Robert Konieczny: KWK Promes: buildings + ideas

• This uniquely presented monograph combines a highly illustrated album with the author's incisive, personalized narrative, explaining the bold concepts of many single- and multifamily residential projects and public buildings, e.g. Warsaw's German embassy, Dublin's U2 tower, and a bridge over Adige River in Verona, Italy, as well as contemporary museums and galleries, including the just completed Plato Contemporary Art Gallery in Ostrava, Czech Republic, as well as many others
• The International Jury of Museum of Architecture and Design in Chicago has placed several KWK Promes's houses on the list of the best houses in the world; Konieczny's own house, the 'Ark' received a Wallpaper* Design Award for Innovative Design; and Robert Konieczny has been awarded multiple times for his high-caliber achievements, including by the Minister of Culture in Poland for his outstanding achievements in the field of architecture
• The book is filled with full-color photographs and detailed plans and diagrams, as well as incisive commentary by renowned architectural writer Philip Jodidio on the innovative process of this firm's practice

Robert Konieczny, founder and principal of KWK Promes, in Poland, specializes in projects renowned for ingenious concepts and unique design. His works examine closely the nature and interpretations of spatial journeys for the viewer or those who inhabit the space, be it for residential works, public buildings, or international cultural festivals and exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale. The firm’s work especially with kinetic architecture fuses seamless design principles with inventive concepts, namely movable structures that both catch light and create a uniquely experiential environment.

A leader in industry innovation, Konieczny and KWK Promes was awarded the World Architecture Festival Award for the best building in 2016.

“Our designs are shaped by logic. Inside these pages, we showcase a unique and detailed précis that narrates the story of the concepts behind our buildings.” ― Robert Konieczny

“The ideas expressed by Robert Konieczny are quite radical and surprising―his forms are unexpected, and often closed or heavy at first sight. Though the Polish context, in terms of climate, history, and sociology may imply such solutions, KWK has laid out a series of concepts that could readily be applied to other places, surely generating other types of buildings. This is not a style so much as it is an intellectual construct.” ― Philip Jodidio

About the Author

Robert Konieczny is a graduate of Architecture at Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland. In 1996, he received a certificate from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He established KWK Promes architecture studio in 1999. Konieczny is a foreign member of French Académie d'Architecture since 2019. His designs have been nominated twelve times for the European Award of Mies van der Rohe Foundation (for Aatrial House, OUTrial house, Safe House, Autofamily House, Living-Garden House in Katowice, Living-Garden House in Izbica, Przełomy Dialogue Center and Unikato Housing). Konieczny's practice has often been cited as one of the most exciting architectural studios in the world.