Koen De Decker
Born in 1975 in Ninove in Belgium, lives and works in Outer in Belgium. The artist creates installations on the boarder of art. In his works he uses different media – drawing, sculpture, video, installation. Koen de Decker is fascinated with form and its influence on the boarder of a piece of art and its surrounding space.
On the corner of Chmielna St. and Żelazna St. there is an old Polish State Railways worker’s apartment house (so-called Rail Home) built in 1928. The building bears characteristic traces of bullets left from the Warsaw Uprising. Before, the Rail Home was home to an uprising redoubt, just like the Post Station on the other side of the street, which was defended by the Chrobry II division. From both of these modernist buildings only the one on 73b Chmielna St is preserved.
The functionalist Post Station of Joseph Szanajc’s design was partially rebuilt after war but in 2006 condemned.
The apartment building on 73b Chmielna St is a part of a pre-war urban plan, which consisted of a building with a big courtyard. The plan was realized not until the 50s and with abandoning the original project. Instead of two apartments per floor, four or even six were built. The standard of building materials was also reduced.
The only thing left from the primary plan was an enormous courtyard with series of arcades that form a border between the inside, outside courtyard and the city. From the broken gates that are protected by solid fences there unfolds a view of the Palace of Culture and Science and the Central Station.
Koena De Decker’s installation that consists of two parts blends in the building’s architecture. The artist’s interference accents individual actions in space, which we can observe on the borders of the private and public realm.