Small Hydropower Plants in Pomerania: The Example of Evolution of Modern Industrial Brick Architecture

Abstract

Modernism is usually recognized and associated with the aesthetics of the International Style, represented by white-plastered, horizontally articulated architecture with skimpy decoration, where function was the main imperative of the architects’ ambitions. In Northern Europe though, Modernism also revealed its brick face, representing different manners, styles, and appearances. The brick face of Modernism reflected, in fact, the complexity of the modern change, breaking ties with the historic styles of the 19th century and being still present in the beginning of the 20th century. Regardless of the cosmopolitan character of the International Style and its unified aesthetics, architects tried to find and keep shades of individuality. This was especially visible in the references to either regional or even local traditions. This diversity of modernistic architecture is intensified by its different functions.The language of industrial architecture derives its forms directly from its nature of pure functional idiom, devoted to economic and functional optimization. The industrial form usually seems subordinate to the technical nature of objects. But regardless of that, in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century we can observe an interesting evolution of styles and tendencies in industrial architecture, even in such a narrow and specific field like the architecture of small hydropower plants. The purpose of the research was to recognize the evolution of the architectural form of hydropower plants as a developing branch of industry in the first half of the 20th century. In Pomerania, during this period, a dynamic growth of investments took place, which concerned the use of the Pomeranian rivers’ potential to produce electric energy. At the end of the 19th century, electricity had a strong meaning as a symbol of a radical civilizational change, which influenced also the aesthetic aspects of architecture. This could suggest that the architecture of hydropower plants should be one of the carriers of the new progressive architecture. In fact, in the case of the Pomeranian hydropower plants, their technical solutions were among the most advanced and progressive solutions of those times, sometimes even experimental, adjusted to the diversity of local geographical conditions. Regardless of that, the architecture of the Pomeranian power plants was rather reflecting the diversity and dynamism of the aesthetic discourse of the time (sometimes even representing and adopting traditional or historical forms). The cascade of the power plants Podgaje (1928), Jastrowie (1930), and Ptusza (1930), all part of the same investment on the river Gwda, can be the example of the absorption and development of new aesthetic trends within the same stream of clinker architecture. The paper describes selected examples of Pomeranian power plants as a comparative study which could illustrate the evolution of the brick architecture of the beginning of the 20th century.