Postmodern architecture in the Eastern bloc, and in Poland in particular, embodies some of the basic contradictions of architecture’s political dimension: how can an art form requiring ample resources be critical of existing power relations? How can it find alternative modes of expression in an authoritarian and seemingly almighty political system? Is there such thing as an “architecture of resistance”, and how does it manifest in a rigid planned economy?

My presentation will centre on a few cases, including the Ascension Church in Warsaw-Ursynów (1980-85, Marek Budzyński and Piotr Wicha) and Holy Ghost Church in Tychy/Silesia (1978-83, Stanisław Niemczyk). These and many similar buildings evidence the cracks in a socialist system that was never as monolithic as its rulers would have hoped for. They also reflect the political upheavals of the 1970s and 1980s, which in Poland were particularly turbulent.

I argue that Polish postmodernism had a subversive potential that manifested at several levels. First, postmodern architecture appeared “through the backdoor,” as a counterproposition to the rigid framework of the communist planned economy, often without explicit support by the rulers, and often, particularly in sacred architecture, through bottom-up initiative. Second, it was critical to the socialist system in the sense that it was influenced by strong national-conservative ideas in which the Catholic Church became a catalyst of anti-socialist opposition and the vision of a church-centred, pre-socialist society.

At the same time I argue that Polish postmodern architecture, unlike similar design in capitalist countries, showed comparatively little critical edge at a disciplinary level. It was only to a small extent directed at the foundations of architectural culture, and it did not aim at a revision of widely accepted architectural beliefs. Against this background my presentation will point to the flexibility of meaning that is applied to the same architectural forms in different contexts, as well as to the leeway of dissidence in an apparently rigid system.