17 June 2024 marks a week-long visit by the WIETE Directors to Gdańsk University of Technology (Gdańsk Tech) and to its Faculty of Architecture, in particular.

The visit to the Faculty of Architecture commenced with a meeting with senior academics, including the Dean of the Faculty Professor Lucyna Nyka, the former Dean Professor Antoni Taraszkiewicz, and the Vice-Dean Professor Jakub Szczepański. The Directors were briefed on the present activities and the issues of importance to the Faculty. The discussion focused on the role and importance of the WIETE in providing support in research publications and other relevant activities.

This visit was also an excellent opportunity for the Faculty to showcase some of the current developments and co-operative activities with the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunication and Informatics, where the Immersive 3D Visualisation Lab is located.

The Immersive 3D Visualisation Lab (I3DVL) is one of the most technologically advanced developments in Gdańsk Tech. The laboratory includes three caves: BigCAVE - the newest, MidiCAVE and MiniCAVE, where users can move through a 3D sphere walking into - immersing into virtual worlds. The virtual tours offered to the WIETE Directors by Dr Jacek Lebiedź, Head of the I3DVL; covered climbing mountains, observing underwater worlds, visiting churches, house interiors, workshops, etc. The applications seem limitless, including educational, psychological, medical, recreational, etc.

Worth highlighting are also presentations by students working towards or completing their PhD theses to their peers, supervisors and visitors. The presentations were formative and the four PhD candidates were eager to engage with the audience. The topics and countries that they referred to were wide-ranging, from Iraqi re-developments, social engagement in South Africa, to small town development and attractors to cities located close to waterways in Poland.

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit and Johannes Hevelius were two of the most prominent scientists associated with the city of Gdańsk, and to honour this association Gdańsk Tech together with the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk organised a student design competition for a statute/architectural feature with the winning entry to be realised and mounted on the Gdańsk Tech grounds. All competition entries were presented as a model and poster, and were amazingly imaginative and sometimes provocative.

A university tour cannot be completed without a visit to the Library, where the WIETE Directors had the pleasure of viewing some of the oldest manuscripts housed there with exquisite drawings mainly relating to biology.

Another highlight of this week was an Old City tour offered by Professor Antoni Taraszkiewicz, which focused on the relatively recent developments nearby Long Market Street. The discussion touched on proxemics, and architecture designed for all the senses and perceived by all the senses, such as the residential complex at Szeroka Street designed by Taraszkiewicz Architekci Sp. z o.o. in Gdańsk, described in more detail in an article by Antoni Taraszkiewicz and Karolina Taraszkiewicz in the WTE&TE, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2021). This residential complex blends well with the Hanseatic architecture of the old city of Gdańsk and extends it in a modern sense.

One should mention that Karolina Taraszkiewicz represents a third generation of this highly successful family of architects established by the late Professor Leopold Taraszkiewicz (1925-2014). Professor L. Taraszkiewich, a graduate of Gdańsk Tech, and an outstanding Polish architect and educator, had made a remarkable impact on sacral and residential architecture throughout Poland.

The climax of the visit was the last day with a Jubilee Meeting - Graduate Day (please see a separate WIETE news item for details).