BEAUTIFUL FREAK
In terms of 'psychogeography' Warsaw is a minefield. There are instances of city evolution that, in their extreme movement and mutation, boggle the mind. I can think of several instances where the built environment, due its outlandish construction, its strange contiguity with the other, has blown the mind to pieces and engendered a sort of nirvana.
It is this metaphysical minefield, this 'mind stepping on a mine', that makes Warsaw such a wonder to wander through. There are epiphanies to be had within this marvellous abomination of a metropolis.
One such epiphany, of how beautifully abominable the city of Warsaw can be, is at the terminus of tram number 16 beneath the spaghetti junction of Modlinska, Torunska and Jagiellonska in Zeran. Here, there is a church strapped between slipways and flyways of surrounding communicating motorways (a bit like Zygmunt Berling further down in Saska Kepa). Indeed, the church is so hemmed in that one wonders, when looking at it from the terminus, how on earth one gets to it without 'froggering' one's life to the capricious onslaught of traffic.
It's a scenario best appreciated cartographically (although google earth makes a sterling job with its aerial view). For me, the expression here is several. Firstly, there is the expression of a city being 'cobbled together' with no apparent regard for the human who must necessarily negotiate and inhabit it. Secondly, there is the obvious symbolism of a church refusing to budge, and the obstinacy of 'religion' not to change with the times. Thirdly, there is the voice, or absence of it, of the citizens themselves, abandoning (for they have no time for such dubious pursuits as psycho-geography) their city to the caprices of politicians and beauraucrats.
Here, the church's location is not the only expression of these ideas. If you turn ninety degrees to the north you will see another, a hotel in the shadow of the Zeran power plant, and whose picture of unblessed geography I have attached below.
Pod Grotem indeed!
Take the tram ride, see for yourself, this beautiful abomination, your city.
It is this metaphysical minefield, this 'mind stepping on a mine', that makes Warsaw such a wonder to wander through. There are epiphanies to be had within this marvellous abomination of a metropolis.
One such epiphany, of how beautifully abominable the city of Warsaw can be, is at the terminus of tram number 16 beneath the spaghetti junction of Modlinska, Torunska and Jagiellonska in Zeran. Here, there is a church strapped between slipways and flyways of surrounding communicating motorways (a bit like Zygmunt Berling further down in Saska Kepa). Indeed, the church is so hemmed in that one wonders, when looking at it from the terminus, how on earth one gets to it without 'froggering' one's life to the capricious onslaught of traffic.
It's a scenario best appreciated cartographically (although google earth makes a sterling job with its aerial view). For me, the expression here is several. Firstly, there is the expression of a city being 'cobbled together' with no apparent regard for the human who must necessarily negotiate and inhabit it. Secondly, there is the obvious symbolism of a church refusing to budge, and the obstinacy of 'religion' not to change with the times. Thirdly, there is the voice, or absence of it, of the citizens themselves, abandoning (for they have no time for such dubious pursuits as psycho-geography) their city to the caprices of politicians and beauraucrats.
Here, the church's location is not the only expression of these ideas. If you turn ninety degrees to the north you will see another, a hotel in the shadow of the Zeran power plant, and whose picture of unblessed geography I have attached below.
Pod Grotem indeed!
Take the tram ride, see for yourself, this beautiful abomination, your city.
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