Gerard Antoni Ciołek was born in
Wyżnica, a small town in the
Austro-Hungarian Duchy of Bukovina (in present-day
Ukraine). His parents, Adolf and Ludwika (née Meltz, also Melz) Ciołek were from Galicia and Bukovina His father was a high-ranking official at the Austrian Tax Office, first in
Kuty, then in nearby Wyżnica in
Carpathia. Following the end of World War I, and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Wyżnica was incorporated into Romania. In 1921, the Ciołeks and their two children left
Bukovina for the newly established
Republic of Poland, and settled in the southern city of
Lublin. In 1929, on graduating from the Stanisław Staszic Lycee in Lublin [https://web.archive.org/web/20110721010330/http://wybitni.staszic.eu.org/index.php?id=63, Gerard Ciołek embarked on tertiary studies in the country's capital,
Warsaw. Initially he intended to take up drawing and painting (especially "
en plein air" watercolours) at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (Akademia Sztuk Pięknych). Eventually, however, he chose to study architecture at the
Warsaw University of Technology (Politechnika Warszawska). In the mid-1930s, Ciołek was a research assistant to professor
Oskar Sosnowski at the Politechnika Warszawska, a man under whom he deepened his studies on Polish
folk architecture, and the conservation of architectural heritage. Around 1937 he developed an interest in the history and design of parks and gardens. He was also interested in town-planning,
regional planning, and in the harmony between human settlements and their fragile ecologies. In June 1939, he married Regina Najder (1917–2005) from an extensive family of aristocrats, landowners, railway and sugar refinery engineers, doctors, and businessmen from
Kiev and south-western Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian empire. At the beginning of World War II, in September 1939, Ciołek served in the Polish Army as a Second Lieutenant (2Lt) in an air-defense unit in
Wilno. Between 1940 and 1944, during the Nazi and Soviet occupation, he lived in German-held Warszawa where he joined the
Armia Krajowa ("Polish Home Army"). For his pseudonym, while in the Resistance, he chose "
Biała" (his clan's battle-cry) . He was a lecturer in architecture and town planning at the now-banned, underground Politechnika Warszawska. In early 1944, he earned his
Ph.D. for his research on the effect of the physical environment on the forms of villages and folk architecture in Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. In August–September 1944 he took part in the
Warsaw Uprising, where he was in charge of the defense of the
Krasiński Library (Biblioteka Ordynacji Krasińskich w Warszawie) building, and took part in the battle for the German SS-held
PAST skyscraper. Following the defeat of the uprising he was interned in POW camps in
Pomerania, and near
Lübeck (northern Germany). After the end of World War II in Europe, and a brief tour of duty with the
1st Independent Parachute Brigade (Poland) (1 Samodzielna Brygada Spadochronowa – SBS) stationed in north-western Germany, he returned to Poland in December 1945. He was reunited with his wife and son, Krzysztof Oskar Ciołek (1940–1953) in
Olsztyn. The family returned to Warsaw. Between 1946 and his death in 1966, Ciołek lectured at the Institute of Architecture at the Politechnika Warszawska. From 1948 he was also professor of
Urban Planning and Landscape Design at the
Cracow University of Technology (Politechnika Krakowska). In the early-1950s he co-designed a tourist chalet in the Tatra Mountains, the 'Schronisko Górskie PTTK w Dolinie Pięciu Stawów Polskich', which opened in 1954. During those 20 years of work in
Kraków and
Warsaw he taught students, supervised roughly fourteen Doctoral dissertations, worked on the reconstruction of over 100 historical parks in Poland that included sites in Arkadia,
Baranów Sandomierski,
Krasiczyn,
Lubartów,
Nieborów,
Rogalin, as well as the
Royal Park in Wilanów He was a member of the State Council for the Nature Conservation ('Panstwowa Rada Ochrony Przyrody', PROP), as well as served on the Boards of Directors of the
Tatra National Park and the
Pieniny National Park. He authored more than 60 research papers and books. His groundbreaking work,
Ogrody Polskie (
Gardens of Poland), was published in 1954. In 1958, Ciołek was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of
Polonia Restituta ('Krzyz Kawalerski Orderu Odrodzenia Polski')[https://web.archive.org/web/20110721010330/http://wybitni.staszic.eu.org/index.php?id=63. In 1965, he embarked on two of his largest projects yet: a history of monastic architecture in Poland over the past 1,000 years; and an encyclopaedia of world gardens and garden design. However, he died the following year, aged 56, while skiing in the Tatra Mountains, without completing this final work. His unpublished research is archived as the
Teki Ciołka (
Ciołek files) here. == Selected publications ==