Millennium School (English, Polish, Paperback)

Millennium School is the first book by Krzysztof Zielinski one of the most interesting photographers of the young generation of Polish photographers. The photographs focus on the primary school which he attended as a child in the small Polish town of Wabrzezno. The school itself, Primary School no 3, was built in 1962 as a part of a major government development masterplan - - 'A thousand schools for the thousand years of the Polish state'. This is why these schools were called 'millennium memorial schools'. Essentially a propaganda plan, the new schools were presented as a gift from the Communist party to the nation, even though the post-war demographic boom meant that they were a necessity. Built around standard layouts, usually two or three storeys and constructed from prefabricated concrete, they were designed to be adaptable for military purposes with many having underground shelters and capable of being converted into temporary hospitals. Compared with the standards of the 60s, the schools were modern and well-equipped, and being a student at one was regarded as a sort of distinction. Today, the splendour of millennium schools is long forgotten. Physically, little has changed over the past twenty years, the furniture and equipment are the same, though as if to hide the passage of time and their modest and now outdated facilities, the classrooms have been painted in vivid colours.