Majówka 2013: Sunday, May 12, at Lake Montague - Please Join us!

Polish Happy Hour: This coming Friday in Chapel Hill at Top of the Hill

Jerzy Główczewski in Raleigh

Hello Club Members,

This Saturday--yes, only five days from now--Jerzy Główczewski, architect and WWII Spitfire pilot, will speak at North Carolina State University. The particulars are:

Date:    Saturday, April 13
Time:    2:00pm
Place:   Burns Auditorium, Kamphoefner Hall, NCSU
Subject: Glowczewski's time as prof of architecture at NCSU and his
         subsequent work in Egypt, Arabia, Africa, and the US

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Jerzy was born in Warsaw in late 1922. In 1939 he was able to make his way to Romania, then in 1940 to Palestine.  He was at Tobruk and then chosen for flight training in Spitfires which he flew for the last year of the war. In 1947 he returned to Poland and studied at Warsaw Polytechnic, where he worked with teams both on reconstructing the city (Staszic Palace) and on new projects, including the Stadion Dziesieciolecia and the KS Legia swimming pool.  He was "discovered" by Kidder Smith, which led to an invitation to tour the US. Henry Kamphoefner--who loved Polish architects and had brought Maciej Nowicki to Raleigh in 1948--interviewed him and brought him to Raleigh in 1962. He was hired to run the Aswan city-planning project in Egypt, which was designed at NCSU in Raleigh. Etc., etc.

Come out for this event! I want a crowd. Parking is not a problem. The parking lot next to Kamphoefner Hall is completely open on Saturdays, no charge. This is the lot where the old football stadium once stood. See the following map; the map on the NCSU.EDU website is sometimes finicky and won't come up completely. This GIF should work: http://www.ncsu.edu/campus_map/north-med.gif

The lot is between Kamphoefner (11A) and SAS (32A).

As an introduction to NCSU and Polish architects, the following is a report by Tadeusz Barucki detailing his trip to the US in 2006. The first section is on Maciej (Matthew) Nowicki and farther down is a section on Barucki's visit with Jerzy Glowczewski. Barucki himself came to NCSU to close out Glowczewski's last semester here (1964): http://www.warszawa.sarp.org.pl/pokaz.php?id=1987

A biography on the Polish AF website:
http://www.polishairforce.pl/glowczewski.html
and the New Year's Day battle, 1945:
http://www.polishairforce.pl/_relacja42.html

A very extensive report on the Stadion Dziesieciolecia:
http://www.sztuka.net/palio/html.run?_Instance=www.sztuka.net.pl&_PageID=853&newsId=9760&_cms=newser&_CheckSum=1751543541

And the KS Legia Swimming Pool:
http://www.sztuka.net/palio/html.run?_Instance=www.sztuka.net.pl&_PageID=853&newsId=11600&callingPageId=852&_cms=newser&_CheckSum=1759481531

The "Supersam" store:
http://www.sztuka.net/palio/html.run?_Instance=www.sztuka.net.pl&_PageID=853&newsId=5080&callingPageId=852&_cms=newser&_CheckSum=868489946

Jerzy is a personal friend with whom I have stayed in his flat in Warsaw. Very active and energetic. His daughter Klara Glowczewska, editor of Conde Nast Traveler magazine, will be accompanying him.

I expect to see all of you there!

Mark Fountain

Dr. Alvin M. Fountain II
Honorary Consul, Republic of Poland
Raleigh, North Carolina

"The Role of Women" and "The Task of the Intelligentia" - two presentation by Zbigniew Bujak this month at the FedEx Global Education Center

Zbigniew Bujak was a leader in the formation of Solidarity, the Polish opposition movement to Communism in the 1980s.  He avoided arrest for over four years during martial law and ended up as part of the Solidarity negotiating team at Round Table talks that led to the peaceful end of Communism in 1989.  He was later a political leader and government official during the transition to democracy.  Since 2004, he has applied his knowledge and observations to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt.

Mr. Bujak will present two distinctive lectures on comparative democratic revolutions. Please join us on April 8, at 5:30, in the Mandela Auditorium of the FedEx Global Education Center for a presentation on "The Role of Women."  A reception will follow in Room 4003 of the FedEx GEC.  Then join us again on April 22, at 5:30, in Room 4003, for "The Task of the Intelligentia."  Both events are free and open to the public.