A statement

Why I want to study at MSA

 To the best of my knowledge, Manchester School of Architecture is a place where development of creativity is very important. Works created by its students which I have seen impressed me by how they are encouraged not only to think creatively but also to apply this ability to their works in the most efficient and practical way. For me this way of working on particular cases is one of the most exciting ways of solving problems - it does not only let achieve the expected result but also find many other alternative ways, which might prove more efficient than the first idea.

My favourite architect - Wang Shu

   I admire Wang Shu for creating architecture which is always in a close relationship with its surroundings, local history and furthermore, invites people to create their own relationships with it. He creates buildings using little patterns and making many spontaneous, intuitive decisions. This makes his architecture very personal and resembling a language, which he uses to tell a story - he draws paths people follow, like serpentines of outdoor stairs at Academy in Hangzhou. A very important part of this language is the material. Wang Shu instead of choosing the materials for his buildings, creates his own, connected to the history of the place a building occupies.

A review of a building I have visited - Baltyk by MVRDV

   Baltyk is a building shaped by its surroundings - from the primal prism the architects cut off the pieces to make it dialogue with the neighbouring buildings and space. This process resulted in a very complicated shape, a riddle for our spatial imagination, which starts to change and unveil itself as we move around it. Viewed from different angles and distances it looks like a series of abstract prints which, like in animation, start to flow. But what makes it architecture is that this is the viewer, not a projector, who plays the film and sets the tempo with their own footpace. The 'dense' appearance of Baltyk, so full of different silhouettes, makes this elegant building play visually the role of a whole district - it gives the impression of looking at a skyline of a modern city no worse than a Baroque quadratura makes us think haven has just opened above us.

A building I would like to experience in person - Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana

  The library is an example of Mannerism in architecture - using classical elements in an unconventional way, Michelangelo makes its vestibule play with the viewer and confuse him. Maybe Florentines used to regular architecture would have looked at Laurenziana, as we do today at Peter Cook's Kunsthaus in Graz? Having seen many beautiful photos of its interior, I still can only imagine how time feels there. I think that in opposite to earlier Renaissance buildings, where time seems to stop - we can understand their beauty standing in any randomly chosen point and enjoy it as long as we wish to stay inside, in Laurenziana it plays a great role furthermore, being reversed: the vestibule, through which we only pass, engrosses us with its sophisticated oddness, while the reading room composed of clear rhythms becomes a path leading us to one of the closing walls.