Modernism Or Tradition In Low-Technology? A Humanistic Perspective On The Architecture of Paulina Wojciechowska

Low-tech is an important, but at the same time largely underestimated movement of contemporary architecture. The first part of this paper attempts to discuss the characteristics of this phenomenon in the context of the grand ideas of Modernism and demonstrate how important it is to define it. The existing definitions of low-tech presented in the second part of the article bear a significant downside as they only focus on the physical aspects of this movement, i.e. materials and methods of construction. The third part of the paper suggests an alternative definition which allows extending research to include a psychological perspective onto the movement and incorporates the motivation of the creators and users of low-tech architecture. Based on the case study of Paulina Wojciechowska’s work and the newly proposed definition combined with a model based on the psychological theory developed by Erich Fromm, the paper attempts to introduce a narrative that reveals more about low-tech than even the most detailed description of physical materials and methods of construction