CENTRALA (Małgorzata Kuciewicz, Simone De Iacobis)
The Wetland Album
The Wetland Album is a wet diagram of the Warsaw swamps, envisioned through the use of natural sponges. It consist of riparian woodlands, lakelands, springs, sources, karst springs, semi-drylands, wetlands, floodplains, magical wetlands, peat bogs, inland sedges, reed beds, bullrush beds, nettlebanks, polders, willowbanks, herb beds, wet woodlands, diluvian soils, marshes, mosslands, moors, swamps, mudflats, seasonally aquatic and seasonally terrestrial lands, loam soils, silt plains, fossil floodplains, quagmires, fens, morasses, sloughs, broads and backwaters. As is apparent from the above, CENTRALA aims to preserve the rich wet-land vocabulary that was once in common usage amongst the inhabitants of these waterlogged environments.
The reintroduction of these rarely heard specialist terminologies, many of which now elude us in their original definitions, offers an opportunity to envision a re-wetted Warsaw, comprising reconstructed wetland-scapes that have the capacity to absorb increasingly common weather extremes and periods of water abundance. The Wetland Album is the latest project from Centrala (whose project for the revitalisation of the Warszawianka sports grounds, Amplifying Nature, was chosen as the Polish pavilion exhibition at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2018), in which the group addresses the issue of water circulation as a vital phenomenon of both architecture and urban planning.
The diagram, located in the former water reservoir of the Ujazdowski Hospital, will allow viewers to navigate the Warsaw wetlands, in addition to being included in group tours led by natural scientists from the Wetlands Preservation Centre. The diagram also happens to be a tactile artistic object that welcomes touch.
Collaboration: Wetlands Preservation Centre
