Digital Survey of the Late 1960's Villa in Ustroń: Creating a Virtual Model of a Heritage Site of Polish Post-War Modernist Architecture

The architectural heritage of the second half of 20^th century has become an object of interest among researchers around the world, especially in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. In the studies on the Polish architecture of the second half of the twentieth century an important issue is residential architecture. After analysing the literature and the research results published so far, one may notice that the researchers' interest has so far focused mainly on state and cooperative investments from 1945–1989: large-scale urban assumptions and housing complexes, both multifamily and single-family in a compact layout. On the other hand, the issue of individual housing, built in that scope of time by private investors, has been almost completely neglected.

In the popular consciousness, single-family houses built during the communist era in Poland are not classified as original and valuable heritage. However, the preliminary field studies allowed observing that in the given period the phenomenon of single-family houses construction took on two main forms. Alongside typical, repeatable houses being built on basis of projects from catalogue sets (the so-called “Polish cube”), some single-family houses were designed according to the world's leading design tendencies of post-war modernist architecture, distinguishing themselves from the typical housing solutions. Those houses were designed and constructed on individual request of the social elites of that time like leading scientists, doctors, directors and government dignitaries.

Since the end of the 1980s, a gradual and uncontrolled process of changes has been taking place, involving alterations, changes of façade or even demolition of single-family buildings built in the time of the previous regime. The process of transformation and demolition continues, as the awareness of the value of the architectural heritage of post-war modernism is still very low. The coming years will decide whether they will disappear irretrievably or whether they will be respected as a valuable heritage providing an image of the creative potential of architects from the second half of the 20^th century.

The object chosen for the following research is a modernist villa from the 1960s located in Ustroń which is a popular resort at the foot of the Beskid Mountains in Silesian Voivodeship. The representative object was built for the Silesian Voivode, General Jerzy Ziętek. It served him as both his private home and official residence until his death in 1985.

Since the late 1980s, the building has been owned by the Association of Polish Architects (pol. SARP) and now serves as the House of Creative Work. While the deteriorating technical condition of the villa over the years has necessitated discussions on possible directions for its protection and conservation, a noticeable lack of satisfactory source materials became a major problem. The collection of the data resource will provide a starting point for detailed conservation research and for the formulation of guidelines for the protection of the examined precious heritage of modernist architecture.

A survey is the most popular and at the same time most basic form of protection of architectural monuments. It is also the first step to any other further types of protection. Systematically done survey can also help with monitoring the state and the scale of any possible damages, and in case of single-family housing from the second half of 20^th century can be a great preventive tool [1]. It may lead to organizing the knowledge in the extensive matter not only about current state but also help with suggestions for future restorations. Such preventive actions may be carried out in situ in the first stage of research and also virtually in the post production with the help of various computer techniques. [2].

Before the political transformation of the country in 1989 only a few scientific publications tackling the topic of architecture of the second half of the 20^th century were published. Series of monographs by Tadeusz Przemysław Szafer showing the work of Polish architects between 1966 and 1980 are one of the examples [3, 4, 5]. In the chapters about the development of residential environment and housing the author has given a few examples of individually designed single-family houses, some of them realised in Silesia.

The first years after political transformation brought practically no study interest of Polish scientists and historians in the heritage of the People's Republic of Poland (PRP). The first attempt to deal with the heritage of the past regime was made in 1994 by Adam Miłobędzki. He proposed the term of “Socialist Modernism” [6]. In 2001 Andrzej Basista published a book in which he presented a synthesis of the housing sector functioning during PRP regime [7]. In the following years a lot of local publications about post-war modernist architecture were published [8, 9, 10]. The mentioned publications constitute a great contribution to the Polish post-war modernist architecture heritage. However, the authors have concentrated mainly on the great state investments, whereas the issue of private houses designed on the individual investor's request was neglected. A limited number of post-war private single-family houses are presented in edition “Great Villas of Poland” [11].

When it comes to using digital tools in the process of protection of monuments there were many papers published about the comparison and integrations between different techniques, especially terrestrial laser scanning and digital photogrammetry [12, 13]. In 2013 Murphy and Pavia have notices that using HBIM can benefit greatly the field of conservation studies. Moreover, Oreni et al. Bruno and Roncella in 2018 presented capied out a research where they proved that it can be also very useful tool in more coordinated management and increases efficiency. Described techniques may lead to a great precision but often are highly money and time consuming and therefore there is a room for improvement [14].

The topic of modernist architecture seems to be neglected and there are very few publications treating about the protection with the use of digital tools applied to those monuments. One of the very few examples is a research on importance and treatment of Brazilian and Indian Cultural Heritage [15]. Both are representation of integration of 3D laser scanning and photographic survey with very high-quality outcome. The importance of preservation of modernist architecture is highlighted by Akin and Gursel Dino where they show the process of creating a digital twin for the Middle East Technical University Faculty of Architecture building [16]. The lack of Polish research and publications covering this issue is visible. To the contrary, during the same period of nearly thirty years, all around the world the studies that cover the issue of conservation and protection of modernist single-family houses and villas have been conducted. Today these buildings are under the risk of irreversible alteration, demolition or destruction and as a result there is an increased need for architectural conservation initiatives targeting Modernist heritage. It is a very rare example to deal with a very good quality and state of preservation of the examples and we should embrace that opportunity. Therefore the innovation of the paper lays mostly in the choice of case study and providing a virtual model for the heritage site contributing to the initiation of conservation activities of the modernist heritage of individual single-family houses.

The villa of General Jerzy Ziętek in Ustroń was chosen as an example of a modernist single-family house from the second half of the 20^th century to be examined with the digital tools in the following research. [Fig. 1] It was designed in 1966 by two prominent architects: Henryk Buszko (1924–2015) and Aleksander Franta (1925–2019). The villa is located in the center of the Ustroń resort and together with the neighboring villa of Edward Gierek (the former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Poland) it creates a complex of prominent single-family houses built for the dignitaries of that time, hidden in the greenery. The complex structure of the examined building consists of several cuboidal solids, with representative and private rooms arranged on three levels.

Figure 1

The purpose of this research is creating a preliminary data set for an object with practical use for further conservation tasks and collection of future survey data. The research began with a literature analysis and the condition of the archival drawings of the building. The building has only one documentation made by Professor J. Pallado in 1988. Next step was to measure the site and the building.

The challenge to the in situ survey of this particular object lays in the presence of natural obstacles (mostly trees). They grow close to the building (in some parts even approximately 2 m from the elevation) being a source of shadow on the building and covering some parts completely. The low greenery is irregular and hinders access to the building. For the precise data model, we decided on combination of terrestrial and UAV photogrammetric method [Fig. 2]. Digital photogrammetry has a great advantage of the rapid survey acquisition using no too expensive instrumentation. Due to the fact that the flight was performed in an urban development in the vicinity of single-family houses, which constitute the city center, the flights were performed in accordance with the national NSTS-01 scenario. In accordance with the regulations, they were performed by a certified UAV pilot wearing a reflective vest, safety and emergency procedures, and the flights were recorded in the Droneradar application. To ensure the highest quality of the model, the flights were performed around midday. The flights were pre-planned to ensure the highest level of safety and to increase the speed and efficiency of the field work, covering an area of approximately 47 × 48 meters [17].

Figure 2

The obtained models were then combined with an HBIM approach. The planned result was to get not only three dimensional model but also full conservation documentation containing plans, elevations and sections [Fig. 3]. Important factor leading to HBIM choice was the possibility of defining a level of detail depending on needs and flexible workspace. We have assumed that the required LOD (Level of detail) for this object is 300 with additional data about materials. This level of knowledge should allow representing the geometry, the proper orientation of the model and together with other materials it should allow to create disciplinary diagnosis and start the advanced research. It seems to be simplified enough not to be time consuming and yet still allow showing interesting textures and unique details for such building. The model is supposed to act as a digital twin of the building which can be constantly updated according to the needs [18, 19].

Figure 3

For the full comprehension of the object a fusion of techniques was necessary. Chosen data acquisition methodology contains of: –

Photographic documentation of the object

The modernist villa from the late sixties which has become a case study and a cause of this research is not classified as original and valuable heritage in the popular consciousness. However, as stated in the Introduction section, its history and value for Poland and post-war modernism architecture play a key role. The collection of the data recourse can be a starting point for necessary conservation process but also it may raise awareness and can be a beginning of a great cooperation seeking protection of our architectural heritage. This research has several results:

Application result is full documentation along with rich database which can be used for future renovations of the villa and educational purposes. When it comes to applying low cost photogrammetry method the least efficient aspect seems to be dealing with natural obstacles which causes many mistakes in collecting the pictures for the point cloud.

Conservational outcome is a proposition of integrated and low cost procedure for modernist heritage conservation. This procedure may be very effective in monitoring and analyzing objects in danger.

Scientific outcome of this research is literature and archival analysis of the structure, its history and also another addition to the knowledge about post – war architecture of single – family houses.

This survey should have a continuation in order to come up with conservation guidelines for the object and possibly improving the photogrammetric merging methods and data collection process.