POLAND

If the role of architecture has always been to protect humans from the elements, what are our modern-day Lares and Penates meant to guard us against? The reference to the Roman deities who watched over the domestic hearth is not a mere classicist flourish, but a way of highlighting that there is no clear boundary between rational, physical protection and a more subtle, ineffable sense of safety. Regulatory safety measures (building codes, fire regulations, devices like fire extinguishers and alarms) and the sense of protection evoked by traditional Polish rituals – such as placing a wreath during construction or a horseshoe on the doorstep – coexist in architecture as complementary expressions of our human need to feel safe.