Stefan Kuryłowicz

Who was Stefan Kuryłowicz?

Stefan Marian Kuryłowicz was a Polish architect and professor who is widely credited with transforming the architecture and skyline of Warsaw, Poland, in the twenty years following the collapse of Communism in 1989. Media reports have called Kuryłowicz "one of the most influential Polish architects." He and the late architect Jacek Syropolski created the architectural company, Kurylowicz & Associates.

Kuryłowicz was born in Warsaw in 1949. He earned a degree in architecture from the Warsaw University of Technology in 1972. He opened an architectural studio in 1983 during an era when the Communist-ruled government of the People's Republic of Poland openly discouraged free expression and creativity.

The end of Communist rule in Poland in 1989 left Warsaw and other cities with littered wuth unimaginative, Communist-era buildings and other structures. Kuryłowicz and his associate architects began designing and constructing a series of new, modern buildings throughout Warsaw over the next two decades, largely transforming parts of the Warsaw, as well as other cities, such as Gdańsk.