Nowości

Alfons Grotowski (1833-1922), on the hundredth anniversary of his death.

Alfons Grotowski, chief engineer of the city, councilor of the city mayor, builder of the Praga waterworks and, above all, deputy chief engineer of William H. Lindley, died in Warsaw on November 18, 1922, at the age of 90, almost five years later than the two decades younger British engineer. He was famous for his punctuality and longevity. Until 1919, he worked at the Water and Sewerage Office.

He had a great sense of humor and a few anecdotes were remembered by posterity. One of them was quoted by Feliks Ornowski years ago. During a water ceremony, a visiting participant, seeing a gray-haired old man bustling about briskly, approached him and apologized for his audacity and asked about… his date of birth. At first engineer  Grotowski was surprised, but turning the whole thing into a joke, he replied: ‘Oh, there was no one in the world at that time’. Gentleman from the province continued ‘How about Adam? ‘But he was a gardener, not a man from our water supply branch, so he does not count’ calmly replied Grotowski.

Alfons Grotowski was born on February 23, 1833 in Żarnowiec, now a village in the Silesian Province. The future engineer graduated from the Gymnasium in Kielce and from 1850 began working in the Transportation Board in Warsaw. In 1868, he designed and built the Praga waterworks, which operated in the years 1869–1896. In 1875 he participated in the commission delegated to inspect water supply facilities in England. On the way back he visited Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main, where he got acquainted with the works of William Lindley. After returning to Warsaw, the Commission recommended that the city council commission the relevant projects by a British engineer. Grotowski was a member of the new Sewage and Water Supply Construction Committee. At the request of W.H. Lindley was nominated in 1888 as Deputy Chief Engineer.

He was a co-founder of the Hygiene Society and the organizer of the first hygiene exhibition in Warsaw. On May 31, 1906, on his way to work, he was shot by unknown perpetrators who blamed him for contributing to the arrest of the striking water workers, wrongly according to the domestic press. Engineer Grotowski survived this attack and lived to an old age.

In 1936, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Lindley's waterworks on pl. Starynkiewicza in Warsaw, a square named after him was created. Alfons Grotowski was buried at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.

The Warsaw water tower undergoes renovation

Maacha Deubner's new CD on Austrian Radio Ö1 (ORF)

There is a unique opportunity to listen to “our star” Maacha Deubner on podcast of Austrian Radio Ö1 (ORF). Maacha presents  her last CD  "Bessonnitsa /Insomnia - A Mandelstam Album" composed of chamber music by Elena Firsova, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov and Valentin Silvestrov. The radio program includes also master pieces of W.A. Mozart, Giya Kancheli, Valentin Silvestrov, Gustav Mahler.

Maacha Deubner, soprano

"The voice of Maacha Deubner is a revelation in and of itself."

follow Maacha Deubner on:

Maacha Deubner - Soprano - Official website (maacha-deubner.com)

Maacha worked on CD together with Tatjana Frumkis, a composer, born and educated in Tallin (Estonia), living last 30 years in Berlin. Maacha Deubner and Tatjana Frumkis give also interviews on their musical inspirations.

Take a listen and enjoy.  

https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20220423/675925/Maacha-Deubner-Tatjana-Frumkis

***

Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam, a Russian and Soviet poet,  born on 14 January 1891 in Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire to a wealthy Polish family. Soon after Osip's birth, they moved to Saint Petersburg. In 1907 his first poems were printed in 1907 in the school's almanac. In April 1908, Mandelstam decided to enter the Sorbonne in Paris to study literature and philosophy, but he left the following year to attend the University of Heidelberg in Germany. In 1911, he decided to continue his education at the University of Saint Petersburg, from which Jews were excluded. He converted to Methodism and entered the university the same year. He did not complete a formal degree.

Mandelstam's poetry, acutely populist in spirit after the first Russian revolution in 1905, became closely associated with symbolist imagery. In 1911, he and several other young Russian poets formed the "Poets' Guild", under the formal leadership of Nikolai Gumilyov and Sergei Gorodetsky. The nucleus of this group became known as Acmeists. Mandelstam wrote the manifesto for the new movement: The Morning Of Acmeism (1913, published in 1919).[8] In 1913 he published his first collection of poems, The Stone; it was reissued in 1916 under the same title, but with additional poems included.

Osip Mandelshtam was arrested during the repression of the 1930s and sent with his wife into internal exile to Voronezh in southwestern Russia. In 1938 Mandelstam was arrested again and sentenced to five years in a corrective-labour camp in the Soviet Far East. He died that year at a transit camp near Vladivostok.

William Lindley the hero of street art in Bergedorf!

Let us just remind here that Bergedorf or Hamburg-Bergedorf is a part of the city of Hamburg, from April 1, 1938 included in the borders of Big Hamburg. The commissioning in 1842 of the railroad linking this small town with the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg began William Lindley's great European career.

The joint stock company for culture and history of Bergedorf-South (Kultur-und Geschichts-AG Bergedorf-Süd) was aware of the dubious beauty of distribution boxes supplying electricity to apartments and industrial facilities and decided to campaign for their artistic redesign.

At the end of 2017, these previously gray, inconspicuous or heavily soiled energy distributors were renovated by the Hamburg artist Vincent Schulze, who for several years has been specializing in urban art and creating high-quality wall graphics and decoration of the facades of German city buildings, murals and a serie of works full of illusion scenes. He uses a variety of colored sprays for these purposes.

The audience liked Schultze's graphics and the author was invited to the second stage of the project. In 2018, new historical themes were selected, referring to the history of the place. Along the Rector-Ritter-Straße, paintings were created showing the images of William Lindley, the architect of Hamburg Alexis de Chateauneuf, or other figures important to the city. An image of one Lindley-related object was also created - a wooden railway station of his design, which has survived to this day. 

Journalist Heidi vom Lande recalled these artistic objects in the context of the covid-19 epidemic. “Graffiti is legal in Bergedorf-Süd! Get out in the fresh air and admire the street art! " - she called on the inhabitants of the district to the recreational activity.

To see more click here: 

Zobacz: http://www.08schulzedesign.de/start.html

 https://develop.heidivomlande.de/2018/11/27/die-schoensten-graffiti-verteilerkaesten-in-bergedorf-sued-sprayer-durfte-erneut-ran/#more-20697342

Photograph of  W. Lindley's painting by Bernd Carstensen, https://www.flickr.com/photos/161366249@N02/49526820036/

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