CRICOTEKA MUSEUM OF TADEUSZ KANTOR, THROUGH THE EYES OF STANISŁAW DEŃKO

Architect Stanisław Deńko, founder of Wizja Architects, will be a speaker at GIS Kraków 2016, where he will talk about the CRICOTEKA Museum of Tadeusz Kantor in Kraków, Poland. The project has a 2014 Mies van der Rohe Award nomination, has won the Special Prize by the Regional Chamber Architects of Malopolska at the 2015 International Biennale of Architecture Kraków and the SARP Award of the Year for the best architectural object completed in Poland in 2014.

Stanisław Deńko was born in 1943 in Dobczyce, Poland. Having obtained his diploma (in 1967), Stanisław Deńko worked at the Institute of Urban Studies and Spatial Planning of the Faculty of Architecture of the Krakow University of Technology, under the tutelage and in cooperation with Professor Witold Cęckiewicz (until 2000). Mr Deńko taught architectural and urbanistic design of residential complexes.
The team that he made up together with his Professor and a group of other colleagues has been awarded a number of prizes and distinctions in a variety of competitions. One of their largest successes was the competition win (in 1973) and designing the seat of the Polish Embassy in New Delhi (India), commissioned for use in 1977. Another major distinction was the honourable mention in the UIA competition for the design of the government centre at Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), the entry having been prepared in cooperation with Krzysztof Lenartowicz, Zofia Brzykczyk-Lenartowicz and students of the Faculty of Architecture of the Krakow University of Technology.

In 1981, as a senior lecturer of the Krakow University of Technology, Stanisław Deńko took up the function of the head of the Academic Architectural Design Office (APA) within the “Żaczek” cooperative of the Krakow University of Technology and, together with the students, he started operating as a semi-independent architectural design office, long before Poland was to witness its political transformation.

In 1990, Stanisław Deńko is engaged by the College of Architecture at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville (USA), where he teaches for three years. His successes include the Award of Merit for particular didactic achievements and design work. In a student competition for adapting the military airport complex to serve as a civil aviation centre in Nashville, the student team headed by Stanisław Deńko is awarded the ex aequo 1st prize.

After coming back from the States in 1993, in cooperation with American architect Glenn Lewis, Stanisław Deńko sets up the architectural design office under the name of “WIZJA” Sp. z o.o. (limited liability company). In 1995, “WIZJA” Sp. z o.o. participates in the preparation of a design project under the auspices of the Krakow Municipal Office, Representatives of the Senate in Berlin and the Urban Planning Office in Edinburgh under the title of “Kazimierz Action Plan”. For this, the office is awarded by the European Towns and Town Planners.