Architect vs. Politician in the Game for Historic Urban Space: Six Models of Spatial Policy in Historic Areas
Architect vs. Politician in the Game for Historic Urban Space: Six Models of Spatial Policy in Historic Areas

Summary/Abstract: Historic urban space, consisting of old towns andhistoric districts, is subject to a specific interplaybetween individual actors of the process of itsplanning. An architect, one of four major actorsin the game for historic space, usually possessesa set of characteristic convictions, ideas, and val-ues they believe in. There is a specific ideologicalprofile of an architect as a creator, resulting frommodernist revolution and greatly affecting thequality of architecture developed by them, espe-cially when dealing with the problem of degradedspace (e.g., as a result of warfare). On the otherhand, a local politician (in the case of a city – anexecutive organ, i.e., a mayor or a president) doesnot always realize how much depends on theirdecisions shaping historic space in a particularmodel direction. Contemporary Polish law giveslocal authorities the ultimate power to createspatial policy in historic areas. In order to be ableto act intentionally in the surrounding space, aswell as to enter into a substantive dialogue with anarchitect, a local politician should possess certainmodels of shaping historic space – ready-to-usetemplates of political decisions. The main goal of this article is to present models of shaping historicurban space – conservation, restoration, moderncreation, traditional creation, retroversion, andreconstruction – as well as to present an architect’sresponse to attempts at political implementationsof each of these models

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