In the Middle Lane, the Grass Was Tall in the Summer at Museum of Architecture, Wrocław

In the Middle Lane, the Grass Was Tall in the Summer
text by Agata Ciastoń

The origins of the A4 motorway date back to the 1930s, when, as Reichsautobahn 9, it formed part of the vast motorway program of the Third Reich, carefully framed by propaganda. In September 1936, the Wroclaw–Legnica–Krzywa (Breslau–Liegnitz–Kreibau) section was opened, marking the completion of the thousandth kilometer of the network. After 1945, the Polish state, within its new borders, inherited the concrete legacy of the Reich – a pride for Adolf Hitler. Reichsautobahn 9 became national road E22, and later the A4 motorway. Over the years, its middle lane became overgrown with tall grass, the surface cracked, and the inhabitants of Lower Silesia gradually discovered and made this space their own. In their accounts, it emerges as a living, emotionally charged place. They still recall trips to the empty motorway in the 1950s and 1960s – drives or picnics amid increasingly lush meadow vegetation. Photographs from these outings show people sunbathing, weaving wreaths or walking barefoot on the heated concrete. No cracks are yet visible. Tar tightly fills the joints between the slabs. By 1936, nearly two million tons of concrete had been used in the construction of the Reichsautobahn. On the motorway near Wroclaw, it survived for almost seventy years without major repairs. Originally, the surface consisted of twenty-centimeter-thick concrete slabs laid on compacted soil. Between the ground and the cement concrete, a layer of oil-soaked paper was added, meant to prevent the mixture from losing water during curing. Paper – the basis of my archival research, the carrier of documents and photographs – turned out to lie hidden at the underside of the motorway structure, co-creating its history. In the final stage, the project led me to the Road Laboratory of the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA), where the strength of road surfaces is tested, concrete and asphalt mixes are examined, and the behavior of materials over time, as well as their durability and safety, is assessed. A few years ago, core samples were taken there from the historic concrete road. During my second visit, they were lent to me. One of them proved particularly significant. I was told: “Look, here’s the paper you’re writing about.” The core samples can be found in the exhibition space.

Questions about whether and what matter remembers – concrete, asphalt and paper – along with conversations with people and hours spent in libraries and archives, first resulted in a book (published by Warstwy in 2024), and then in an exhibition. Both forms explore, in a non-linear and multidirectional way, the fissures of memory of various actors connected to the place we now call the A4 motorway. At times, they also sink into what has been erased from memory. The archives of the Third Reich are interwoven into this narrative. I wanted to extract from them a different story than the original one – to free them from the servile, propagandistic role they once played. I also sought to disrupt the discourse shaped over the years by men – builders, planners, theorists and photographers. I juxtaposed images from distant contexts and times, observing how they begin to contradict themselves and how their meanings are reconstituted. In this way, I learned to recognize the A4 as a place, allowing the stories about it to meander – to fall silent and return. Now they unfold with the participation of artists. Their works meet in the exhibition with a labyrinth of archival materials – plans, maps and photographs from Polish and German collections.

Opening date: May 14, 2026
Closing date: September 6, 2026
Curator: Agata Ciastoń
Artists: Ewa Axelrad, Alicja Bielawska, Emanuel Geisser i Kama Sokolnicka, Marlena Kudlicka, Natalia LL, Piotr P. Skiba, Łukasz Wojciechowski
Archival materials: State Archive in Wrocław, General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways, Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw, Institute of National Remembrance in Wrocław, Zygmunt Wojciechowski Western Institute, the Museum of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Association of Enthusiasts of the Kąty Wrocławskie Region, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the private archive of Danuta Bator.
Graphic Design: Grupa Projektor
Exhibition Design: Łukasz Wojciechowski