Arch. Ryszard Gruda,
President the Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland (IARP)
„The GIS conference is a valuable conference through the selection of its speakers. The conference was organized under the Honorary Patronage of the Chamber of Polish Architects. Rarely do we have such collaborations because we have our own rules, our own regulations. We do not support all the architecture meetings. We carefully select the events which will be under our patronage. For us, architects, GIS represents a very important meeting and what pleasantly surprised me was the fact that the young generations of architects are interested in this kind of event. I recommend this event to architects”
Arch. Bohdan Lisowski,
President of the Board, Association of Polish Architects – Kraków Branch
„I think that the most important thing related to GIS conference is that we have the opportunity to share the information and, first of all, designs from different countries, not only from Europe but also outside Europe. Many good architects and designers had presentations that filled up the day so I thing that everyone who joined the conference have the opportunity to find something special for their profession and their work”.
Arch. Borys Czarakcziew, Poland
Chairman GIS Kraków 2016 edition, Member of the Board National Chamber of Polish Architects (IARP)
„The most important thing at the type of conferences as GIS is that we can share experience, on one hand the foreigners that are coming here in Poland and present what they do, and on the other hand the Polish people that can see what the others are doing and they present their ideas. So one
can see what’s the level of our designing compared to the others who are the winners of some awards. I think that from the professional, social and even normal level, it’s very important to meet and to talk and to exchange ideas. GIS was interesting for everyone because they could find something interesting for himself. There are some advantages of this event such as that the Vice-Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts Rector was here and he told me that next year he wanted to be more involved. Kraków is very conservative and it is very welcoming to the tourists and to the foreigners but if you want to do the event it must happen at least three times so we can say that it happened. For me, the panel discussing weather or not the profession of interior architects must be regulated was very important. We could learn that the profession of architect is regulated all over the world, in Thailand, in Japan etc. On the other hand, it was very important to find the answer to the question. In the countries represented in the conference we don’t feel like interior architecture should be a regulated profession. One of the guest speakers, arch. Claudio Nardi, said one very important thing „ you can’t register quality”. Registration is just administration and that’s very important because the other presentations were showing the ideas and the capacity of their architecture skills. But this one was very important for me that we are just following the low-cost architecture, we are loosing the high quality. Everyone who was present in the room agreed that low cost forces us to decrease the quality.”
Colin Ball, UK
BDP- Building Design Partnership Ltd
„I think that it is important for international architects and designers to come together on a platform like GIS. At least once every two years I will be at a conference, if not every year, because we’re all facing the same issues but the issues are slightly different and the more we communicate, the more we’re able to keep quality going everywhere that we’re working. Also, different disciplines need to speak more because we don’t necessarily understand what’s happening in each others industry and again, the more we communicate the better we’re all informed, really.
I’m a central member of the International Association Lighting Designers which are headquartered in Chicago and we keep a very close eye on independent lighting design. We keep lists and we monitor what’s happening in each country. If there’s no independent lighting designers the lighting design is being done by manufacturers and at the end of the day we wonder, for example, why are there so many light fittings in this ceiling? Because they’re selling products”.
Arch. Carlo Berarducci,
Carlo Berarducci Architecture, Italy
„I think that the GIS conference was very interesting and I find it very nice and interesting to meet each other from all over the world, meet other studios, other collegues from Japan to France to Spain and Poland. So, I like this part a lot.
This event is important because it is important to have communication and exchange between different experiences and to meet each other. We are a big community of architects all over the world and it is interesting to know what the other ones are doing and how they show their work and how they talk about it. So, it’s a nice thing to do.”
Claudio Nardi,
Claudio Nardi Architects, Italy
„I think the GIS conference is a good opportunity where we can watch and listen what the other colleagues are doing all over the world and of course, because we are architects, so as you know the architects like very much what they do, sometimes they talk about what the other architects are doing. It’s a good opportunity to see what’s going on and I found something really interesting. That is the work of some collegues in the field, and not exactly in my field, but they are doing something really special.
If you stay closed in your office you only have the opportunity of watching through the internet what others are doing, but you don’t have explanations, so you just see images but you don’t understand. Coming to these conferences, you have the opportunity to understand something more, which can be useful for me, useful for them and it is important to let people know about ourselves.”
Arch. Makoto Nakayama,
Nakayama Architects, Japan
„After speaking , I know that this is a very good chance for me because the public was good and they were very concentrated on my lecture, so I’m very glad.
I think the GIS conference is very interesting because it allows you to know each kind of thinking. We don’t need to make something universal, every architect must be very individual and it’s very important to know each other.”
Nunthanut Amornpun,
Hypothesis Design Agency, Thailand
„For me it was the first time to join a conference in abroad. Everything went very well and the speakers that were invited in the event were all very interesting and inspiring.
It’s important for architects to attend because it’s very important to listen to the ideas and the presentations directly from the architect of the project.”
Ing. Rafal Lemiesz, Poland
Entra sp z.o.o
„I think that at GIS there was a great atmosphere and many very well experienced people from many countries from all around the world. I am not an architect, I’m from the technical production company, but our philosophy is to create the future of our products. We came here and we gave our best to create a relationship with architects, with designers. Our life is a continuous learning process so this is an opportunity to meet each other, it’s a big challenge for us and it’s a great pleasure for us. It was a good experience for me and also very inspiring.”
Arch. Rosa Clotet
Llongueras Clotet Architects, Spain
„This conference and the talks about architecture and interior design are very interesting because you can share knowledge between different countries and different ways of projecting architecture. This is without a doubt a benefit for us architects and for our work. For me, this experience was very useful for my work to see very different kind of projects from lighting projects to big projects to small and sensitive projects.”
Neil Knowles
Elektra Lighting Desing, UK
„We went out for dinner with the other speakers and I got to talk to them about their projects which was really nice and some have really interesting work. It was interesting to talk to a lot of people in a relaxed, informal environment , rather than everyone just trying to sell or do something.
The thing with lighting design is that it’s quite a specialized field and it appears from talking to the other architects ,this morning, so far, that not many Polish architects realize that it can be done really, really well and you can use lighting to create atmosphere and mood and use it almost as a branch of interior design. People don’t really seem to realize this and I think I would like to open their eyes to the possibility of what lighting can achieve.”
Rai Pinto
Rai Pinto Studio, Spain
„My lecture was very specific because,it is a project with a very specific requirement and I think that when we talk about environmental design projects it’s something that people don’t know exactly what this is. So I think that the most important thing from my interventions was to explain what an environmental project is exactly and also how a design project can help create a corporate identity for an institution.
I think it’s important to attend such a conference to see what people are doing in other countries and having the opportunity to show the way that we do everything. Sometimes it’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to explain your works to others.”
Boleslaw Stelmach
Stelmach I Partenerzy Biuro Architektoniczne Sp. Z o.o., Poland
„I think that the GIS conference was very useful, it is quite necessary in our, let’s say, Polish theory of architecture and on the space constructed by architects. Because there are not a lot of places where we can share our opinions, our ideas about constructed buildings. It’s something different to talk about theory, about methodology, skill of architecture and it is completely different to talk about practice. So, in this frame, this conference and the lectures were very interesting.”
