Szymon Syrkus

Szymon Syrkus, Polish architect 1893-1964 was Professor of Architecture at the Warsaw Polytechnic.

Syrkus studied architecture in Vienna, Riga, Warsaw and Moscow and sculpture and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. In 1922 he visited Weimar, Berlin and Paris and had an interest in De Stijl and Bauhaus design.

He was part of the Warsaw-based avant-garde Blok Group which composed of cubists, constructivists and supremacists. In 1926 he became a founder member of the Praesens Group which two years later became the Polish representatives of CIAM, the Congres Internationaux d’Architecture. In the 1930s he designed housing estates and individual family homes.

As well as his solo work he is also widely recognised for his work with his wife, fellow architect, Helena, they received a lot of attention for their experimental houses

During the war, he was incarcerated in Auschwitz

Postwar he returned to designing housing estates and was part of the team tasked with reconstructing Warsaw and in 1949 became Professor of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology