Autorka prezentowanej książki ukazu je wagę oraz złożoność problemów i wyzwań wynikających z wprowadzenia nowej funkcji do obiektu architektonicznego, stanowiącego część ważnego dziedzictwa kulturowego. Współczesne zjawisko adaptacji do nowej funkcji zostało ukazane z jednej strony jako konsekwencja przemian zachodzących w sposobie myślenia o dziedzictwie i jego ochronie, a z drugiej - jako ważny czynnik pobudzający zmiany, tytułowe transformacje i redefinicje, nie tylko na poziomie ingerencji w substancję materialną, lecz także roli dziedzictwa we współczesnym mieście, jego znaczeniu społecznym i kulturowym. Skala tego zjawiska oraz jego wpływ za równo na aktualny i przyszły wygląd miast, jak i na to, czy następne pokolenia będą miały możliwość odczytania pierwotnego znaczenia ważnego dla miasta i jego kultury dziedzictwa architektonicznego, sprawia, że problematyka ta ma współcześnie szczególne znaczenie.
Since the 1970s, adaptative reuse of architectural heritage has been gaining increasing importance and becoming a significant part of practice of not only conservators, architectural historians or archaeologists, but also architects, urban planners and interior designers. In recent years foreign researchers, mainly from Western Europe and the United States, have been more and more interested in adaptive reuse, described as a significant phenomenon requiring deeper reflection. Thus, there has been a change of approach, according to which finding a function for a historical building is no longer treated as a specific aspect of conservation, but it is even perceived as a new, separate emerging scientific discipline. Seemingly these interesting changes occur primarily under the influence of the scale of the phenomenon, its significant importance for transformations taking place in cities as well as diversified and complex challenges.
In scientific literature, adaptive reuse of architectural heritage is mentioned and discussed mainly in publications devoted to protection of cultural property and treated as a domain of conservators or analysed from the perspective of strictly architectural issues, showing adaptive reuse as a way of introducing modern designs and architectural solutions to historical environment of cities.
The book fits in with an international debate, demonstrating, at the same time, the need to look at the issue from a wider perspective. Particular interaction between the past, the historical meaning and the role of an object or an architectural complex on the one hand and the present (a contemporary function) on the other both occurs on the material level, in connection with physical interference with architectural tissue, and concerns non-material values, including, among others, historical and social meaning, as well as a symbolic role of an object in the urban space. A building, a complex or a place is treated as an important “carrier of historicity”, which, importantly, also satisfies contemporary social, economic and political needs. Thus it is not only about preserving artefacts from the past, but also about using them in the present. Since the most important characteristic feature of the present is conscious assignment of new aesthetic value and cultural significance to adapted objects, assuming that the original articulation and meaning will not be blurred and will be decipherable. A historical object is somehow “modernized” both in the sphere of material and non-material values. The past is a kind of starting point, it is still a value, but not the only one, since through a dialogue a new value is created between the history of a place, a building or an architectural complex and its current meaning.
The book attempts to look at adaptive reuse of architectural heritage and related changes taking place in a contemporary city from the perspective of an architecture historian and application of methodology appropriate for this field of science. The book does not concern the field of monument protection, neither does it aim to develop guidelines or create a model of conduct in case of introducing a new function to architectural objects. The adopted problematic and multithreaded approach, and not a linear one, creates a discourse showing the processes and mechanisms taking place in the urban space and creating a complex, ambiguous and multifaceted system. The analysis of selected examples of adaptative projects and presenting them in the problematic approach aims primarily at showing important changes in the urban tissue associated with contemporary redefinition and reinterpretation of the past. Thanks to that it will be possible to diagnose important issues concerning adaptive reuse of architectural heritage, a phenomenon present in European cities on an unprecedented scale, and place it in the broader context.
The author mainly intends to show importance and complexity of problems and challenges resulting from introduction of a new function to an architectural object, being a part of an important cultural heritage. Changes, transformations mentioned in the title and redefinitions will be embedded in a broader context of a space (a street, a district or a city) as well as aspects related to non-material values, among others, cultural continuity, social significance or urban identity.
