“Wizja” Sp. z o.o. architectural office was founded by Stanisław Deńko and American architect Glenn Lewis in 1993. At the time, Stanisław Deńko had just come back from the US, where he had been invited by Professor Bill Rudd, Dean of the College of Architecture at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, to conduct classes on urbanist and architectural designing. After three years of teaching practice, Stanisław Deńko came back to Poland to set up his design office among new political conditions and with new prospects for practicing his profession.
As suggested by the word “Wizja” (vision) in the office’s name, its operations are based on carefully thought out, “visionary” approach to shaping space understood as a continuum: from the scale of smallest interiors and structures, through more significant constructions, to finish with the scale of the whole city and its form in the urban planning aspect.
The office’s strongest point is undoubtedly its founder and leader’s experience. At the same time, he leaves his younger colleagues with enough freedom to create their visions and develop them in the designing process. Final decisions are taken jointly, up to the stage of completing individual projects.
The basis for all the ideas is the conviction that the form included in the building’s physical matter is the language conveying a concrete message and content. The form originates from a route which brings together the elements of nature, cultural contexts, habits and tradition, i.e. whatever is included in the experience from the past in combination from modern civilisation achievements. However, all of this is being perceived in the context of the function foreseen for any building as – in the specific field of art that architecture is – nothing can be deliberated without making room for its primary function. The starting point are always the ordering party’s expectations but there is also room for dialogue in which it may transpire that a certain creative direction, which the investor has so far ignored or have been simply unaware of, brings about the fulfilment of their expectations while also meeting emotional needs.
In designing we eliminate unnecessary elements that find no functional justification and act solely as ornamentation. This results in a “minimalism” of sorts, in which we seek true and ultimate beauty. The basis for creative language is thus sought in pure geometry and, consequently, in unambiguous articulation of the edges of the planes that contribute to the form. The only road that we take to reach our goals is always through individual and innovative ideas – we never go for simply fashionable solutions.