On July 26 of this year, at the age of one hundred, Mr. Tadeusz Barucki passed away – an architect, traveler, and unparalleled researcher of contemporary world architecture.
Thanks to his books, publications, and lectures, he became a well-known and beloved figure to several generations of architects, not only in Poland but also worldwide. Over the course of several decades, he traveled to 114 countries, lecturing at universities and architectural associations around the world, gathering materials for hundreds of articles and dozens of books, introducing unknown global architecture to architects in Poland and the countries of the Eastern Bloc. He simultaneously served as an ambassador of knowledge about Poland and our European region to students and architects in universities on all continents.
Just a month ago, we organized a tribute event in Katowice to celebrate Mr. Tadeusz’s 100th birthday. It was a solemn and moving ceremony. We had the opportunity to thank the Jubilarian for his work and achievements and to listen to his magnificent lecture. No one suspected that it would be our last meeting.
Tadeusz Barucki will remain a legendary traveler from the era of the Iron Curtain, with colossal achievements in gathering knowledge about architecture and popularizing it. He will always be an incomparable example of an independent and free researcher who creates his own path of development, guided by exceptional intuition and a sense of the importance and relevance of the issues he addressed. He will remain a Master to us, possessing extraordinary knowledge about architecture, sensitivity to its beauty, and exceptional skill in expressing himself through words.
The team of the Institute of Architecture Documentation of the Silesian Library and the Faculty of Architecture of the Silesian University of Technology.