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Architect
Alexandra Ulner, last edited on 18.07.2022
Name:
Zofia Hansen
Life Dates:
1924 – 2013
Country:
Field of expertise:
Architectural design
Education:
Warszawa University of Technology
Zofia Hansen was born in Kałuszyn, Poland, in 1924 and studied at the Warsaw University of Technology. During her studies she met her husband Oskar Hansen, who was an architect and artist.
They married in 1950 and worked together on architectural projects, as well as on the infamous “Open Form Theory”. Open Form is one of the most important modern schools of thought in Polish architecture. The basic principle of the theory is that works of art and architectural objects should be realised with the people who interact with them. It represented a kind of act of rebellion against the closed art forms in which one has no decision-making possibilities. Many designs were created by Zofia Hansen and her husband, but only a few were realised.
Although Zofia and Oskar carried out their projects in collaboration, unfortunately only Oskar was praised and put in the spotlight by journalists or editors.
In addition to the “Open Form Theory”, Zofia Hansen and her husband mainly designed settlements and housing, such as the Rakowiec settlement in Warsaw in 1958, the Słowacki settlement (“Osiedle Słowackiego”) in Lublin in 1961 and the “Przyczółek Grochowski” settlement in Warsaw in 1963. In 1955 they built flats in Sędziowska Street (Ulica Sędziowska). They also designed their own house themselves in 1968 in Szumin.
Zofia Hansen also developed interior design and exhibited at the National Interior Design Exhibition at the Zachęta Gallery in 1957.
Stanek, Ł. (2014). Oskar and Zofia Hansen. Me, You, Us and the State. In Team 10 East. Revisionist Architecture in Real Existing Modernism (pp. 201-241). Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.
Wielocha, A., & Kędziorek, A. (2016). Preserving the Open Form. The Oskar and Zofia Hansen House in Szumin: Between architecture and contemporary art. Studies in Conservation, 61(sup2), 248-254.
https://culture.pl/en/artist/zofia-hansen (last accessed on 18.07.2022)
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