Autoportret 20. Przestrzenie zdrowia

-- and he came out healed. spaces of health - spaces of dream / iakub puchalski
For centuries sick people fell asleep dreaming that the next day they would wake up in good health, their pain miraculously gone. Usually, miraculous healing was to happen through the intervention of a god. The Ancient Greeks, for example, travelled to the sanctuary of Asclepius in Epidaurus where the god personally visited the sick when they were asleep.

-- a spa lost in the mountains. zegiestów in the beskid sadecki mountains / michat wisniewski
How did the fashion to spend one's holiday in a spa origi-nate? Why did so many people begin to travel to faraway places at all? The 19th century saw the introduction of the first eight hour long working day, which gave rise to the concept of 'leisure time.' If one were to spend it travelling, why not visit a nice place, such as Zegiestow in the Beskid Sadecki mountains? Once a fashionable spa town, it has turned into a ghost town since WWII.

-- how to be restored to health. culture in hospitals in the interwar period / adam nadolny
At the beginning of the 20th century hospitals ceased to be places where people came to die and instead offered people treatment with the latest medical developments. Modernist architecture introduced order, good organisation and cleanliness into hospitals. Some architectural solutions from that time are still in use.

-- karlsbad in the air / emiliano ranocchi
At about 5 or 6 o'clock every day a group of people gather around a hot spring where the air is permeated with the smell of sulphur. Within the next two hours they will drink up several mugs of healing water. The treatment becomes a social ritual, like the stay in the spa itself, which many writers regard as a metaphor of life and of the world. Let us have a closer look at this micro-world.

-- from a hospital for the mentally ill. the changing fates of an institution (1876-2007) / kathrin franke
Only a derelict manor house and a patched up carpet remain of an uncharacteristic 19th century mental hospital in which the 'healing through work' treatment was given in a country manor. History has been ruthless to this institution: the two world wars and communist times in the German Democratic Republic gradually destroyed its architecture and depleted its devoted personnel. This is a story of a single institution which reflects the history of this part of Europe.

--an answer to the diagnosis. maggie's centre foundation / michal mateusz duda
The diagnosis is 'cancer. The reaction is shock, despair, waiting for the worst. Even though the majority of tumours are curable, there is perhaps no other illness in our times that poses such a challenge to a person. The sick need hope, support and information, not the callousness of the health service with which they are often faced. The Maggie's Centre Foundation strives to change this attitude by building patient-friendly clinics.

-- illness and the artist. linoleum block prints by józef gielniak / juliusz wozny
Jozef Gielniak, regarded as one of the most outstanding Polish graphic artists, spent the second part of his short life in a sanatorium. His illness made it impossible for the young artist to use oil paints so he devoted his time to making linocuts and eventually mastered this often underrated technique. His art was created in a place cut off from the rest of the world and it spoke through a person who used a small knife to cut out his works in linoleum.

-- purification through visualisation. gregorz sztwiertnia's interiors / bernadeta stano
Bernadeta Stano writes about the interior design of Bytom's Galeria „Kronika" created by Gregorz Sztwiertnia.

-- the space of health à rebours. hospital on TV / agnieszka szeffel
Culture has always tried to make people accustomed to suffering and death. These days, the author argues, It takes place in TV series such as Hospital in the Suburbs, 'Casualty,' 'Come Rain or Shine' and 'Kingdom.' Enjoy a short outing into the world of the small screen.

-- health in a showcase. cracow's medical museums / lucja piekarska-duraj
A story of two Cracovian museums and an English one, which share the subject of their exhibitions: health. We will see different ways of presenting the same issue: either from the point of view of one person's life (a Cracovian pharmacist's) or from a historical-academic perspective.

-- sanus per aquam, or modernity and elegance / marta smagacz
Does the phrase sanus per aquam ring a bell? Health through water? It doesn't? Why, it is spa for short - a more and more popular form of... well, a form of what exactly? Marta Smagacz is on the lookout for unexpected contexts of this contemporary kind of hydrotherapy.

-- at a spring. budapest as a spa-city / levente polyàk
The sauna is a wonderful place. Skin purifying hot steam rushes and plunges in cold pool water are a relaxing way of getting away from everyday concerns, offering a moment of rest for body and soul. Budapest was well-known for these pleasures in the 1930s and it still boasts several bath houses. The social context of these places receives more and more attention.

-- „and they suffer pain instead of a wash", russian baths from nestor to zhenya lukashin / juri striekalowski
An article about Russian baths which are one of the country's myths along with vodka, Gagarin and the ka-lashikov. Also about many peculiar customs associated with baths in Russia and the disappearing culture of the bath house.' vladimir czumalo
oy and indulgence. health resorts in bohemia, moravia and silesia. An outline of the history of Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian health resorts from the 16 century to the contemporary times.

-- beyond the façade. a different form of communication / julia ruminiecka
The façade is commonly known to be the showpiece of the building. Just as we perceive other people through their faces, we perceive buildings through their façades. Whence the need to go 'beyond? Nowadays more and more often we have to rely on various façades' (eg. advertisements) to cope with the infoglut. And yet we do not like being manipulated by being fed clichés - hence the need to go back to simplicity and spontaneity.