THE EARLY YEARS (1910-1939)
1910 - Born February 17th to Janina Warunkiewicz, née Szczepankiewicz and Jan Janusz Warunkiewicz.
1912 - Mother divorces his father and marries Feliks Michalski, his beloved stepfather.
1914 - First World War breaks out. Family escapes to Tbilisi, Georgia.
1918 - Family returns to Warsaw, Poland.
1921 -At 11 years of age, goes to boarding school in Krakow. Mother sends him alone on the train with money and tells him to find lodging on his own.
1926 - At 16, he runs away to Paris, France and Italy. Makes his way by selling his drawings and paintings of tourist scenes. Meets people like Josephine Baker and Mistinguett.
1928 - Goes back to school in Poland. Studies architecture, urban planning and engineering.
September 29, 1939 - Germany invades Poland, World War II erupts.
THE MIDDLE YEARS (1939-1962)
1940 -Arrested with ten other Poles in the first terror roundup of the war. Imprisoned and tortured in the notorius Pawaiak prison in Warsaw, he is able to get out with help from a young Jewish girl and his parents. Once out, he successfully worked to ensure the release of the other ten people with whom he was arrested.
1941 - Moves to southern Poland. Along with a former teacher, designs and builds a hotel in Zakopane. This was one of a few non-military building projects in war-time Poland.
1945 - War ends. Finishes university. Receives two Masters Degrees, Architecure and Engineering.
1946 - In charge of art and facades in the rebuilding of the old part of Warsaw to original specifications. Gets permission to and renovates a two-storey attic in old Warsaw at 30/32 Ulica Freta to create an apartment for himself and his small family, unheard of in that era. He also had a telephone and two cars!
1950 - Starts a company called PSP which does special projects for the then Communist Polish Government. Refuses to become a Party Member yet still manages to work for them.
1951 - His future wife starts to work for him. For the next eight years is one of a few people who are not high-ranking party members allowed to freely travel outside of Poland. Designs many local and international architectural projects for the Polish Government including a Pavilion in Johannesburg, South Africa.
1953 - Marries Marianna Michalina Szmigrodzka.
1954 - Only child, a son, Marek is born.
1957 - Ocean terminal project in Durban comes to light because he had designed some a trade building for Poland that was in Johannesburg, in all probability catching the attention of the Polish emigre Engineer, ZAKRZEWSKI. It took two years to get a visa, and the evening that the visa was picked up, my parents had some family and friends for dinner to celebrate. At 9:30 or so, the phone rang and a man who my dad did not recognize, told him that the visa had been rescinded, effective 6:00 a.m. the following morning and that he was to be arrested. My parents managed to pack whatever they could in a few suitcases and we got the last train to Austria. We crossed the border and called my grandmother who was still in Warsaw, and yes, indeed, the secret police did arrive at six, but were told that we had already left.
(Marek Warunkiewicz - son - cited by Allan Jackson; see Facts about Durban - Ocean Terminal)
1959 - Moves to Durban, South Africa to become the chief architect and lead artist for the then-largest port in Africa, the Durban Ocean Terminal.
1962 - In June, makes the decision to leave South Africa. Planned to emigrate to Brazil to work on the design of Brasilia but the architect who sponsored him dies abruptly. Is visited by a representative of the ANC and asked to stay and rebuild the country after democracy is brought in. He turns the offer down and a few days later is visited by Nelson Mandella. He is told that there is a book of''good white'' and that he will not be harmed. He declines, fearing a bloody revolution. Asks''Will everyone have this book and look at it'' Eleven months later is asked to come to Montréal, Canada.
THE CANADIAN WORKING YEARS (1963-2015)
1963 - Moves to Montréal to design multiple Metro stations.
1966 -Participates, as guiding architect in the renovation of Place d'Youville in Old Montréal.
1968 - Starts his own architectural practice.
1969 - He and his firm work on a variety of projects ranging from hotels and condominiums in the Caribbean and housing projects in Canada and England.
1981 - Retires and moves to Niagara Falls. Renovates a two story, 1880s home, by himself.
1988 04 19 - First granddaughter, Anna Michalina Warunkiewicz is born.
1990 05 22 - Second granddaughter, Maria Alexandra (Sasha) Warunkiewicz is born.
1993 - His deeply-beloved wife of 40 years, Marianna, passes away on Thanksgiving, just after her 70th birthday which was on September 23rd.
1995- Moves to Toronto to the Manulife Centre.
1996 - Starts work on designing a new paradigm for building processes and urban planning. Design would use 75 percent less energy and create 50 percent less pollution. It decreased cost and time-to-build: the proportion of green space to built space inverted.
1998 - Gets a Mac Pro Desktop with two monitors, a printer and a scanner. Within a couple of months, becomes proficient in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Microsoft Word and how to browse the web and use email. Starts painting digitally, writing for a variety of Polish-language newspapers and designing items for the Polish community. Using these tools he continues to work on his architectural building processes and urban planning project. Develops a building system using only 28 separate pre-built elements.
Falls ill on Labour Day.
2015 - Passes away on January 16th, a month shy of his 105th birthday.
[Copied from Life begins at ninety-nine )List of projects With photographs
 With notes
Ocean Terminal: 1962. Durban, KwaZulu-Natal - Architect
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