Born: June 26, 1910 in Chita, Russia
Died: August 31, 1950 near Wadi Natrun, Egypt
Opinion. In a 1956 issue, "L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui", one of the world's leading architectural periodicals, called Nowicki a pioneer of the architecture of the second half of 20-th century.
Early days. He was born to a nobleman's family. His father-Zygmunt- was a tsar's employee. Soon after Maciej's birth the family moved to then partitioned Poland where they acquired the estate Slomniczki near Krakow. In 1918 his father became the Polish Consul in Chicago, USA. Nowicki was educated in Krakow and Warsaw, Poland. In Chicago he studied drawing at the Institute of Art and became acquainted with new American architecture of Sullivan and Wright. From 1925 he studied at the Gerson School of Design, Warsaw, and at Mehofer's school in Krakow where he got his high school diploma in 1928. Finally he studied (1929-36) at the Department of Architecture of Warsaw Polytechnic. Although as a student Nowicki was fascinated by the work of French architect Le Corbusier; he soon dissociated himself from formalism, his philosophy becoming much closer to that of Auguste Perret. Great influence on his approach to architecture had Professor Swierczynski. During his studies he got interested in posters- he cooperated with his future wife, Stanislawa Sandecka. They married in 1938.
Career. His important pre-war designs include an administration building in Lodz, Poland (with R. Soltynski), a casino in Augustow, a sports center in Praga (district of Warsaw), all in 1938 and Polish pavilion for the New York exhibition (1939). During WWII he fought the German Nazis as an officer in the Polish Army and later in the Armia Krajowa (underground Home Army). He also taught architecture at the underground Architecture and Urban Planning Workshop, and immediately after the war he participated in the design of a master-plan for the reconstruction of Warsaw's city center. At the end of 1945 he left Poland with his wife to become the cultural attache at the Polish Consulate in Chicago. Nowicki participated in designing the UN building in New York City. In 1949 he designed- together with W.H. Deitrick- the J.S.Dorton Arena in Raleigh North Carolina, USA. Since 1949- after deciding not to return to Poland- he taught at School of Design of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Soon thereafter a prominent US architect, Albert Mayer, suggested to Nowicki collaboration on designing the new capital of Penjab, India, the city of Chandigarh. Nowicki went there, drafter a preliminary project but, unfortunately, died on his way back to USA, when his plane crashed over the Libyan Desert.
Awards and honors. The J.S. Dorton Arena (known to its architect as the Paraboleum) is a 7,610-seat multi-purpose arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, on the grounds of the North Carolina State Fair. In 1973 it was placed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Indian authors of a 2009 book "Le Corbusier - Chandigarh and the Modern City" noted that Nowicki's proposal was closer to Hindu culture than Le Corbusier's (who after Nowicki's death made the final project).
This article uses, among others, material from the Wikipedia article "Maciej Nowicki" licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. :
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