Piotr Kowalski

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Piotr Kowalski (1927, Lwow, Poland - 2004, Paris, France) was an artist, sculptor, architect. Born 1927 in Poland, died in Paris. Kowalski worked in non-traditional materials including electronic and mechanical devices, neon, large earth works, explosions and other natural phenomena including plant growth and gravity. His work often expressed science or natural laws in direct and tangible ways, immediate to the senses and referring to artistic aesthetics. A refugee of World War II, a graduate of MIT, he immigrated to France as an architect for UNESCO and spent most of the rest of his life in Paris. Along with gallery works, he has several large outdoors projects.

By 1946 he was a refugee of the war living in Brazil. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1947 to 1952, receiving a Bachelors in Architecture. He maintained relations with MIT throughout his life. Working as an architect for I. M. Pei from 1952 until 1953, he joined Marcel Brauer as an architect at UNESCO in Paris. He became a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in 1978, and continued in that position until 1985. He was named professor at l'Ecole nationale superieure des beaux-arts de Paris in 1987.

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