The Wetland Album introduced the topic of the diversity of urban wetlands to the debate about city. “Wetlands Tondo”, a model of the Warsaw’s wetscape, envisioned through the use of natural sponges helped navigate wetlands during the group expeditions led by natural scientists from the Wetlands Preservation Centre.
Wetlands Tondo 2019, Photo Michał Matejko
It consists 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. 11 [PL] łęgi, jezierzyska, źródliska, wysięki, wywierzyska, wylewiska, tereny półmokre, podmokłości – tereny podmokłe, rozlewiska, uroczyska, torfowiska, turzycowiska, trzcinowiska, szuwarowiska, pałkowiska, sitowiska, pokrzywiska, wiklinowiska, ziołorośla, zasiąkla, osuchy, mady, marsze, mszary, mechowiska, moczary, moczarzyska, rojsty, mokrzadła, moczydła, olsy, błota, błotniska, trzęsawiska, trzęsawy, topieliska, gleby namyte, gleby mażące się, tereny grząskie, grzęzawiska, tereny nasiąkliwe, podsiąkliwe i ziemie rozmokłe ↩︎
CENTRALA aims to restore the rich wetland vocabulary that was once in common use amongst the inhabitants of these waterlogged environments.
Illustration Studio Bękarty
The reintroduction of these rarely heard specialist terminologies, many of which now elude us in their original definitions, offers an opportunity to envision a Warsaw that comprises of a reconstructed wetland-scape that has the capacity to absorb increasingly common weather extremes and periods of water abundance.
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
Photo Michał Matejko, 2019
The Wetland Album is the next project (following the CENTRALA’s proposal for the revitalization of the sports stadium, Warszawianka, and the installation in the Polish Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura in 2018) in which CENTRALA makes central the issue of water circulation as a vital phenomenon in both architecture and urban planning.
In addition to the group tours led by natural scientists from the Wetlands Preservation Centre, the model, which was located in the former water reservoir of the Ujazdowski Hospital, allowed viewers to navigate the Warsaw’s wetlands while also functioning as a tactile artistic object. 22 [PL] Gąbki wykorzystane do stworzenia modelu zostały odłowione zgodnie z tradycyjną sztuką połowu warsztatu Kokkinos z wyspy Kalimnos, nie zagrażając kolonii gąbek. ↩︎ The model was produced for the exhibition at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in 2019.
download pdf with CENTRALA’s map of Warsaw Wetland’s
download pdf with exhibition leaflet
Further reading
download pdf Adam Snopek, The History of Warsaw’s Wetlands, 2019
Simone De Iacobis, Małgorzata Kuciewicz, Błotna ariergarda, autoportret 2019, nr 3
video documentation
Wetscape i dryfujący ośrodek komunikacji międzygatunkowej [Wetscape and the floating of the interspecies communication center], from the Amplifying Nature, series of curated podcasts by CENTRALA for Architektura&Biznes, online 2020 (in Polish only)