ABSTRACT
The chapter illustrates and analyses the context to Jerzy Sołtan’s biography in his early years. It analyses the first years of functionalism in Poland when Sołtan studied architecture at the Polytechnic of Warsaw. Whereas functionalism dominated his education, he rejected the purely pragmatic approach to modern designs as opposed to a more comprehensive vision of modernism he developed in the following years: first, at the prisoner of war camp in Murnau during the Second World War where he exchanged with artists and delved for the first time in the idea of synthesis of arts; second, during his work in Paris at the architectural practice of Le Corbusier, where he entered into contact with a number of cubist artists. The chapter discusses Sołtan’s work in Poland after his return from France – first in relation to the dense political climate of the early years of the Cold War and the propaganda of socialist realism, rejecting modern ideals; and second to the normative-based technocratic approach after the period of de-Stalinisation. Within this geopolitical context, his interest in Le Corbusier’s theory developed within the Fine Arts Academy in Warsaw, which remained a lone oasis in Poland of what true modernism was for him.
