Wacław Szpakowski (1883-1973)

February 10 - July 25, 2015

Biography

1883
Wacław Karol Szpakowski was born on the 9th of October in Warsaw.

1897
The family moves to Riga. Szpakowski is interested in atmospheric phenomena, keeps record of major 19th-century storms, hurricanes and cyclones.

1900
Szpakowski takes his first photographs and begins to trace systems of rhythmical lines. He is also interested in music and takes violin lessons.

1902
He enrolls in the Department of Architecture of the Technical University in Riga.

1902-1911
Szpakowski travels widely in Russia. He is interested in wooden architecture and continues to investigate the form of rhythmical lines.

1912-1914
He moves to Warsaw and works in an architectural office.

1922-1931
Szpakowski works for the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. His son and his three daughters are born. He composes series of drawings, later retraced on tracing paper with mathematical precision and their acoustic interpretations.

1931-1933
Delegated to the Head Office of Posts and Telecommunications in Bydgoszcz.

1934
After he retired, he returns with his family to Warsaw. There he accepts occasionally architectural commissions.

1941-1944
Employed in the District Department of Architecture as a building inspector.
In 1943 he gets transferred to Lvov. One year later he returns to Otwock and gets arrested by the Nazi authorities, temporarily detained as a hostage.

1944-1948
Due to World War II Szpakowski moves with his family to Wrocław. He manages to rescue his sketches and copies of drawings of rhythmical lines.

1952
He works on the introduction of rhythmical lines into architecture, as for example on the plafond of the Przodownik cinema in the Pa-Fa-Wag House in Wrocław.

1958
Retires at the age of seventy-five, on June 30th.

1958-1973
He sorts out his drawings and notes and writes The Rhythmical Lines.

1973
Wacław Szpakowski dies at the age of ninety on the 7th February in Wrocław.