CRUNCH: Oblique Architectures: The Combinatory Urbanism of Iwona Buczkowska

Paris-based Iwona Buczkowska is one of the few architects of the late modern period in France to adopt strategies of ‘combinatory’ urbanism and oblique spatial design as part of a wider challenge to the standardised mass housing designs of the post-war reconstruction. 

Her non-orthogonal, wood-based projects reject repetition in favour of rich open spaces created through curved and angled structures. These designs place users at the centre of an urban ecology based on conviviality and interaction – a radical departure from the rigid geometries of conventional social housing. 

In this seminar, Iwona will reflect on the evolution of her work and discuss how it navigates new political and economic contexts in the 21st century. She will present her housing developments in the Parisian suburbs of Ivry-sur-Seine and Le Blanc Mesnil, and a college in Bobigny – projects now held in the collections of the Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine. 

She will also discuss her influences and relationship with the earlier generation of architects in Paris such as Renée Gailhoustet, and reflect on her experience as a long-term resident in her own architecture. 

The event will be introduced by Dr Robin Wilson with responses from architect Nichola Barrington-Leach, founder NVBL Architects and recipient of the Royal Academy Renée Gailhoustet Residency (2023). 

This event is part of the flagship CRUNCH Series at The Bartlett School of Architecture. 

Speaker biographies 

Iwona Buczkowska is a Polish-born French architect and urban planner who founded Atelier Iwona Buczkowska in 1978. Her projects, often built in wood, use oblique and curved structures to create light-filled spaces that emphasise interaction and conviviality. Major works include social housing in Blanc Mesnil and Ivry-sur-Seine, and the Collège de Bobigny. Her projects have been widely published and exhibited, earning awards such as the Gold Medal at the World Architecture Biennale (1989), the Delarue Prize (1994) and the Jane Drew Prize (2024). Since 2017, key projects from her atelier have been part of the collections of the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine in Paris. 

Nichola Barrington-Leach is an architect, educator and founder of NVBL Architects, a London-based practice specialising in environmentally conscious spaces that blend traditional techniques with innovative materials. Her work spans cultural buildings, installations, residential projects and handcrafted objects, all grounded in low-carbon principles. She received the Royal Academy Renée Gailhoustet Residency in 2023, was named a RIBA J Rising Star in 2024, and has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, Venice Biennale and Guangzhou Triennial. An alumnus of The Bartlett and the Architectural Association (AA), Nichola teaches at the AA and Kingston School of Art. 

Robin Wilson is Associate Professor in architectural history and theory at The Bartlett School of Architecture. He is the author of Image, Text, Architecture: The Utopics of the Architectural Media (Routledge, 2015) and Brutalist Paris (Blue Crow Media, 2023) and has published widely in the architectural press. As co-founder of Photolanguage, his arts-based research explores the legacies of modernism, criticality and representation in architectural media, and the role of the utopian impulse across architecture, art and landscape. 

Image: Le Blanc Mesnil by Iwona Buczkowska