Centuria Wellness & Spa Hotel in Ogrodzieniec

Centuria Wellness & Spa Hotel in Ogrodzieniec, designed by architect Agnieszka Kaczmarska, is located in the heart of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. The Upland, besides castles, inliers and outliers is most associated with the richness of the fossils of organisms living in this area in past geological eras. Almost 200 million years ago the area was covered in a warm sea and the ammonites living in it dropped to the bottom. Their petrified remains created an entire upland. An ammonite found in the area is 147 cm in diameter and is the largest in Poland.

Tomasz Urbanowicz, invited in 2008 to design glass artwork for the hotel swimming pool, decided to create larger ammonites out of glass. The composition, made out of three disks that are 150 cm in diameter, adorns the wall in the swimming pool, reflecting in the water and ceiling. The innovative glass with a burned calcium surface background passes into spatial glass ammonites and belemnites.

The technology used to create this glass was described in the book “Contemporary Kiln-formed Glass” Keith Cummings, London/Philadelphia, 2009.