Planes, trains and much else besides

Nathan North, ‘Eurobuild CEE:’ Lamela is well-established in Poland now and also has branches in Spain, Mexico and Qatar. How easy is it to operate an international architectural firm such as yours?

Carlos Lamela, the president of the board of Estudio Lamela: It’s difficult to manage activities on four different continents. This is not unusual for UK or German studios, who tend to be used to operating internationally. But in Mediterranean countries like Spain or Italy this is not the norm – studios have been historically focused on their home markets. And they tend to be smaller companies of three to five people and an absolute maximum of around 30–40 people, whereas you need a bigger structure and more muscle to operate abroad. If they do venture abroad, it tends to be in the traditional markets of Latin America. UK studios, on the other hand, have the former British Empire and all the English-speaking countries to work in. We have around 15 people working in our Warsaw office as we have in Mexico and Qatar and 50 in Madrid, so we have around 90 to 100 people.

And why is Poland one of the countries you are so involved in? And what have been your main projects so far?

We came here in 2000, after winning the competition for the second terminal of Warsaw Airport. After that we had to put on site 10–15 people and took the opportunity to establish ourselves here. This was the middle of the Polish property bubble, when many Spanish developers and construction companies were coming here thinking that it was just like Spain 15 years earlier. Our client for the airport project was Spanish constructor Ferrovial (with its local subsidiary Budimex). But after that we decided to develop the Polish company – and it really is a Polish firm, Lamela Polska, with 80–90 pct of the employees being Polish.

So your experience of working in Poland has been a good one so far?

The situation since then has changed completely, so we have had to reset our approach and work with Polish companies instead of Spanish ones. Municipal contracts have made up a good proportion of these, including the two terminals, the two stadiums and the Uniwersytet and Świętokrzyska metro stations in Warsaw. We were able to use the experience we had with the Warsaw stations to win a contract to design seven stations for the Doha light railway. We are proud of the Cracovia stadium, which is quite small, with a capacity of around 15,000, as it has won several prizes. For this project we had to retain its historic faćade. The Lublin stadium is about the same size but is an entirely new project. Centrum Południowe in Wrocław is another development we are currently engaged with, which will be half residential/half offices and 150,000 sqm in total. And then there was the Pacific Office Building in Warsaw [now Nestlé House – ed. note] in Warsaw’s Mokotów district, which was completed in 2011.

And what is the difference between working here compared to other countries?

My opinion is that Poland is easy to work in – the professionals here are of a high quality, and that not only applies to our staff but also to the clients too, when it comes to their ideas and expectations. The standard of construction here is higher than in Spain – as is often the case in colder countries, where a higher standard is needed to live with the rain, the snow etc.

Is winning competitions for projects something you are good at?

Well, we didn’t win the competition for the Browary Warszawskie project in Warsaw. This is going to be a difficult project in terms of the natural light requirements. We have been in a number of turnkey competitions, generally with construction firms, and open competitions, such as the Lublin and Kraków stadiums, as well as short-list competitions, usually with private clients. There are a large number of entries to Polish competitions – there can be around 50. This makes it difficult to win them. And often the project doesn’t go ahead anyway. But this is not just a Polish problem – it’s universal. It’s very easy for politicians to launch projects that haven’t been budgeted for. This tends to happen more for cultural schemes, whereas when it comes to transport projects 90 pct see the light of day. So winning can be a bit of a lottery – with something like less than a 0.1 pct chance. You need to enter very many of them to win one. And even then 80 pct will be cancelled. The Museum of Modern Art, on which we were working with Christian Kerez, was cancelled for complicated reasons. However, our win-rate in Poland is quite high compared to Spain. In Spain there are 50,000 architects but there is only work for 10,000. In Poland, though, we need a lot of work. Fees are not very high and so constant turnover is needed for our staff. A great deal of fuel needs to be pumped into this machine every day.

Would you say your studio specialises in any type of project?

Yes and no. In some countries, studios are more specialised, such as the UK and the US. But in Spain, where an airport is only built once every ten years, they tend to be more generalist. We do specialise in hospitals in Spain, but like a general practitioner we specialise in general architecture. In Poland we try to apply the same philosophy as in Spain. My father founded the company in 1954, so we have enough experience to transfer our skills to Poland. For the Kraków stadium this was crucial for winning the competition and after working in Madrid with Richard Rogers we won the Warsaw airport contract. After designing the Kraków project we then went on to be awarded other stadium projects, while following the Warsaw metro projects we are designing the stations in Doha.

And how would you sum up the philosophy of your studio?

Our philosophy first of all is to be aware of trends in architecture and of how best to service clients, while maintaining a keen awareness of the costs. Our designs are very well constructed, solid and functional. There are no crazy shapes – we don’t feel comfortable with those. They lead to many problems when it comes to the construction and in terms of the client and the budget. A good way to put it would be that we have a classical approach and a modern way of going about it.

Spaniards and their works

Estudio Lamela was founded in 1954 by Bruno Lamela and is now run by his son Carlos. It has branches in four countries: Spain, Mexico, Qatar and Poland (Lamela Polska), where it has been present since 2000 after winning the competition to design the second terminal of Warsaw airport (now the Fryderyk Chopin Airport), which opened in 2008. It has since been involved in the redesign of the first terminal, as well as more recently two stations of the new Warsaw metro line, the new city football stadium in Lublin, along with a number of significant commercial and residential projects across the country.