KWK Promes, a Polish firm known for its austere and modern residential work, has demonstrated a capacity for humor and kitsch with its latest project. Tasked with designing a new facility for a pipe distribution company in Gliwice, Poland, the firm’s approach evokes the postmodern principles of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas. The building—a duck in Venturi Scott Brown parlance—appears as a stack of aluminum pipes, representing the company’s services with unabashed literalism.
