Kryształowy pałac czy szklane domy? Nowoczesność po polsku

The article by Tomasz Żyro outlines the broad ideological and historical context in which the Polish modernization project took it shape and direction in the wake of the First World War results and the Treaty of Versailles. It was the beginning of a new order in Europe. As the author points out, modernity took on a multidimensional character. It was a promise of a new beginning in politics, art and human understanding. He stressed that in order to better understand the nature of modernity, one must look at the etymology of the key term: “project”. From the Latin proicere, means to throw something away. The term includes several semantic moments: movement, emancipation and projection. Thus, it suggests a new anthropological model in which man becomes an active creator of reality ex nihilo. He is functioning outside the system of existing references. The art of forgetting and the cult of acceleration, which could be fully realized in urban metropoleis - thanks to the triumph of science and technology - has become important. In the Polish context, this project meant regaining the sense of subjective activity in the sphere of politics, spirit and matter. According to Żyro, at the threshold of independence Poles had a strong sense of keeping up with the ideas of modernity in the sphere of ideas. However, at the same time they stayed behind in the field of its concrete realizations.