young performer named Zula (a spellbinding Joanna Kulig) and a brooding composer and pianist called Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), it is an equally breathtaking accomplishment, both visually and emotionally, and won Pawlikowski the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes.

The film is dedicated to, and loosely inspired by, Pawlikowski's own parents – an unlikely pairing of a blonde bombshell dancer and an older, more serious doctor – whose romance was defined by its on-again-off-again nature. Zola and Wiktor's tale begins at the end of World War Two, in a vast, ramshackle country estate, where Wiktor and his producer (and then-lover), Irena, are auditioning young hopefuls to perform in a touring show of traditional Polish song and dance. Sparks fly they second the pair lock eyes, and soon – with all the rhythm and intensity of the troupe’s swirling folk dances – we find ourselves swept along with the spirited chanteuse and her handsome composer, as they drift apart and back together in a waltz that traverses decades and continents.

Cold War (2018)
Much as with Ida, Pawlikowski refuses to spoon-feed the viewers, leaping forward in time on numerous occasions and leaving us to fill in the gaps aided by extraordinarily nuanced performances from the film’s two leads. “This jumping story only happened for the audience,” Kot tells me over the phone, a week before the film’s UK release, when I ask how this stop-start storyline affected his process. “There was I think only one jump in the script, because in fact we shot around 30 or 40% more footage – scenes that didn’t make it into Paweł’s final work – so for Joanna and I the narrative was more transparent.” Another factor he credits for his and Kulig’s naturalistic embodiment of their roles is the film's lengthy rehearsal period. “We spent six months rehearsing before the three-month shoot,” he explains, “and then we shot more or less chronologically, which is how Paweł prefers to work.”

This meant that both he and Kulig had to cancel all other theatre, film and television work scheduled during these months in order to devote themselves entirely to the project. “For Paweł it was very important to have that time – and we did it for him because he’s a great director,” Kulig – somewhat of a muse to Pawlikowski, who created this part, as well as smaller roles in The Woman in the Fifth and Ida, specially for her – reveals. For her co-star, this meant learning how to pass as a lauded pianist and conductor, but Kulig’s own task – dancing to a professional standard – required even more exertion. “For half a year, I trained twice a week with a real dance group in Poland, Mazowsze – the group that inspired the one in the film,” she explains. “It was really hard, but very rewarding when I finally managed to pull it off!” The rest of the rehearsal time, she says, was spent “talking, reading the script, changing the scenes, looking at documentation of that time in Poland, during the Cold War – old photos and so on. I looked a lot at Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller's relationship – she was beautiful and childlike, and destructive in some ways, and he was educated and smart, a bit like Zola and Wiktor. Paweł also told me to study the acting of Lauren Bacall. By the time we started filming we were really comfortable with the era and the style – with the challenges our mothers' and grandmothers' generations faced at this time – and we felt calm and ready to create.”

Cold War (2018)
Once filming began, Pawlikowski was as rigid with his schedule as he had been during rehearsals. “We would film for five days and then Paweł would edit over the weekends,” Kulig tells me. “And during that time he would invite us into his room and ask our opinions on scenes; it was great – he wasn’t just treating us as actors – he was inviting us to create with him, which is very unique.” The director was also entirely singular in his vision, often asking the cast and crew to repeat a scene over 20 times to get the camerawork and lighting right, while demanding a natural performance from his cast – “he doesn’t like you to have too much acting style,” Kulig notes. It is Pawlikowski’s sense of certainty, as well as the air of collaboration he cultivates on set, that elicits an implicit trust from those he works with. “He really knows his mind,” says Kot. “When someone asked him, ‘Why black and white?’ he said, ‘Because our time – the 50s in Poland – has no colour; in our memories, in every history book, every newspaper, it’s only black and white. America at this time had colour, but if you were to make something about 50s Poland in colour, you’d be making something fake.’”

The monochrome palette certainly lends a chilling austerity to the often bleak, rubble-strewn scenes shot in Poland as Communism tightens its grip on the country; while in the jazz clubs of Paris – as well as Wiktor’s covetable, bohemian loft apartment overlooking the city’s rooftops – it conjures a Brassia-esque romanticism. The camerawork, steered by cinematographer Lukasz Zal, is similarly artful; in one particularly memorable scene – set in a Paris dive bar – Zola, reminiscent of Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman, gets up and dances with a burgeoning energy to Rock Around the Clock, finally clambering onto a table for her grand finale, while the camera follows her boundlessly, taking in every movement. “When we started the movie, we used a stable camera – one that didn’t move,” Kot recalls, “and I asked Paweł, ‘Will it be a still camera for the whole movie?’ He said, ‘No, because the camera is like your love!’”

Cold War (2018)
If this sounds aggrandising, it isn’t; I defy you to find a more lyrically realised film from this year’s many accomplished offerings – or one with such an impactive ending. (“Halfway through shooting, Paweł said, ‘I’ve written the ending,’ and we said, ‘Alright, let’s see this ending!’” Kot remembers of the final scene, “and it was like the best quality of poetry; I said, ‘Oh my God, let’s do everything for this Paweł’”.) Cold War sees Pawlikowski the conductor of his own brilliant orchestra, juxtaposing music and silence, dialogue and gesture, stillness and motion, packed concert halls and rolling landscapes, to conjure a masterpiece that makes you feel all the feels in its brief 85-minute duration – its overall effect at once universal and entirely original. “Paweł kept saying, ‘The film has to be magic, we are making something different,’” Kulig enthuses. “The film has done so well in Poland, even with younger viewers, which is amazing,” she reflects happily, “but it has also received really good critical responses globally. So this story – set in a very specific time and place, telling a part of Polish history – has really resonated, which shows that Paweł's way of working really works.”

This Poetic Love Story Set in 1950s Poland is one of 2018's Best Films

 

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Author: Michał Dąbrowski
Published: Feb 22 2018
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‘Anything is possible when you play,’ says Ola Mirecka, a Polish designer inspired by children’s sensitivity. Over three years at LEGO, Mirecka created fifteen sets currently available in shops around the world, one set even including a LEGO figure named after her. As she now takes her design ethos into more experimental territory, Mirecka talks to Culture.pl about her process and what inspires her.

Ola Mirecka in her studio, photo: Rasmus Laurvig
Ola Mirecka graduated from the Design Faculty at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Design Products Faculty at the Royal College of Art in London. For three years, she worked as a designer at LEGO and has been developing her own studio since. She lives and works in Denmark, while her projects have been showcased in Poland and worldwide, including London, Berlin and Milan.

Michał Dąbrowski: In your designs, you combine both a child's world and a sense of humour. Like your LAVA lemonade, or your interactive fountain, or the LEGO hot dog stand. What inspires you?

Ola Mirecka: I have always been interested in letting some magic into real life, giving people the feeling that anything is possible. Like in child’s play – you make your own laws and play by your own rules.

MD: Your designs come from playing?

LAVA Lemonade by Ola Mirecka, 2012, photo: Wai Ming Ng
OM: I've always been influenced by drawings and illustrations. I use them to create and tell stories. In Poland, I didn’t draw that much. I studied design and was convinced that drawing is reserved for graphic designers only. When I was studying at the Royal College of Art in London, I was involved in many projects simultaneously. Then sketching became absolutely necessary.

At some point, I started coming up with installations that were directly based on drawings. I would take weird, useless elements from them and introduce them into my designs. For instance, in the lemonade stand, I included a device to pop balloons. Such small details can then become inspiration for another story. I might have also been inspired by Klancyk, a Warsaw-based impro theatre group, which prepares its shows without a script, all while having lots of fun.

MD: How does that translate into your designs?

Flate by Ola Mirecka, a performance in different locations where a balloon is inflated by a sea breeze, photo: R. Laurvig
OM: For me, an object becomes an excuse to tell a story. I look for objects with an unobvious function – they should inspire you to find one. It's kind of like the perspective of a child who's just beginning to grasp how our world functions.

During the creation process, playing's essential. We often forget what we used to be like when we were kids, and we tend to think in clichés. While playing, we step out of the box and it can be refreshing and therapeutic. If something is meant for kids and well-designed, adults will find it entertaining, too. Take Pixar's animated films, for example: they're perfectly understandable and fun for both.

MD: Was it this method that brought you to LEGO?

OM: There aren't many toys that adults love as much as LEGO. When I started working there, I realised that what I'd discovered on my own was essential in designing LEGO sets. They’re absolutely genius when it comes to construction, but the company has been on the market for so many years simply because LEGO pieces allow for uninhibited play and continuous storytelling.

MD: How does a designer understand play?

Ola Mirecka’s Guziko-Pętelki (Button-Loops), which can be connected in various ways and easily morph into a tent, armour, a tunnel or a fence. They were awarded first prize at the Baby Vox competition in 2009, photo: Jakub Certowicz
OM: Playing is improvising. It’s a space in which you have creative freedom, where everything becomes possible. Kids don’t mind putting together different things, even if sometimes they clearly clash. This mindset is intriguing.

Playing is a kind of collage made up of different materials, stories, narratives and rules. The material can be LEGO pieces, but it can also be anything else.

MD: Did you improvise during the recruitment process at LEGO?

OM: The recruitment process was a series of workshops, during which we were given a drawing assignment. I cut up some A3 sheets of paper and used them to make a film. The tool became a toy.

MD: You made a film, which again means that you told a story.

OM: LEGO is a company which appreciates the designing process. They decided I was a good fit – I, for one, didn’t actually think so when I was applying. I changed my mind after the first month.

In this kind of design process, it’s the story and the ability to play that come first. Those are the two things that were important to me before.

MD: So does designing a LEGO set start with a story?

Car from LEGO set 41301, Puppy Parade, designed by Ola Mirecka, 2016, photo: courtesy of the designer
OM: First, you create a narrative, then you have to ask yourself a question: ‘How do I build this?’ And then make sure there aren’t similar sets yet. A LEGO set is a world in and of itself, an alternate reality with its own rules.

Having completed the conceptual process, we move to actual creation. We work as a team and build lots of potential models that could make it into the set that would become, for instance, an amusement park. At that stage, we use the LEGO piece library, in which every element is catalogued and divided into separate drawers. This is when the fun begins. We look for an appropriate brick shape, colour and function. During my three years at LEGO, the process developed more and more. Each set is designed in such a way that children can make numerous play scenarios possible. A good toy provides countless ways to play with it.

After the sketches are done, we plan the actual product. At this stage, we have to take into consideration many design limitations such as the size, price and originality, in reference to existing sets. When this stage is completed, all we have to do is get the design ready for production.

MD: Was any set really crucial for you?

LEGO 41129, Amusement Park Hot Dog Van, designed by Ola Mirecka, released in June 2016, photo: courtesy of the designer
OM: At some point, I became a car expert. I even designed a dog-shaped limo. It was difficult to build without it falling apart when you put a LEGO person into it.

When working on an amusement park set, and I was asked to design a food truck. Initially, I thought about a gelato truck, but it'd already made an appearance in The LEGO Movie. But people eat a lot of hot dogs in Denmark, so I used that as an inspiration for the truck and the LEGO people. The set is made with a sense of humour, which both adults and kids appreciate. We all like to laugh at silly things. I was trying to recreate this kind of humour elsewhere, even when designing the hospital set.

MD: Was Baby Ola born during the hospital project?

LEGO 41318, Heartlake Hospital, designed by Ola Mirecka, released in June 2017, photo: courtesy of the designer

Baby Ola, photo: OM
OM: In this set, we tell the story of a gentleman who slipped and broke his arm. It doesn't include a banana skin, which was my instant association, but there's a ‘Caution! Slippery surface!' sign. There's a waiting room, you can buy flowers, there's a hot chocolate machine and, for those looking closely, a hidden blood sample. There are elements which introduce a sense of reality into the set, like a fish tank where you can actually feed the fish. It's the real world with a little twist.

Kids often play hospital, but we meant to show them that a hospital's where children are born, hence Baby Ola. She's named after me – our birthday is on the same day. The set includes a photo album and her footprint.

MD: What was your last LEGO project?

LEGO 41340 Friendship House, designed by Ola Mirecka, released in January 2018, photo: courtesy of the designer
My final set was The Friendship House. My childhood dreams inspired it. It’s an old firehouse turned into a secret children’s hiding place. When I was a child, I dreamt about Villa Villekulla, the one Pippi Longstocking had. A place where no rules apply, where children feel free.

Two years before that, I designed a promotional set attached to a kids magazine. It included a cage with a hamster wheel. I felt like using it somewhere again. In this set there are also lots of different workshop tools, and there is a drop of water under the sink, suggesting a plumbing problem. You really can’t ever get bored with all the LEGO details. Ever since I made the Hot Dog Van, I always try to include a hot dog in my sets.

MD: How did your approach to product design change over those three years at LEGO?

OM: LEGO allowed me to translate having fun designing into making toys. I had a lot of freedom. After work, I could focus on my own projects. Then I decided that I wanted to direct all of my attention on them.

What I care about now is how some innovation becomes the result of play and how objects can develop personalities. I no longer look at objects from a functional point of view, I'd rather focus on the interaction with them, and the emotional aspect stemming from that. If an object has a function and performs it, it can also have an emotional aspect to it. Important objects are linked to memories.

MD: Is this is how Sensitive Dog was born? A robo-dog, that's supposed to remind us about sympathy.

OM: It was born during a six-month course called Fab Academy which I took last year at Fab Lab Spinderihallerne in Denmark. It brings together students from all over the globe, from Australia, Peru, etc. who study at local Fab Labs and attend joint videoconferences. The course program is very hands-on and combines digital fabrication, electronics design and coding. Weekly lectures are conducted live by Prof. Neil Gershenfeld from MIT.

My final project was a dog sculpture that reacts to human touch. An approaching hand is a source of information. It was an attempt of transferring natural behavior onto an object. I wondered what kind of feelings it might awaken in us. Will we treat it like a normal dog if it wags its tail? Perhaps this reaction, so embedded in nature, will make it seem more familiar to us, perhaps we’ll even end up befriending it. We live in an era of moving pictures. It’s only a matter of time before these pictures gain new dimensions. A brand new exciting, magical branch of design is being born – the design of smart objects.

MD: Objects have an impact on us because of our emotional approach to them. But are they able to shape us somehow?

OM: Currently, technology is supposed to improve our life – make it simpler and more effective. I wonder what the world would be like if objects made no sense. What if a table didn't stand unless you spoke to it? What if a wardrobe only opened when you petted it? I'd like to design a robot which always has a cold. Perfection is not in fashion – imperfection is cool because it's human.

Ola Mirecka’s website: olamirecka.pl
Studio: www.nejtakfarvel.com
Fab Lab workshop blog

Works by Ola Mirecka – Image Gallery
1 / 21
Robot Dogs, Interactive Fountains & Designing for LEGO: An Interview with Ola Mirecka[/URL]

 

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Art History Makes Us Better: A Chat with DailyArt Founder Zuzanna Stańska
#technology & innovation
Author: Marek Kępa
Published: Sep 21 2017
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On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of DailyArt, a Polish-born app that makes a piece of fine art pop up on your phone daily, Culture.pl talks with its founder Zuzanna Stańska about the appeal of this growing project, why she chose a quote by Picasso as its motto, and about the ups and downs of a career in making apps for cultural institutions.

Zuzanna Stańska, photo: Adam Lach / Napo Image / Forum
Marek Kępa: ‘Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.’ That’s a quote by Picasso. Why did you choose it as the motto of DailyArt, your app that publishes a piece of fine art every day alongside a short description?

Zuzanna Stańska: Well, because it was said by Picasso and because it's true! After many years of our work it also seems to be a perfect motto for us. Our users say that for them DailyArt is something that lightens up their day and helps them survive their everyday burdens. Art helps in their existence. DailyArt helps in their everyday existence!

MK: The app itself is pretty basic, you get three screens: one showing the day’s artwork, an archive of previous pieces and a page of brief information about the developers. Would you say that this simplicity, this accessibility of the artworks’ descriptions (which don’t necessarily reflect the often meandering discourse of art critics), is an important component of the appeal of DailyArt, which has been downloaded by over a hundred thousand users?

ZS: Yes, I always wanted DailyArt to be simple. The most important thing is the piece of art and it's story – there shouldn't be any distractions. In the iOS version you can also read more information about the artist, the museum collection it’s from and the genre, moreover you can add the painting to your favourites, and even search for a particular piece. These features will be also available on Android soon.

Screenshots of the DailyArt app, photo: Google Play
The other thing is that we have a lot of elderly users who are not ‘digital natives’. Excluding them from DailyArt by making it overly complicated would be horrible. And regarding art critics – I understand them and their work, but in my opinion, art should be simple, understandable for everyone who is interested in it. In the end, what counts in admiring art is our opinion about it. If it resonates with me, that's fine (both in a positive or negative way). If it doesn't, it's ok too. No matter what some art critic writes about it – often in a super sofisticated way, which we always wanted to avoid in the app. We wanted to make people look at art and think about it on their own.

MK: DailyArt presents a great variety of artworks. You can find many paintings created in different styles, like pieces by Caspar David Friedrich or Kazimir Malevich, but I also stumbled upon a photo of a 9th-century sculpted stone known as the Viking Raider Stone or an illustration from a 17th century book on fencing. How do you select each day’s work? What’s the process behind it?

ZS: There is actually no organised process! <laughs> I'm always trying to make sure there is a wide variety of works we present but I can't hide the fact that our users mostly love the 19th century, Impressionists and Post-impressionists. We have fifteen contributors who write about pieces that move them. For one it's the middle-ages, for another it's Mexican art or photography. I write about pieces that catch my eye. So everything is really on the app by chance. I guess that spontaneity and chaos in the content we provide is something that our users also enjoy. You can never predict what you’ll see on DailyArt!

Screenshot of the Wilanów Live app
MK: You collaborate with numerous museums across the world including Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Sorolla Museum in Madrid. I hear this kind of co-operation helps especially when it comes to copyright issues. Was it hard to convince many institutions to work with you on your project?

ZS: Yes, it's a bit hard to convince them, but you can't blame them. We aren't Google Art Project, we have only around a half a million users monthly so we are not giants. And museum professionals are overworked, tired and it’s often difficult to start new projects with them. But we are very persistent, we present their collections for free and we give them more and more visibility in this world flooded by all kinds of information. This September, every Sunday we are presenting masterpieces by Toulouse-Lautrec from the São Paolo Art Museum. It’s a great collection!

MK: This year marks the fifth anniversary of DailyArt’s existence – by now you have presented close to two thousand different artworks. What were the most memorable moments in the app’s life and what made them significant? Is launching DailyArtDaily.com, an art history website linked to the app, among them?

ZS: Oh my, there were plenty of memorable moments. Maybe I should say that launching our online magazine DailyArtDaily.com (soon to be rebranded DailyArtMagazine.com) was one of them, as well as developing new versions of the app, but to be honest, all of them – at least for me – were about people and their kindness. All those people who work for DailyArt. All our volunteers. All the support our users showed us during our crowdfunding campaign. All the love they send us with emails when they describe what DailyArt means to them. That is most important.

The app My Warsaw in use, photo: moiseum.com
MK: DailyArt isn’t the only app created by your company Moiseum, which specialises in providing technologies for museums and cultural institutions. You have also created an app that acts as a guide to Warsaw’s Museum of King Jan III’s Palace in Wilanów. What made you enter such an intriguing line of work?

ZS: That was my idea for a living before DailyArt. In 2010 and 2011, I got excited about possibilities the mobile world can open for cultural institutions – museums mostly, because I’ve always loved museums. I wrote my bachelor's degree about it and by coincidence, I started to work for a VC fund which invested in start-ups. There I met all of these people who were working on creating software – designers, developers. When I realised that that is what I wanted to do, I started Moiseum, which after nearly six years is still alive and well, better than ever.

MK: Speaking of Moiseum’s beginnings, in 2012 you made the augmented reality app My Warsaw showing places in Warsaw linked to the famous Polish-Jewish writer and pedagogue Janusz Korczak. Although the app – no longer accessible – was warmly received, after its launch your company entered a bumpy period. How did you manage to stay afloat, did DailyArt play a part in that?

ZS: It was horrible! It was a matter of timing, which I didn't know back then. Intuitively I knew everything would change one day. So the thing was, that I started too early. Museums or cultural institutions weren't ready for mobile apps. Another thing was that I didn't know anything about business – law, taxes, sales, marketing, nothing. I was starving, and with the last bit of money I had I developed DailyArt, which for the first two years didn’t make any money. But luckily running it was very rewarding so I never thought of closing it. Moiseum started to receive more and more commisions and became profitable after two years, when I became a bit smarter and museums wanted to do more digital. You know, I really love what I do. Spreading art history and creating digital projects for museums. This is why I didn't give everything up when times were hard.

Édouard Manet, Bar at the Folies-Bergere, 1882, photo: Courtauld Institute of Art
MK: Personally, what are your favourite works of art presented on DailyArt?

ZS: Most recently it was Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergere – there is so much sadness and melancholy in it! All in the middle of a crazy party at the cabaret! I love it. I even put it on our fifth birthday feature. But there are dozens of my favourite works we’ve shown in DailyArt! <laughs>

MK: Where do you want to take DailyArt in the upcoming years?

ZS: I want to reach more and more people. No matter how, by what means, if it will be via a mobile app, an online magazine or social media accounts. I really believe that art history makes us better, as humans, and that it makes our lives better. Or at least more bearable.

Art History Makes Us Better: A Chat with DailyArt Founder Zuzanna Stańska

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

he established his Commission on National Education, the world's first state ministry of education. It allowed a complete reorganization of the Polish educational system. This body set up a uniform national system emphasizing mathematics, natural sciences, and language study. The commission also stressed standardizing elementary education, integrating trade and agricultural skills into the elementary school curriculum, and improving textbooks at all levels. In 1775 the Commission on National Education established the Society for Elementary Books (Towarzystwo do Ksiag Elementarnych), which prepared many textbooks, regulations, and decrees.

The partitioning of Poland by foreign governments challenged the work of the Commission on National Education; Germany, Austria, and Russia sought to destroy Polish national consciousness by germanizing and russifying the education system. After 1802 schools in the Russian sector received certain liberties. The educational district in Wilno had been chaired by Prince Adam Czartoryski and seen as a model for educational reform in Russia. Czartoryski, with a group of associates (Stanislaw Kostka Potocki, Tadeuz Czacki, Jan Sniadecki, and Jedrzej Sniadecki), attempted to develop the achievements of the Commission on National Education. One of the most successful centers was the University in Wilno.

During the first 30 years of the nineteenth century, Polish education expanded freely in the Duchy of Warsaw and, after the Congress of Vienna, in the Congress Kingdom of Poland. In 1807 the so-called Educational Chamber (Izba Edukacyjna) was established in the Duchy of Warsaw. In 1812 it evolved into the Management of National Education (Dyrekcja Edukacji Narodowej), and then, after 1815, it became the Government Committee for Religion and Public Enlightenment (Komisja Rzadowa Wyznan Religijnych i Oswiecenia Publicznego). In 1816 the Academy of Mining (Szkola Akademiczna Górnicza) in Kielce was established, as was Warsaw University with five faculties. By the November Uprising against Russia in 1830-1831, the University had educated 1,254 students.



Read more: Poland - History Background - Schools, Education, School, and Polish - StateUniversity.com Poland - History Background

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

He graduated from WUT in Poland and invented the Walkie-Talkie in America
Opublikowano: 25/11/2016 3:16 pm


phot. Pixabay

It’s June 1939. Henryk Magnuski, a 30-year-old employee of the National Telecommunications and Radio Technology Centre, leaves for New York to see how Americans work on state-of-the-art radio transmitters. He doesn’t know that several months later World War II would begin, changing the course of his life.

The conflict meant that Henryk could not return to Poland. He could, however, advance his professional career. In 1940, he was hired by Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (GMC), which became Motorola seven years later. The talented Polish engineer, who studied telecommunications at the Warsaw University of Technology (he graduated in 1934) and led the team designing military transceivers at NTRTC, quickly showcased his abilities in the United States.

First Step to Fame

His first important project in exile was the SCR 536 hand-held radio transceiver. The device was named handie-talkie. Following the nature of these times, it was meant for military use. Thanks to this device, soldiers could easily and safely communicate with each other. The main advantages of this radio transceiver included low weight (approx. 2 kg) and durability. It could even be – if necessary – submerged in water for a short period.

The success of the invention is echoed by the number of devices manufactured by GMC since December 1941 until the end of World War II, which was over 100 thousand.


Radio Set SCR 300

Ground-breaking Invention

However, another device turned out to become Magnuski’s masterpiece – the SCR 300 radio transceiver. Its weight was 16-17 kg, which means it was much heavier than a hand-held radio transceiver, but its range was also much larger – approx. 15 km. Previously, such devices had to be transported by tanks, and sometimes even tanks turned out to be too small. And the Polish engineer created a radio transceiver that any soldier could move by himself in a dedicated backpack. And that’s the reason for its name – walkie-talkie. In the Discovery film, Morgan Burke, grandson of Donald L. Hings, a Canadian inventor who created a two-way portable radio system before Magnuski, said that it was the name used by journalists during World War II.

What’s important, the Polish engineer’s device could be manually tuned to various frequencies.

Thanks to all these advantages, it allowed efficient communication between different military branches: artillery, armoured forces and infantry.

Approx. 43 thousand walkie-talkies manufactured by GMC were in use by the American army since 1943 during military operations conducted in Europe and the Pacific.

Henryk Magnuski’s invention is described as ground-breaking by World War II analytics. Wireless communication and, therefore, easier communication between soldiers, were important for building the American military advantage.

It’s a great irony that a man born and raised in the country where the conflict began, first, thanks to a solid amount of chance, escaped the turmoil of war, and then found himself in the middle of it anyway. Not as a heroic soldier, however, but as a designer and visionary.


Henryk Magnuski, phot. Wikipedia, Hank Magnuski, licencja CC-BY SA 3.0

Forever an Emigrant

The Polish engineer did not stop with hand-held and backpack radio transceivers. He also designed the AN/CPN-6 radar radio beacon, which was used by the US Navy. It helped pilots to return to carriers in case of limited visibility

After the war, Henryk did not return to his fatherland. He remained in the United States and continued to work for Motorola. His projects included cavity resonators and their use as input filters in microwave receivers (e.g. in the “Sensicon” receiver), and designing microwave transceiver stations for multiplex telephony, television and data transmission.

He also worked on government projects, such as the design of the AN/USC-3 SSB radio transceiver, RADAS, the Deltaplex I tropospheric communications system, and the AN/TRC‑105 device.

Henryk Magnuski’s scientific output consists of 30 patents in total, and of several dozen papers (written individually or with other scientists). They concern ultra-short and microwave radiocommunications.

The inventor died in the United States in 1978. In 2006, he was inducted into the Illinois Engineering Hall of Fame. His memory was also celebrated at the University of Illinois at Chicago. One of their chairs is named after Henryk Magnuski.

He graduated from WUT in Poland and invented the Walkie-Talkie in America

 

[Taz]

C'mon, what's the best thing a Pole ever invented? Name 3.

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

C'mon, what's the best thing a Pole ever invented? Name 3.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

C'mon, what's the best thing a Pole ever invented? Name 3.

Dual Roter helicopter - Frank Piasecki.

First successful handheld movie camera - Aeroscope by Kazimierz Proczynski.

Television pioneered by 3 people of Polish heritage, Jan Szczepanik, Paul Nipkow, and Julian Ochorowicz.

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

C'mon, what's the best thing a Pole ever invented? Name 3.

Dual Roter helicopter - Frank Piasecki.

First successful handheld movie camera - Aeroscope by Kazimierz Proczynski.

Television pioneered by 3 people of Polish heritage, Jan Szczepanik, Paul Nipkow, and Julian Ochorowicz.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

Stefan Bryła
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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Stefan Bryła
Stefan Bryła (born 17 August 1886 in Kraków – 3 December 1943 in Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish construction engineerand welding pioneer.[1] Bryła designed and built the first welded road bridge in the world.

Biography[edit]
Bryła was a Professor at the Lwów University of Technology from 1927 and at the Warsaw University of Technology from 1934. Bryła was the author of basic methods of welding steel structures.

In 1927 he designed the Maurzyce Bridge, first welded road bridge in the world. The bridge was erected across the Słudwia River in Maurzyce near Łowicz, Poland in 1929. It was still in use in 1977 as which point plans were undertaken to replace it with a wider structure. Consequently, the bridge was reinstalled as a historical monument at a site slightly upstream. In 1995, the American Welding Society presented a Historic Welded Structure Award for the bridge to Poland.[2] He also designed high rise buildings: Drapacz Chmur in Katowice and the Prudential in Warsaw in 1932.

During World War II he taught at the Secret Universities. Secret teaching was the cause of arrest of Stefan Bryła. He was arrested on 16 November 1943 together with his family and murdered during Action AB by the Germans in Warsaw on 3 December 1943.


Stefan Bryła - Wikipedia

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

12 Polish Composers You Should Know (Who Aren’t Chopin)

By Stephen Raskauskas | July 6, 2017

Everyone loves the music of Fryderyk Chopin, Poland’s most well-known composer. But, how many other Polish composers do you know?

Learn more about Poland’s best composers from one of Poland’s best composers: Marta Ptaszyńska. Born in Warsaw and based in Chicago, Ptaszyńska has received many prestigious awards and honors for her work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her output includes a diverse range of repertoire from music for solo instruments to several operas. Her opera Mister Marimba, commissioned for and performed by the Warsaw National Opera, has been performed 164 times!

A percussionist herself, Ptaszyńska’s piece Siderals for two percussion quintets and light projection requires 117 instruments to perform! She plays over 200 distinct percussion instruments, and is fascinated by the “many thousands of timbres colors of percussion instruments that cannot be achieved by electronic means or other instruments.”

“There is no Polish culture without music. Polish culture is music,” Ptaszyńska passionately proclaimed. She shared 12 Polish composers we all should know, drawing upon composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941)

Paderewski was a “fantastic pianist first all, and a fantastic diplomat and statesmen,” Ptaszyńska said. As the country’s second prime minister, he worked to re-establish Poland’s independence and signed the Treaty of Versailles, restoring Greater Poland and Pomerania to Poland. Even if you think you don’t know Paderewski’s music, you’re likely familiar with some of his work. He was the editor of the works of Chopin published in 1949, a monumental contribution to musicians everywhere. Of all of his music, many know the Minuet in G “that everybody has to play in middle school and elementary school,” Ptaszyńska said. But, she recommends listening to his only opera, Manru, and his Violin Sonata, Op. 13, which she describes as “absolutely brilliant.”

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909- 1969)

Grażyna Bacewicz was an “outstanding violinist and pianist,” Ptaszyńska said, who was “very popular and well-known especially after World War II, when her music was suddenly noticed by people all over Europe.” Growing up in the pre-war Poland, “her techniques were… not so avant-garde. Her middle period was sort of neo-classical. But after the War, she used new sonorities and techniques. She tried to do all the new things in her late works.” Of all Bacewicz’s works, Ptaszyńska recommends giving her Caprices a listen.

Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994)

Ptaszyńska describes Lutosławski as the “greatest Polish composer after World War II, though he composed during the War also.” She explained her special affection for Lutosławski: “His music is the closest to me because I studied with him and he was a mentor.” She enjoys his diverse output, which includes well known works like his Variations on a Theme by Paganini (1941). But she thinks his best works are from after the 1950s, when he explored more avant-garde techniques. He never wrote an opera, though he composed a lot of vocal music. Since, like Ptaszyńska, he composed music for young musicians, try listening to one of his charming children’s songs.

Andrzej Panufnik (1914-1991)

Panufnik was a friend of Lutosławski. the two spent time together during the World War II during the second occupation and formed a duo that played in cafes in Warsaw. Panufnik stayed in Poland for a while after the War, became the director of the Kraków Philharmonic, and restored the Warsaw Philharmonic. In 1956, he escaped Poland, and eventually settled in England, spending most of his life in London. “In England he didn’t have an easy life, but he continued to compose,” Ptaszyńska said. Though she never had the opportunity to meet the composer himself, she visited his widow in London many times after he passed away. Try listening to his Piano Concerto (1961).

Wojciech Kilar (1932 – 2013)

Wojciech Kilar, Ptaszyńska’s friend and colleague, was “well-known as a composer of great sacred music. But he’s also known for his film music, because he composed music for the famous directors like Roman Polanski,” she said. Some of his most well-known film scores include music for Rosemary’s Baby (Polanski) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola). He received a César Award for Best Film Music written for his piece Moving to the Ghetto Oct. 31, 1940 which he composed for the movie The Pianist.

Henryk Górecki (1933-2010)

Górecki was a “very Polish composer because he took all of his inspiration from Polish dances,” Ptaszyńska explained. Many know the composer’s Symphony No. 3, which premiered in 1977 with Stefania Woytowicz as the soprano soloist. However, it was not until Dawn Upshaw recorded the piece in 1992 with the London Sinfonietta that the piece gained wide-spread popularity. Ptaszyńska recommends his Symphony No. 2, “Copernican,” which is inspired by the famous Polish astronomer and mathematician who proved that the Earth revolves around the sun.

Krzysztof Penderecki (1933 – )

Ptaszyńska calls Penderecki “the most diverse composer from the whole Polish group. There’s such a great variety it’s hard to believe.” She explained that he tends to change his style every couple of years, and recently has been collaborating more and more with pop and jazz musicians. In turn, “jazz musicians have also been adapting his music to their own style, and he supports that very much,” she said. “There’s so much great music by Penderecki. There’s his large-scale St. Luke Passion won him the Prix Italia. Then, of course there’s his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. Not to mention, his music has been used famously in films. His Polymorphia was made famous by the film adaptation of The Shining.”

Krzysztof Knittel (1947 – )

Ptaszyńska shares a special connection with Krzysztof Knittel: they were both born on the exact same day! He studied composition and sound engineering at the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music. So, it’s no surprise that his music involves electronics and multimedia. “Every piece he composes is composed for an instrument, or group of instruments, is also for electronics,” Ptaszyńska said. “He does not present music for pure instrumental ensemble.” Try listening to the electronic soundscape of his Surface En Rotation.

Tadeusz Wielecki (1954 – )

Ptaszyńska describes Wielecki as an “avant-garde, post-modern composer, who knows all the composers,” because he directs the Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autumn. Enjoy some of his experimental sounds in Łagodne Kołysanie, which has the musicians playing everything from the violin empty bottles.

Jarek Kapuscinski (1964 – )

Kapuscinski writes “very great music and is a very great pianist,” Ptaszyńska said. Based at Stanford University where he is a professor and Director of Intermedia Performance Lab, Kapuscinski has a special interest in electronic music and multimedia. But he also has an interest in music of the far east, Ptaszyńska explained. Though she recommended many of his interesting pieces, check out his Mondrian Variations, which finally answers the question, “What would a Mondrian sound like?”

Pawel Mykietyn (1971 – )

Ptaszyńska mentioned that the generation of Polish composers born in the 1970s has been particularly influential, and wanted to highlight the work of Pawel Mykietyn in particular. She describes him as a “full-blooded post-modernist,” who likes to challenge stylistic conventions. He doesn’t like to repeat himself. Every piece brings something new and unexpected.” His St. Mark Passion, she explained, was so new and unexpected that it sparked a big debate between Penderecki and Mykietyn. She said that he likes to explore the “boundaries between dreams and waking consciousness,” and “bring the audience’s emotions to the boiling point” when they hear his music.

Agata Zubel (1978 – )

Ptaszyńska described Zubel as a singer and percussionist whose work is “very theatrical and has very strong dramaturgical roots.” An important figure of the avant-garde, Zubel enjoys incorporating extended techniques in her music. Her musicianship is so impressive, Ptaszyńska said, that some colleagues reported that they have “never had a singer who was so accurate and could sing with such precisio

12 Polish Composers You Should Know (Who Aren’t Chopin) | 98.7WFMT

 

[Taz]

C'mon, what's the best thing a Pole ever invented? Name 3.

Dual Roter helicopter - Frank Piasecki.

First successful handheld movie camera - Aeroscope by Kazimierz Proczynski.

Television pioneered by 3 people of Polish heritage, Jan Szczepanik, Paul Nipkow, and Julian Ochorowicz.

That’s it? Not much there, brah.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

C'mon, what's the best thing a Pole ever invented? Name 3.

Dual Roter helicopter - Frank Piasecki.

First successful handheld movie camera - Aeroscope by Kazimierz Proczynski.

Television pioneered by 3 people of Polish heritage, Jan Szczepanik, Paul Nipkow, and Julian Ochorowicz.

That’s it? Not much there, brah.

Well, you only asked for 3, doof.

 

[Taz]

C'mon, what's the best thing a Pole ever invented? Name 3.

Dual Roter helicopter - Frank Piasecki.

First successful handheld movie camera - Aeroscope by Kazimierz Proczynski.

Television pioneered by 3 people of Polish heritage, Jan Szczepanik, Paul Nipkow, and Julian Ochorowicz.

That’s it? Not much there, brah.

Well, you only asked for 3, doof.

Those are the best 3?

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

Polish car designers
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The luxury Aston Martin DBS and the Ferrari California, the economical Alfa Romeo Giuglietta and the Tata Indica Vista—it is not widely known that the world’s most popular cars have been designed by Poles. The way to the elite design studios has been paved for them by Janusz Kaniewski, who died suddenly at the beginning of May.
The king of Polish car designers, Janusz Kaniewski, who suddenly passed away on 9 May 2015 aged 41, has made a strong name for Polish car designers. The passing of one of the first graduates in Transportation Design from the famous Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin, the most famous school of auto design, sent a shock throughout the entire moto industry. Surprised by the designer’s sudden death, his employees are receiving condolences from the bosses of the largest car manufacturers. For Mr Kaniewski was not only an acclaimed author of the Ferrari California and Ferrari 458, but also had other creations attributed to him: the Lancia Delta, the futuristic Honda CIVIC, the Alfa Romeo Mi.To, the Alfa Romeo Giuglietta, and the Suzuki Kirashi (the designer would not confirm this, most probably because of confidentiality clauses with the automakers). He was also a well-known philanthropist and an extraordinary man.

Mr Kaniewski’s Milan alma mater attracts most would-be designers from Poland. Many of them are graduates from the Design Department at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, which has a Studio of Means of Transport Design. “They must think highly of us in Milan, because our graduates get admitted not only to the Istituto Europeo di Design but also the city’s university of technology, the Scuola Politecnica di Milano,” Professor Piotr Jędrzejewski, head of the Studio of Means of Transport Design at the Wroclaw Academy, tells Polska.pl. “One of our youngest graduates, Mateusz Wowk, a BA in Motor Transport Design, went on to study at the Milan university of technology, and after an internship at the Lamborghini plant in Santa Agata, landed a job there,” adds Professor Jędrzejewski. Another Scuola Politecnica di Milano graduate is Jacek Pepłowski, who now works for BMW Mini, and Bogusław Paruch, employed by Ford.

Professor Jędrzejewski spent almost a decade at the Studio of Means of Transport Design, which had been founded by Professor Wilhelm Semaniszyn. He thinks the studio’s edge is its comprehensive curriculum. “We want our future designers to have no areas hidden from them, no black boxes that only an engineer could grasp. We want our graduates to be able to cope with the whole picture,” explains Professor Jędrzejewski.

He himself used to design mining equipment and bomb squad military vehicles at the studio that once cooperated with the Starachowice Car Plant and the lorry plant in Jelcz. The studio’s track record includes a partnership with Kross, Poland’s biggest bicycle manufacturer.

According to the Professor, the three to five students who each year enrol in the studio are utterly preoccupied with car design and fascinated by the subject. Apart from the mandatory curriculum they will register for competitions and come up with their own extra activities. “To succeed in this field you need to give it your all,” he thinks.

Another studio graduate, Jacek Pepłowski, currently working at the Munich-based Mini plant, started designing cars when he was a student of a secondary art school in Wroclaw. He gave vent to his passion by studying at the Wroclaw Academy of Art and Design and training at Volkswagen. Having won an MA in industrial design, he enrolled in a crash course in Car Design at the Scuola Politecnica di Design. He came to grips with the Italian style there and established contacts in the car-making world, among others with Honda, for which he worked after university.

• See also:
• ASP in Wrocław
• Pinifarina
• Istituto Europeo di Design

Some Polish car designers opt to study at home, for example at the Silesian University of Technology, whose graduates have designed the bodywork of Audi, BMW and Alfa Romeo models. Kamil Łabanowicz’s portfolio includes the Audi R8 TD, which premiered at the Detroit auto show in 2008; Zbigniew Maurer of Centro Stile Alfa Romeo has to his name the redesign of the 166, the design of the 156, and collaborative work on the 8C Competizione; BMW’s Jacek Frohlich designed the look of the new BMW X5 models—F10 and F11. The Silesian University of Technology has recently opened the Faculty of Interior Design, and plans to launch a faculty of industrial design which will offer a car design course.

Another university of technology, this time in Gdansk, was the alma mater of Tadeusz Jelec from Giżycko, a member of the Jaguar designer team, who has also finished the prestigious British Royal College of Art. Mr Jelec, who has been living in the UK for more than 30 years, was at first doing assignments for Volvo, Mazda and Jaguar. After he was given a ten-day deadline to redesign the interior of the XJ and delivered the job, Mr Jelec was put on the designer team at one of the most prestigious British brands. It is thanks to him that the Jaguar XJ changed from a classical limo into a more modern car.

Poles are also engaged in designing the bodywork of some lesser-known brands in Europe. Justyn Norek from Krakow, who for 23 years worked at the legendary Institute of Development in Automotive Engineering in Turin, is the author of India’s Tata models. He has designed the bodywork of the Indica II, Nano and Indigo.

Another Pole in a top design position is Marek Reichman, head of the Aston Martin designer team, a manufacturer that, according to some, makes the world’s most beautiful cars. Born in Great Britain in 1966, Mr Reichman supervises each model designed by his team. He has personally designed James Bond’s Aston Martin DBS, which the agent of Her Majesty's secret service drives in Quantum of Solace, as well as the Vanquish and the Vulcan Hypercar. In 2014 he created the DP100 for Gran Turismo 6, a computer game.

Polish car designers

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

C'mon, what's the best thing a Pole ever invented? Name 3.

Dual Roter helicopter - Frank Piasecki.

First successful handheld movie camera - Aeroscope by Kazimierz Proczynski.

Television pioneered by 3 people of Polish heritage, Jan Szczepanik, Paul Nipkow, and Julian Ochorowicz.

That’s it? Not much there, brah.

Well, you only asked for 3, doof.

Those are the best 3?

What has your ethnic heritage invented?