May 5, 2026, 18.00

To mark the release of the issue of “Autoportret” titled “New Vernacularism” 1/2026, we invite you to a lecture by Maciej Miłobędzki (JEMS Architekci).

Can the remnants of traditional cultures still serve as a foundation for community networks of local action, for collaboration in cultivating vital relationships within the material and economic world? Will critical alternatives to standardized, uniform forms of habitation emerge from them? Is it even worth confronting grand, global pro-environmental and pro-development narratives with local traditions developed over centuries? Does the very act of pitting these categories against one another contain the seeds of our failures in this field? A shift in the scale and methods of action poses serious challenges for professionals. A mindset and worldview shaped over decades in the spirit of uncritical solutionism are not easily redirected onto a completely different track or brought back down to earth.

Local builders were (and are) rarely unthinking guardians of traditional techniques and forms. They experienced life—with all its hardships—too intensely to reject any opportunity to improve or streamline the methods they knew and had grown accustomed to. Local building traditions generally evolved; drastic transformations occurred only sporadically. Changes primarily concerned specific craftsmanship techniques, new materials and tools; overall building models remained constant, as no needs or desires compelled a fundamental change. Even as the world accelerated rapidly, proven methods and patterns were adjusted cautiously. Innovations had to prove their usefulness and purpose.

Writes Maciej Miłobędzki in the text “Unsurvived Regionalism”.

We invite you to discuss the extent to which traditional building methods can or should be revived. We will also attempt to answer the question posed in the title and expand the definition of vernacularism to include the participation and agency of architects.

Maciej Miłobędzki

Ph.D., Eng., architect, graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. From 1984 to 1988, he worked at the Creative Cooperative of Architects and Visual Artists. Co-founder of the JEMS Architekci studio, with which he has been associated in all his architectural activities since 1988. As part of this studio, he is the recipient of the 2021 SARP Honorary Award for his contribution to the development of Polish architecture. Since 2008, he has been teaching at the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, where he currently serves as Vice Dean for Development.

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Photograph from the collection of M. Miłobędzki