Helena Niemirowska Syrkus: Graphic Analysis of the ‘House of Dr Nelken in Warsaw

In 1920s and 1930s, Warsaw was becoming one of the hubs of propagation of the new architecture, thanks to the geographical contiguity with the Weimar Republic, which allowed the formation of young minds aimed at a blending of architecture, art and music. In this cultural context, a young Helena Niemirowska Syrkus supported the idea that urban planning and architecture, conceived as art forms, had to target at the definition of a language able of expressing the great revolutionary step achieved in the social, economic and political life of that time, through new configurations. According to Helena Niemirowska, who shared the avant-garde thesis, to become an artist the modern architect had to be the basic element of social organization, defining also modern architecture as a synthesis of all the arts creating a new space and aesthetic for the ‘New Man’. Through the drawing you can investigate the meanders of architectural thinking of an elapsed time, so all graphic signs, recognized within this path of investigation, may be part of a corpus of rules, and codified data in the interpretation and reworking design process. The paper proposes a graphic re-reading of the ‘House of Dr Nelken in Warsaw’ that Helena Niemirowska designed in 1932. The building, on two levels, shows in its form a strict geometric layout and a three partedsubdivision plan in which she defines the functional inside layout both at the ground floor and at the first one. Even in the facades, in line with the geometric rigor inherited from the study of the pure form, conceived as a generator of architectural space, she combines Suprematism and Modern Movement, cultural influences revealed by surfaces, colours and volumes of seemingly static treatment as well as in her other projects.