WARSAW TALKING
Are you the traveller travelling through me?
To begin with take heed for I am surely far different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me the downtrodden city?
Do you think perhaps you will begin to hate me?
Do you think our meeting will shed blood before its end?
Do you think me grey and ugly?
Do you see no further than this façade, this awkward misshapen structure of me?
Do you suppose yourself spacing on hallowed ground toward a murdered city?
Have you no thought O wanderer that it may all be Maya, iluzjon?
THE DAY IN A LIFE - IN THE PLANE OF IMMANENCE
We will say of pure immanence that it is A LIFE and nothing else... A life is the immanence of immanence, absolute immanence: it is complete power, complete bliss.
Gilles Deleuze
They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold, and I deem them mad for thinking my days have a price.
Khalil Gibran
After three years wandering (and wondering) through Warsaw, and 15 months of periodic blogging, it's time to move on and indulge what Deleuze referred to as our 'sacred right of migration'. Warsaw has opened my eyes perhaps more than any of the other dozen or so cities I have lived (and wandered) in. This is no doubt due to the sheer incongruity of Warsaw's spaces, its buildings, the abundance of wildlife living in the city or just passing through, the primordial on the periphery, the great forests out of which Warsaw springs. Warsaw is, in spite of the new economic model it labours under, a peaceful city which is completely at odds with the Paris', Londons, and New Yorks of this world. Warsaw has thus refreshed and revitalised, and re-established lost connections. Granted, in the spirit of Ghibran, I have forsaken the conventions of 'making a living' in the hope that I might actually do it, and thus freed up time (or, perhaps more accurately, not clotted it up in a state of manic busy-ness) to explore the territory, get out and about. Perhaps emphatically, my great stravaiging companion of the past 3 years, Berenika (the bringer of victory), who for the past 18 months has studied the correlations of play behaviour in infant rats with exploratory behaviour in adults, has intimated that at heart I am in fact a rat. This comparison, like Warsaw itself, has pleased me no end!
'Exploring the overgrowth' in Pole Mokotowskie.
Gilles Deleuze
They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold, and I deem them mad for thinking my days have a price.
Khalil Gibran
After three years wandering (and wondering) through Warsaw, and 15 months of periodic blogging, it's time to move on and indulge what Deleuze referred to as our 'sacred right of migration'. Warsaw has opened my eyes perhaps more than any of the other dozen or so cities I have lived (and wandered) in. This is no doubt due to the sheer incongruity of Warsaw's spaces, its buildings, the abundance of wildlife living in the city or just passing through, the primordial on the periphery, the great forests out of which Warsaw springs. Warsaw is, in spite of the new economic model it labours under, a peaceful city which is completely at odds with the Paris', Londons, and New Yorks of this world. Warsaw has thus refreshed and revitalised, and re-established lost connections. Granted, in the spirit of Ghibran, I have forsaken the conventions of 'making a living' in the hope that I might actually do it, and thus freed up time (or, perhaps more accurately, not clotted it up in a state of manic busy-ness) to explore the territory, get out and about. Perhaps emphatically, my great stravaiging companion of the past 3 years, Berenika (the bringer of victory), who for the past 18 months has studied the correlations of play behaviour in infant rats with exploratory behaviour in adults, has intimated that at heart I am in fact a rat. This comparison, like Warsaw itself, has pleased me no end!
'Exploring the overgrowth' in Pole Mokotowskie.
SPECIES OF SPACE
Every city has its own particular, even peculiar, brand of space.
Warsaw is no exception, and is particularly endowed with peculiarity, and a variety of species.
Take Plac Pilsudskiego for example with its eulogy to emptiness framed on all sides by low rise techtonics in a variety of styles. Space has never been so unanimous. The whole square (and it is a square) is in some ways a grand epitaph to the destruction that was levelled here. The square is its own building so to speak… 2 dimensions not three, more space than stone. It is an epitah with no name.
Another great example of the peculiarly spacious city of Warsaw is its underground system. When I first used the metro (though this will come as no surprise with those of you familiar with Glasgow’s ‘clockwork orange’) I was aghast at the volume of space within these cavernous subterrene halls. Ok, so it’s only one line, but look at that space. It’s all the more amplified, especially as you get further out from Centrum, by Warsaw’s uncongested feel. You’d never get this in any other European capital.
Another unmissable Varsovian landmark, and perhaps Warsaw's piece de resistance, it took me a while to realise the beauty of the Palace of Culture was not the building per se but the space (the 77 hectares) that surrounded it. Like a volcano abruptly rising out of an ocean, the Palace of Culture erupts space like no other.
The Centrum district of Warsaw, of which the above picture represents one half, is divided into two by the punishingly long decumanus maximus of Aleje Jerozolimskie. Bisected into north centre (Srodmiescie Polnoc, above picture) where Centrum proper is located, and south centre (Srodmiescie Poludnie), where the vast basin square of Plac Konstitucji lies, the centre of Warsaw is an eye-opening event for anyone with even the most partial of sight.
Within these two halves Centrum in fact embodies most vigorously an ethos of architecture and town planning that defines the whole city. This ethos of course is the absolute incongruity of juxtapositional elements. While Srodmiescie Poludnie points to the past with its various Secessionist and Socrealist stone relics and varying degrees of spaces, its northern counterpoint, with the dominating Palace of Culture and Science and the awkward Modernist shapes of cuboids, bubbles and pillars, points emphatically to the future.
Where Srodmiescie Poludnie (with perhaps the exception of the oversized Plac Konstitucji) retains the human element in its survivor tenements and manageable streets, Srodmiescie Polnoc (annihilated during WWII) goes exorbitant, and waylays the human in the most terrifying fashion.
Srodmiescie Polnoc (between Marszalkowska and Nowy Swiat) following WWII. In the centre of the picture you can make out the tall skeletal frame of the Prudential building which was painstakingly restored to its former glory.
The problem with Srodmiescie Polnoc, specifically the area between Marszalkowska and Nowy Swiat and Jerozolimskie and Swietokrzyska, is that it is, with its ignominious high rise tower blocks overseeing everything, as much residential as it is anything else. As such, there exists a neglected suburban scheme-feel about the area. In some of the passages behind the cuboid Galeria Centrum on Marszalkowska there is a complete absence of any spatial fluency, (imagine a labyrinth with fifty metre high walls). This might have been all well and good for the sixties when most of these things were thrown up, but now they are out of place and out of time.
What there is in terms of space in this area might be termed as ‘the bleeding effect’ where space drips from one area to the next, where it coagulates and clots due to the contiguity of structures, causing bottlenecks of people and cars, and where perma-dark passages only ever see the light of day during the sun’s more zenithal summery moments. What few fin de siecle buildings exist have their aesthetics levelled in one fell swoop by their propinquity to devastatingly horrid modernist bloks.
This discontinuity and fragmentation of architectural style and of space, of light and gravity and of urban geography, invests Warsaw’s centre with a certain peculiar quality that confers a subliminal sense of panic on the quotidian citizen. In terms of architecture and town planning, Centrum is, in other words, cosmetic surgery gone wrong. It is a precinct of horror, a tragedy on the city stage for all to see. It is perhaps for this reason that the whole area is a shopping centre, advertising openly welcomed. Indeed, the panic invested in the pedestrian means that he or she will at some point wish to conceal themselves from it, most probably in one of the many retail outlets here.
The Marszalkowska Monoliths - Virtual Tombstones for the Annihilated Area.
Maybe by turning the centre into a shopping mall and by accessorizing the faded facades of sixties modernism with multi-coloured ads, Centrum will take on a newer feel, more ‘twenty-first century’, more approachable than ever before, offering people the opportunity to come inside, explore this new world, and avoid such spatial angst.
'Sciana Wschodnia' (the Eastern Wall) at the beginning of the 1970s. In the 1960s, a complex of residential and office buildings went up on the eastern side of Marszalkowska Street between Jerozolimskie and Swietokrzyska. The 'Pasaz Srodmiejskie' with their Central Department stores and the Relax Cinema became one of the most popular places in Warsaw. The above picture reveals a certain idyllic quality with few cars and even a parasol-ed mezzanine in CDT (then one of Poland's largest department stores) on the left. Today, however, the city has not evolved, yet traffic is tenfold, detroying any sense of 'city life' that might once have been. Now, on the contrary, this area is a seething, writhing mess of pollution and chaos.
Looking at the newly built Centrum area in 1965. Again, notice the lack of traffic.
2009, almost half a century later. The same facade, except this time every surface screams.
The above are only a few of Warsaw's many species. Many others exist: the miniaturised Nowy Swiat, Plac Trzech Krzyzy, Stare Miasto (the old town), the great suburban dormitory of Ursynow. To document them is a thesis in itself. Better to wander perhaps, see them first, feel them in all their pervasive (in some cases 'perverse') sense of space.
Every city has its own particular, even peculiar, brand of space.
Warsaw is no exception, and is particularly endowed with peculiarity, and a variety of species.
Take Plac Pilsudskiego for example with its eulogy to emptiness framed on all sides by low rise techtonics in a variety of styles. Space has never been so unanimous. The whole square (and it is a square) is in some ways a grand epitaph to the destruction that was levelled here. The square is its own building so to speak… 2 dimensions not three, more space than stone. It is an epitah with no name.
Another great example of the peculiarly spacious city of Warsaw is its underground system. When I first used the metro (though this will come as no surprise with those of you familiar with Glasgow’s ‘clockwork orange’) I was aghast at the volume of space within these cavernous subterrene halls. Ok, so it’s only one line, but look at that space. It’s all the more amplified, especially as you get further out from Centrum, by Warsaw’s uncongested feel. You’d never get this in any other European capital.
Another unmissable Varsovian landmark, and perhaps Warsaw's piece de resistance, it took me a while to realise the beauty of the Palace of Culture was not the building per se but the space (the 77 hectares) that surrounded it. Like a volcano abruptly rising out of an ocean, the Palace of Culture erupts space like no other.
The Centrum district of Warsaw, of which the above picture represents one half, is divided into two by the punishingly long decumanus maximus of Aleje Jerozolimskie. Bisected into north centre (Srodmiescie Polnoc, above picture) where Centrum proper is located, and south centre (Srodmiescie Poludnie), where the vast basin square of Plac Konstitucji lies, the centre of Warsaw is an eye-opening event for anyone with even the most partial of sight.
Within these two halves Centrum in fact embodies most vigorously an ethos of architecture and town planning that defines the whole city. This ethos of course is the absolute incongruity of juxtapositional elements. While Srodmiescie Poludnie points to the past with its various Secessionist and Socrealist stone relics and varying degrees of spaces, its northern counterpoint, with the dominating Palace of Culture and Science and the awkward Modernist shapes of cuboids, bubbles and pillars, points emphatically to the future.
Where Srodmiescie Poludnie (with perhaps the exception of the oversized Plac Konstitucji) retains the human element in its survivor tenements and manageable streets, Srodmiescie Polnoc (annihilated during WWII) goes exorbitant, and waylays the human in the most terrifying fashion.
Srodmiescie Polnoc (between Marszalkowska and Nowy Swiat) following WWII. In the centre of the picture you can make out the tall skeletal frame of the Prudential building which was painstakingly restored to its former glory.
The problem with Srodmiescie Polnoc, specifically the area between Marszalkowska and Nowy Swiat and Jerozolimskie and Swietokrzyska, is that it is, with its ignominious high rise tower blocks overseeing everything, as much residential as it is anything else. As such, there exists a neglected suburban scheme-feel about the area. In some of the passages behind the cuboid Galeria Centrum on Marszalkowska there is a complete absence of any spatial fluency, (imagine a labyrinth with fifty metre high walls). This might have been all well and good for the sixties when most of these things were thrown up, but now they are out of place and out of time.
What there is in terms of space in this area might be termed as ‘the bleeding effect’ where space drips from one area to the next, where it coagulates and clots due to the contiguity of structures, causing bottlenecks of people and cars, and where perma-dark passages only ever see the light of day during the sun’s more zenithal summery moments. What few fin de siecle buildings exist have their aesthetics levelled in one fell swoop by their propinquity to devastatingly horrid modernist bloks.
This discontinuity and fragmentation of architectural style and of space, of light and gravity and of urban geography, invests Warsaw’s centre with a certain peculiar quality that confers a subliminal sense of panic on the quotidian citizen. In terms of architecture and town planning, Centrum is, in other words, cosmetic surgery gone wrong. It is a precinct of horror, a tragedy on the city stage for all to see. It is perhaps for this reason that the whole area is a shopping centre, advertising openly welcomed. Indeed, the panic invested in the pedestrian means that he or she will at some point wish to conceal themselves from it, most probably in one of the many retail outlets here.
The Marszalkowska Monoliths - Virtual Tombstones for the Annihilated Area.
Maybe by turning the centre into a shopping mall and by accessorizing the faded facades of sixties modernism with multi-coloured ads, Centrum will take on a newer feel, more ‘twenty-first century’, more approachable than ever before, offering people the opportunity to come inside, explore this new world, and avoid such spatial angst.
'Sciana Wschodnia' (the Eastern Wall) at the beginning of the 1970s. In the 1960s, a complex of residential and office buildings went up on the eastern side of Marszalkowska Street between Jerozolimskie and Swietokrzyska. The 'Pasaz Srodmiejskie' with their Central Department stores and the Relax Cinema became one of the most popular places in Warsaw. The above picture reveals a certain idyllic quality with few cars and even a parasol-ed mezzanine in CDT (then one of Poland's largest department stores) on the left. Today, however, the city has not evolved, yet traffic is tenfold, detroying any sense of 'city life' that might once have been. Now, on the contrary, this area is a seething, writhing mess of pollution and chaos.
Looking at the newly built Centrum area in 1965. Again, notice the lack of traffic.
2009, almost half a century later. The same facade, except this time every surface screams.
The above are only a few of Warsaw's many species. Many others exist: the miniaturised Nowy Swiat, Plac Trzech Krzyzy, Stare Miasto (the old town), the great suburban dormitory of Ursynow. To document them is a thesis in itself. Better to wander perhaps, see them first, feel them in all their pervasive (in some cases 'perverse') sense of space.
A COUPLE OF REMARKS ON THE DEEPER REALITY OF THE SLUZEW WALL
The essence of life is not a feeling of being, of existence, but a feeling of participation in a flowing onward, necessarily expressed in terms of time, and secondarily expressed in terms of space.
E. Minkowski (Vers Une Cosmologie)
1. Decay is the flowering of time: it extends into us a sense of width, a wide sense of duration; it is life and death all rolled into one; it is culture, not clutter.
Within a 'simultaneous society' where time has effectively been 'flattened' by speed (projected onto the flat screen of modernity) and denied its duration, man loses his sense of self as a historical being. Decay allows us not just to see and feel time, to touch it even and smell it, but since we ourselves are depleted by similar processes, we contend a solidarity with it.
Decay is not the despair of Ozymandias. On the contrary, decay is a thing of reassuring beauty - it recognises us within the unstoppable flow of the kosmos.
It allows us to participate in time, to move through it; it accords us what the psychiatrist Eugene Minkowski (a man who began his medical studies in Warsaw no less) referred to as 'lived time'.
Decay, in its embrace of death, gives us life.
2. It is somewhat ironic that here, on the Sluzew Wall, decay is symbolic as nature's way of keeping the human species in check, reminding us not only of change and movement and the ephemeral nature of all things (one day a piece is there the next it's gone) but of our powerlessness to resist its force. In the lexicon of graffiti writers these 'pieces' we see on the walls are variously known as 'tags' or 'bombs' or 'burners'. They are a sort of primal marking of territory, a 'territorial signal' to others. When another writer decides to muscle in on this territory it is a matter of course to over-write (in street argot, to 'cap') the extant pieces with his own tag. In this way, he promotes his own super-iority and assumes ownership of the original piece.
Decay then, (as the act of de-composing), is nature's way of capping (and owning) man.
Graffiti is not just about scrawling on walls, though I am sure there are many who think no more of it than just that. Graffiti goes much deeper. It tackles the very bones of existence: creation, destruction, ebb and flow - the endless rhythms of renewal. We would do well to give graffiti a little more credit for involving us so overtly and freely (when was the last time you saw a painting in a gallery 'decompose'?) in this great process. It is no surprise that every metropolis has some. I have yet to visit a city that doesn't. That in itself must tell us something.
Details of a piece. (taken over the period of two years)
Within a 'simultaneous society' where time has effectively been 'flattened' by speed (projected onto the flat screen of modernity) and denied its duration, man loses his sense of self as a historical being. Decay allows us not just to see and feel time, to touch it even and smell it, but since we ourselves are depleted by similar processes, we contend a solidarity with it.
Decay is not the despair of Ozymandias. On the contrary, decay is a thing of reassuring beauty - it recognises us within the unstoppable flow of the kosmos.
It allows us to participate in time, to move through it; it accords us what the psychiatrist Eugene Minkowski (a man who began his medical studies in Warsaw no less) referred to as 'lived time'.
Decay, in its embrace of death, gives us life.
2. It is somewhat ironic that here, on the Sluzew Wall, decay is symbolic as nature's way of keeping the human species in check, reminding us not only of change and movement and the ephemeral nature of all things (one day a piece is there the next it's gone) but of our powerlessness to resist its force. In the lexicon of graffiti writers these 'pieces' we see on the walls are variously known as 'tags' or 'bombs' or 'burners'. They are a sort of primal marking of territory, a 'territorial signal' to others. When another writer decides to muscle in on this territory it is a matter of course to over-write (in street argot, to 'cap') the extant pieces with his own tag. In this way, he promotes his own super-iority and assumes ownership of the original piece.
Decay then, (as the act of de-composing), is nature's way of capping (and owning) man.
Graffiti is not just about scrawling on walls, though I am sure there are many who think no more of it than just that. Graffiti goes much deeper. It tackles the very bones of existence: creation, destruction, ebb and flow - the endless rhythms of renewal. We would do well to give graffiti a little more credit for involving us so overtly and freely (when was the last time you saw a painting in a gallery 'decompose'?) in this great process. It is no surprise that every metropolis has some. I have yet to visit a city that doesn't. That in itself must tell us something.
Details of a piece. (taken over the period of two years)
THE SIMPLE BEAUTY OF THE SILVER BIRCH
Birch trees have a special sacred significance in this part of the world. They are I suppose to northern Europe (and Russia) what bamboo is to south-east Asia. Next door, Finland and Belorus have it as their national tree. For the Siberian tribes of Russia the birch tree is the forest girl: slender, smooth, prone to the occasional weeping; she improves the soil. Poland doesn’t appear to have a national tree but if she did it would probably be the silver birch (Betula pendula).
As a pioneer species, one of the most important functions which birch trees fulfil is that of improving the soil. They are deep-rooted, and their roots draw up nutrients into their branches and leaves, which the trees use for their growth. Some of these nutrients are returned to the surface of the soil each year when the leaves fall in the autumn, thereby becoming available for other organisms in the forest community. An indication of the scale and significance of this nutrient cycling can be drawn from the estimate that birch trees will produce between 3 and 4 tonnes of leaf litter per hectare per year.
All around Warsaw there are great (and small) swathes of birches. In Wierzbno (ironically, the place of the Willow) there is a small unassuming birch entranceway to a block of flats which is made all the more special by its almost perfunctory status. Next door, down at the Russian cemetery, there is a line of birches which runs all the way from Raclawicka Avenue to the southern edge of Pole Mokotowskie, over a kilomtre in length. The latter 370m tail of this, through the allotment garden complex, has been accorded protected status as an ‘aleja zabytkowa’ due to its eco-historico nature.
These trees, whether birch or other, irrespective of their individual age, manage to give Warsaw a sense of deeper time, connecting and rooting the city with a profound and primeval past from which modern Warsaw has emerged. Forests still play a huge part in the city accounting for 14% (7,260 hectares) of the surface area. Most notable of these are Las Bielanski, Rezerwat Morysin and Natolinski, and the Mazowiecki National Park. This 14% doesn’t include the periphery forests of Kampinos or Chojnowski, the respective northern and southern lungs, which are located on the city’s immediate outskirts.
Many foreigners speak of the pretty Polish girls. They are world renowned for their radiant and healthy beauty. But there is another Polish girl who is the silver birch and who is just as elegant, just as beautiful, just as healthy. There is also the added bonus that for 4 months of the year, she is almost completely naked.
As a pioneer species, one of the most important functions which birch trees fulfil is that of improving the soil. They are deep-rooted, and their roots draw up nutrients into their branches and leaves, which the trees use for their growth. Some of these nutrients are returned to the surface of the soil each year when the leaves fall in the autumn, thereby becoming available for other organisms in the forest community. An indication of the scale and significance of this nutrient cycling can be drawn from the estimate that birch trees will produce between 3 and 4 tonnes of leaf litter per hectare per year.
All around Warsaw there are great (and small) swathes of birches. In Wierzbno (ironically, the place of the Willow) there is a small unassuming birch entranceway to a block of flats which is made all the more special by its almost perfunctory status. Next door, down at the Russian cemetery, there is a line of birches which runs all the way from Raclawicka Avenue to the southern edge of Pole Mokotowskie, over a kilomtre in length. The latter 370m tail of this, through the allotment garden complex, has been accorded protected status as an ‘aleja zabytkowa’ due to its eco-historico nature.
These trees, whether birch or other, irrespective of their individual age, manage to give Warsaw a sense of deeper time, connecting and rooting the city with a profound and primeval past from which modern Warsaw has emerged. Forests still play a huge part in the city accounting for 14% (7,260 hectares) of the surface area. Most notable of these are Las Bielanski, Rezerwat Morysin and Natolinski, and the Mazowiecki National Park. This 14% doesn’t include the periphery forests of Kampinos or Chojnowski, the respective northern and southern lungs, which are located on the city’s immediate outskirts.
Many foreigners speak of the pretty Polish girls. They are world renowned for their radiant and healthy beauty. But there is another Polish girl who is the silver birch and who is just as elegant, just as beautiful, just as healthy. There is also the added bonus that for 4 months of the year, she is almost completely naked.
A Silver Birch Grove in Powsin's Park Kultury.
(Top: A line of 20 silver birches in the Kashubian town of Swarzewo between Puck and Wladyslowowo)
THE ALLOTMENTS OF WARSAW
Aleja Brzozowa (Alley of Birches) in the allotment gardens at the southern end of Pole Mokotowskie.
Despite having lived in this area for almost three years and wandered it through and through, I discovered this sanctuary only a few weeks ago secreted in between the Russian Cemetery Park and Pole Mokotowskie.
The allotments (Ogrodki dzialkowe) of Warsaw have a long and colourful history, and are one of the city’s more redeeming features. Almost 5% (1,700 hectares) of Warsaw's city surface is given over to allotments. The first ‘dzialki’ were set up before the war when the Polish Socialist Party put forwards an initiative to form ‘special workers’ oases of peace’. Where the likes of London gradually lost hers to property developers (inner city London was covered with them following WWII) Warsaw has retained hers most emphatically, governed by an allotment cooperative to protect and conserve them.
The allotments (Ogrodki dzialkowe) of Warsaw have a long and colourful history, and are one of the city’s more redeeming features. Almost 5% (1,700 hectares) of Warsaw's city surface is given over to allotments. The first ‘dzialki’ were set up before the war when the Polish Socialist Party put forwards an initiative to form ‘special workers’ oases of peace’. Where the likes of London gradually lost hers to property developers (inner city London was covered with them following WWII) Warsaw has retained hers most emphatically, governed by an allotment cooperative to protect and conserve them.
The district of Mokotow is particularly blessed with these green areas which teem with all manner of life be it animal, vegetable or mineral. During the Communist era, and as part of a remit to have people ‘grow their own’, most of the ‘dzialki’ were allocated to professional groups such as teachers, railway workers or miners. An allotment ‘parcel’ was a symbol of a certain status. More importantly, it was a gurantee of a regular food supply since buying certain foods at stores was not always possible. In effect, it was a form of collective and responsible living which is still vigorously continued to this day.
Sadly, most allotment gardens are closed to the public. However, there are certain gardens which have public throughways like this one. Personally, I have never found it a problem to gain entry to these places. With a little patience and a well-aimed smile (and some very bad Polish), you can be surprised at what you can gain access to!
UNDER THE CHESTNUT TREE
Here in Mokotow, I am surrounded by chestnut trees. Just down the road along the long eastern edge of the avenues of Andrzej Boboli and Woloska there are more than a hundred mature horse chestnuts all standing to attention. The sight (and smell) is quite overpowering at any time of year but particularly in April when their candelabra gently explode outwards.
Down the main thoroughfare of Raclawicka, itself a haven for some glorious oaks, there’s even a couple of red chestnuts dotted about. But it’s the horse chestnut at the end of my skwer that garners my special affection. I salute it every morning as I bask under it like a house fly in the summer sun. It is a fine old beast of a tree, a sage if ever there was one, ideally situated next to a lime, with a bench and the trzepak underneath. The shade it casts in summer is marvellously refreshing.
In summer, on sun-filled mornings like today, the light appears to cascade through its splayed hand-like leaves making the leaves themselves appear almost translucent. The dance of light and shade within is quite a painting. Indeed, if anything were to convince me to take up a palette and brush it would be this - sitting under the chestnut tree.
Lazing in Lazienki, under the chestnuts.
'In Praise of Shade - Under the Chestnut and Lime'.
Down the main thoroughfare of Raclawicka, itself a haven for some glorious oaks, there’s even a couple of red chestnuts dotted about. But it’s the horse chestnut at the end of my skwer that garners my special affection. I salute it every morning as I bask under it like a house fly in the summer sun. It is a fine old beast of a tree, a sage if ever there was one, ideally situated next to a lime, with a bench and the trzepak underneath. The shade it casts in summer is marvellously refreshing.
In summer, on sun-filled mornings like today, the light appears to cascade through its splayed hand-like leaves making the leaves themselves appear almost translucent. The dance of light and shade within is quite a painting. Indeed, if anything were to convince me to take up a palette and brush it would be this - sitting under the chestnut tree.
Lazing in Lazienki, under the chestnuts.
'In Praise of Shade - Under the Chestnut and Lime'.
ALL GO IN WLOCHY
What guides poetic thinking is the conviction that although the living is subject to the ruin of time, the process of decay is at the same time a process of crystallization…
Hannah Arendt
Warsaw, whilst being a city full of ‘development’, is also a city full of decay. It’s what makes it such a poetic place. Even in the city’s centre the wild places and abandoned spaces often contrast unsympathetically with the vanguard of skyscrapers in their fashioned glass and steel sprouting up here and there.
Beginning in the southernmost tip of the borough of Wlochy, Fort Zbarz, located on the border with Mokotow, is a great starting point for wildness and wetness and a study of decay. Fort Zbarz was part of a line of defences built in the early part of the 19th century which consisted of two circles of forts surrounding the city of Warsaw. Fort Zbarz, long since abandoned by humans, is part of the outer circle.
The fort itself has been partially swallowed by the water of its moat creating the image of a terraquaeous city half above half beneath the surface. The paths themselves, signs that not everyone has forgotten of such places, are difficult to follow since they too have been swallowed up by growth. This is the thing with decay. One man’s decay is another man’s growth. As things fall off (de-cadere) and separate from each other, they coalesce and unite with other things. Decay, thus, is not all ‘de-cay’; it is growth too. There are few things quite so majestic as nature retaking its territory.
Midst the reeds and red bricks, a plane flies overhead reminding us that the airport is next door. Terminal 2’s new glass and steel building is not five hundred metres from here, the runway a little less than a kilometre. Whether it’s the fort’s active undergrowth or the airport’s active runway, it’s all go in Wlochy.
Beginning in the southernmost tip of the borough of Wlochy, Fort Zbarz, located on the border with Mokotow, is a great starting point for wildness and wetness and a study of decay. Fort Zbarz was part of a line of defences built in the early part of the 19th century which consisted of two circles of forts surrounding the city of Warsaw. Fort Zbarz, long since abandoned by humans, is part of the outer circle.
The fort itself has been partially swallowed by the water of its moat creating the image of a terraquaeous city half above half beneath the surface. The paths themselves, signs that not everyone has forgotten of such places, are difficult to follow since they too have been swallowed up by growth. This is the thing with decay. One man’s decay is another man’s growth. As things fall off (de-cadere) and separate from each other, they coalesce and unite with other things. Decay, thus, is not all ‘de-cay’; it is growth too. There are few things quite so majestic as nature retaking its territory.
Midst the reeds and red bricks, a plane flies overhead reminding us that the airport is next door. Terminal 2’s new glass and steel building is not five hundred metres from here, the runway a little less than a kilometre. Whether it’s the fort’s active undergrowth or the airport’s active runway, it’s all go in Wlochy.
KILIMANJARO & MNEMOSYNE
Poles try to downplay the significance of the Palace of Culture. Most are either indifferent towards it or hate it altogether. Few have feelings towards it that might mimic a member of their family. Whatever the case, there is no denying the sheer monstrousness of the building itself. Not in half a century since it was built has anything in the city come close to it. Even Liebeskind's effort going on next door, Zloty 44, soon to be the tallest residential block in Europe, will be something of an embarrassment compared to the PKiN. You've got to hand it to Stalin's architects (in this case Lev Rudnev) for mimicking the iron man's own monstrousness, and getting his thanks (and Rudnev the Stalin Prize in 1949) in the process.
However much disdain and gingerbread vocabulary the modernists throw at it there's still no denying fifty years on the Palace of Culture's structural integrity, and its ability to stand alone without cohorts. Where Liebeskind's building will require the help of nearby skyscrapers to form a range of peaks, the Palace of Culture is a Kilimanjaro and a shining mountain in its own right. Factors have conspired to give the Palace a stage that it deserves (700 square metres of space surrounding it) that is as much a part of the building as the very blocks of the building themselves. Like Rudnev's Moscow State University, the building upon which it was modelled, the Palace of Culture has plazas on all four sides allowing its full form and dimension to be appreciated from the necessary distances. One can only hope that this 25 hectare stage, already primed for construction, remains sufficiently low-built as to continue to allow the Palace its spell.
As a teacher whose classroom has an unmolested view of this beast I find myself drifting off at the most inconvenient of times. In a spellbound state I have often drawn the comparison between the Palace of Culture and the Mother of the Muses, Mnemosyne, for both their abilities to render one blissfully lost in thought. Like the Greek word 'mnemon' itself (to be 'mindful') the Palace has both held my attention in my physical wanders throughout the city, and bestowed upon the vagaries of my mind a phantastic daydream quality. Occasionally, in the misty months of January and February, the Palace herself will become 'lost in thought'. It's as if, in her own narcissistic way, she has waylaid herself with her own beauty, and her mind, that pinnacle of inspiration, for a moment, wanders off into the clouds.
However much disdain and gingerbread vocabulary the modernists throw at it there's still no denying fifty years on the Palace of Culture's structural integrity, and its ability to stand alone without cohorts. Where Liebeskind's building will require the help of nearby skyscrapers to form a range of peaks, the Palace of Culture is a Kilimanjaro and a shining mountain in its own right. Factors have conspired to give the Palace a stage that it deserves (700 square metres of space surrounding it) that is as much a part of the building as the very blocks of the building themselves. Like Rudnev's Moscow State University, the building upon which it was modelled, the Palace of Culture has plazas on all four sides allowing its full form and dimension to be appreciated from the necessary distances. One can only hope that this 25 hectare stage, already primed for construction, remains sufficiently low-built as to continue to allow the Palace its spell.
As a teacher whose classroom has an unmolested view of this beast I find myself drifting off at the most inconvenient of times. In a spellbound state I have often drawn the comparison between the Palace of Culture and the Mother of the Muses, Mnemosyne, for both their abilities to render one blissfully lost in thought. Like the Greek word 'mnemon' itself (to be 'mindful') the Palace has both held my attention in my physical wanders throughout the city, and bestowed upon the vagaries of my mind a phantastic daydream quality. Occasionally, in the misty months of January and February, the Palace herself will become 'lost in thought'. It's as if, in her own narcissistic way, she has waylaid herself with her own beauty, and her mind, that pinnacle of inspiration, for a moment, wanders off into the clouds.
Beauty should be painted with her head lost in the clouds wrote Cesare Ripa in Iconologia, for there is nothing more difficult to describe than beauty.
EROTIC ROCKS
Warsaw is full of erratic boulders (Glaz Narzutowy), or 'erotic rocks' as my Slavic companion calls them. At the Geological Institute opposite Rakowiecka Prison (quite a contrast in itself) at the entrance on Wisniowa Street there is the largest (30 ton) erratic boulder in Warsaw. The picture below is the red granitoid of Piaseczno, the largest in Mazuria, the Glaz Mazur. The district of Mokotow seems particularly endowed with these wandering rocks. There are boulders in Lazienki Park, a stone circle at the entrance to the Biblioteka Naradowa, and a variety of rocks at the Museum of the Earth, and, in the small Park Malskowich off Pulawska (opposite Park Dreszera), there are 9 more. In fact, wherever you go in Warsaw, even in the front of shopping malls, you're never far away from an erotic rock. On the other side of the river, a whole street is lined with them, Ulica Traczy in Wygoda in Rembertow, a sort of alley of honour, each one a tombstone for the fallen officers during the war. With these boulders all over Warsaw and beyond comes an element of ‘deep time’ (a term coined by the Scottish Geologist James Hutton) that slips into the consciousness of the passer-by, albeit subliminally. There is movement too in those boulders despite their static appearance. It is a sad reality of over-developed cities in Northern Europe that these boulders have invariably been removed due to the successive layering of society and to make way for a four-lane bypass or another Starbucks, and never been relocated. They have simply vanished under the rationale that there is no ‘point’ to them and they take up space. That there may indeed be no ‘point’ to them is an astute observation, yet it is the body of the boulder that matters. Their massive one-piece size alone is enough to get the mind turning. In Glasgow’s Buchanan Street, there used to be a sculpture, honed from the bone of an erratic boulder, by the name of ‘The Spirit of Kentigern’ (the patron Saint of Glasgow). It came as no surprise that it was locally known for its misshapen features as ‘The Blob’. One morning they came with a truck and lifting gear and hauled it off. Of course, when people complained (the blob apparently had its admirers) the City Council promised its removal was only temporary in order to repave the street. That was five years ago, and there is still no sign of it.
At times I feel like an erratic boulder - Poland is the eleventh country I have lived and worked in during the past 13 years. Gilles Deleuze, a man who wrote widely on the nomadic spirit of man, spoke of man’s ‘sacred right of migration’, his duty almost, to go out and explore the world. I had always found ‘holidays’ somewhat limiting in the temporary perspectives they offered. TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) provided the opportunity I was looking for, to move and reside simultaeneously, errancy and residency, to really travel (and travail) a country. Here in Poland, when I watch the storks, themselves great migrators, seemingly lazing about spending whole days nest-bound doing nothing in particular, it is easy to miss the mass of internal work that is going on. The eating, the resting, the thinking, the slow build-up of energy, the storing of such, in anticipation of the next move. Erratic boulders (or teflers) are no different. Living inter-glacially, it is only a matter of time before the wandering begins again.
SPACER ARKITEKTURA
A 1950s squat block in Stare Rembertow. Not to be confused with the practice of 'squatting', that is 'occupying a building without legal title', the squat block (here, a sort of sideways high rise) is particularly common in Warsaw and a more humane variation of housing solutions.
The spacey French Embassy on the corner of Ulica Piekna and Ulica John Lennona.
Building on Ulica Czerniakowska
This blog is really just an excuse to get all cosmic. In fact, that's what city stravaiging is all about: attuning into the greater picture, getting a feel for time and space, tapping in to the life and death of the metropolis. The city, if you let it, can faciltate the experience of being rooted in the continuum of space and time. Architecture is a great starting point. But there are other ways too: birds, plants, trees, people even. You just have to open yourself up to it, and like a well-tuned wireless, refine the senses to receive their 'frequencies'. The weakening of the experience of time, the commodification of space, the growing desensitization of self through technology (and an economic model predicated on profit and competition), has devastating mental effects. People now speak in a terrifying chorus of not 'having' enough time, and of 'making' a living. They see life as a paper mache mask; they treat space as something to be occupied, to be measured and bought by the square metre. Time, well, time is money, is it not?
The human untied from time and space is the human disintegrated from the 'kosmos' of the beautiful whole. Lend your self to architecture - the patina of time, of wear and tear, of weathering and decay, will help you, perhaps. As will its textures and contours, its enlivening of space. Wander through the city with an aletheic gaze. Look, touch, taste and feel. Do not rely on the eyes. Be haptic! Listen too. You may hear something of that harmonising force which includes you.
The human untied from time and space is the human disintegrated from the 'kosmos' of the beautiful whole. Lend your self to architecture - the patina of time, of wear and tear, of weathering and decay, will help you, perhaps. As will its textures and contours, its enlivening of space. Wander through the city with an aletheic gaze. Look, touch, taste and feel. Do not rely on the eyes. Be haptic! Listen too. You may hear something of that harmonising force which includes you.
This is one of several 'kopulaki' (copulating domes) in Ulica Ustrzycka just to the west of Zwirki i Wigury in Jadwisin. Built and designed in the sixities by architect Andrzej Iwanicki, a loophole in building regulations was exploited which denied space to constructions which exceeded a certain height. The result was this low level housing, mammary style, which allowed more ground space to be exploited by the architect. Several still exist intact from their initial design; others have mutated. Out of the planned 70, only ten were actually built, but what a ten!
Secreted behind the facade of Ulica Moliera 6, this wonderful structure at Ulica Kozia 9 is indicative of the hidden gems available to the curious stravaiger. Poking your head in through gateways, through tunnelled entrances, past grand portals, is a trait I picked up in Paris and Naples, two very different cities whose real flesh lies hidden and concealed intra muros.
The 'mouth' building on Browarna Street in Powisle is another idiosyncratic structure that has been earmarked for demolition. It has acted as an outlet for the university since the sixties.
Another building in the throes of 'remodification' this one on Pulawska is probably considered an eyesore by most if it is considered at all. A wonderful structure whose tabled base frees up the facade in true Corbusien fashion allowing for full windowed walls on both sides. The result is an airy and spatious building, the back end of which looks over the Warsaw escarpment with views further beyond to the river and the east side.
'Marvellous' insofar as it makes the mind marvel at how on earth it managed to get built. This is the Centrum Zdrowia (Health Centre) in Miedzylesie. It doesn't look too bad in fact framed against a clear blue spring sky. It is a building of magnitude, not imagination.
Another block, this time of a more solid and durable nature. Continuing along the north-south route linking Mokotow and Zoliborz, this photograph taken from Elektoralna Street, is of one of the solid arcaded cornerstone bloks of Jana Pawla II. This area was the heart of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, and it was completely destroyed in 1944. The rebuilding program of the 50s was a massive undertaking with many comparing Warsaw at this time to a huge building site. The new throughfare with its sturdy neo-renaissance buildings (which can also be seen on Andersa Street, below) was constructed from 1953-1959.
The relatively short street of General Anders just to the west of the New Town is framed beautifully by the arcaded blocks you see here. The street itself, a little like the building, is not one of your usual streets; there is something curious about its multi-pathed system. In the autumn and winter months, on a cold clear morning, when the sun beats a path straight through, the buildings and the street are illuminated in all their glory. Like the blocks on Jana Pawla II these too were built in the craze of apartment block construction that swept through Warsaw in the fifties.
This corner blok on Niepodleglosci and Dabrowskiego in Mokotow was recently restored both inside and out. Designed by President Stefan Starzynski, who has a plaque dedicated to him on the opposite corner, this stretch of Aleje Niepodleglosci (between Pole Mokotowskie and Wierzbno metro stations) is a grand boulevard cum expressway which was built in parallel to 'Europe's last great street' that of Karl Marx Allee (formerly Stalinallee) in Berlin. Though Niepodleglosci's socialist architecture does not possess much of the finesse of its German counterpart, its buildings, though perhaps the avenue width, does maintain a similar dimension.
This pre-war villa at 101 Madalinskiego street in Mokotow in its strict geometric form and austere blank gable wall is almost completely Loosian in design. The two guardian oak and chestnut (the only sign of 'ornamentation') frame the north facade beautifully. The house mirrors itself on the other side, and has remained unoccupied for some time now, though its garden is evidently taken good care of. Through much meditation upon the structure I have come to know it as the 'Logic House' (so-called after the house Ludwig Wittgenstein, a close friend of Adolf Loos, designed for his sister in Vienna). The building even drew a poem from my innards, one which was superiorly inferior to the poetry of the building itself.
This 'balcony building' residence 18a Karowa Street just off Krakowskie Przedmiescie is wonderfully different from the standard block. From a head-on angle you could be forgiven for being a little puzzled. Indeed, it's only when viewed from the side that you can see a kitchen window part of the flat below. Thus, the balcony for one, is the niche kitchen for another. It is a rather odd design, reflecting the building's experimental nature.
A 1950s squat block in Stare Rembertow. Not to be confused with the practice of 'squatting', that is 'occupying a building without legal title', the squat block (here, a sort of sideways high rise) is particularly common in Warsaw and a more humane variation of housing solutions.
A squat block in Nowolipki, formerly part of the Jewish Ghetto. Nowolipki is a wonderful area in the city centre and was the site of Warsaw's first 'garden city', a residential area full of tree-filled courtyards which would be built upon the ashes of many of the Jews who died here.
Located on Aleja Niepodleglosci between Raclawicka and Wierzbno metros, this is a huge structure some 500 metres square. With its castellated roof and its 'zuckerbackerstil' (wedding-cake style) it has something of a regal feel to it. When the soft summer light hits it as in this photograph, it reminds me of Jordan's Nabbatean Treasury in Petra, which also glows pink in the late afternoon light. Both structures, in their perfect portrayals of solid stonework and expert craftsmanship, represent the true art of building. Where Petra's 'Treasury' was not so much a building as a relief and a facade, this treasury has a network of spacious apartments and verdant courtyards to its interior. In its size, not so much tall as wide and thick, it mimics the colossal Socialist Realism of other grand housing projects: the Stalinist 'magistrale' of MDM in Plac Konstitucji, Nowa Huta in Krakow, Independence Avenue in Minsk and that of Karl Marx Allee in Berlin. This particular structure is one of my all time Warsaw favourites. Its placement here in the middle of Mokotow at the southern end of the city represents for me the end of the city proper and the beginning of the endless city suburbs.
This building and its predicament is a good example of Warsaw town planning. All around Chalubinskiego Street are WWII survivors nursed back to their former health. The three storey townhouses at the rear with their red mansard roofs give something of a Parisian quality to this area. And yet, in the midst of it all, a towering goliath, completely out of place. It is a curious building for its sort of Babushka (telescopic) principle which can be better discerned close up. I have always thought there a certain pyramidal quality to it, not least because of the colour. But don't take my word for it. As I say, this part of Chalubinskiego was painstakingly restored after the war. There are some fine buildings here, and predicaments like this will certainly help to keep the senses open.
The economics department headquarters building in Aleje Niepodleglosci. The peaked cap of a roof is supposed to signify the prow of a ship. The greatest thing about this building is perhaps the solar sightlines that remain open to it as envisaged in this crepuscular showdown.
No blog on Warsaw would be complete without several pictures (one is not enough) of the 42 storey goliath that was Stalin's parthian shot (so to speak) to the people of Warsaw. When the light hits it so it is truly the paragon of a beast. But you will have to be quick with these autumnal dusks, for soon, between the sun and the palace will rise the tallest residential complex in Europe, Zloty 44, designed by Daniel Liebeskind, slashing its shadow like a Stanley knife across this the north face of the Palace of Culture.
Built in 2003 in Warsaw's historic area of Plac Piludskiego and Saski Gardens Norman Foster's Metropolitan building is a real Zen-like structure. The three symbols of Zen, the square, the triangle and the circle, are melded seamlessly to produce a building of staggering virtuosity. Goethe was once told by a poet friend of his that architecture was like music that had frozen. It is no coincidence that Foster's block stands next to Warsaw's Opera.
At its most basic level, the Metropolitan is what you might call a three-part office block. On the most obvious level it is an office building, the first triple A class in Warsaw; next, it is a public square which is incorporated into the structure which can just be seen from the circular frame eking out at the top; lastly, it is a commercial building housing cafes and shops at its base. The building, in spite of its futuristic design and use of materials, blends well into an area replete with historic structures. Here, the height factor is played down to the wide factor. Circling round as a tripartite building, this is a real island of a building as perhaps reflected in the image beneath. Incidentally, in this picture, as well as the Opera House and the Old Town, you can see the hidden gem documented above as a standalone block behind a row of tenements.
At its most basic level, the Metropolitan is what you might call a three-part office block. On the most obvious level it is an office building, the first triple A class in Warsaw; next, it is a public square which is incorporated into the structure which can just be seen from the circular frame eking out at the top; lastly, it is a commercial building housing cafes and shops at its base. The building, in spite of its futuristic design and use of materials, blends well into an area replete with historic structures. Here, the height factor is played down to the wide factor. Circling round as a tripartite building, this is a real island of a building as perhaps reflected in the image beneath. Incidentally, in this picture, as well as the Opera House and the Old Town, you can see the hidden gem documented above as a standalone block behind a row of tenements.
Aerial view of Saski Gardens, Monument to the Unknown Soldier, Plac Piludskiego, Foster's Metropolitan, the Opera House, and the Old Town.
The title picture to this blog is of the famous Za Zelazna Brama Estate in the city centre. The square in front used to be a thriving black market place during WWII, occupying an oculus within the encircling Jewish Ghetto. These buildings, originally conceived as Corbusier like 'Unites d'Habitation' by students of the great man himself, consisted of a fleet of 19 which were built in the 1960s to house an ever-growing city population. The title itself 'behind the iron gate' derived from a cartouche in the nearby Saski Gardens which no longer exists. The idealistic vision of wide-rises to adequately house all facets of the individual has always been a questionable concept. Here, it was more a question of economics and demographics, and of time. Initially built to optimise incoming sunlight which, it was thought, would relieve the tension of such 'factory living', the buildings have since suffered greatly because of this. Heat, humidity, extreme cold and the general effects of weathering have all taken their toll. To add insult to injury, the space between the buildings is constantly under attack from property developers and the like. From being initially lauded as a sort of Manhattan complex of high living standards, the buildings now are viewed as something of a blight on Warsaw's central cityscape.
I call this one 'the building of a thousand eyes' for the most obvious reason. It stands on the corner of Koszykowa and Mokotowska, and though in need of a paint-job is a thoroughly unique structure with its shadowed ground level and maze-pattern balconies. Its facade too has been 'freed' to allow all those eyes (eye and window in Polish, oko and okno, are practically the same word). Its colour also, a sort of high frequency corn yellow, brings a little vibrancy to an otherwise tenebrous corner of Srodmiescie Poludnie.
The spacey French Embassy on the corner of Ulica Piekna and Ulica John Lennona.
Building on Ulica Czerniakowska
This is the entrance foyer to the arthouse cinema Kino Iluzjon in the wonderfully serene square of Antoni Slonimskiego. The main auditorium, replete with fleabitten curtain and some several hundred seats (that have all but lost their zest for life), is a splendid space with carved reliefs of Warsaw's mermaid maiden Syrenka etched into the high walls. At present in 2009, this location is closed and the building's fate is in the balance. It may, or may not, be renovated. During the two years of our great relationship I feasted on films such as Blood Simple, The Passenger, The Wages of Fear, Tom Horn, Manhattan, Chinatown, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Fahrenheit 451, Angel Heart and many many more. I've always thought that a healthy relationship with any city has to involve a picture house like this one. Warsaw, with places like Kino Luna, Kino Wisla, Kino Muranow and Kino Femina is a city that has not yet kowtowed to the soul-less profit-hungry multiplex. It is a city of fleabitten velvet curtains, dodgy seats and grainy, lovingly washed prints!
Recently restored in 2008 the Hera building, with its guardian hickory, stands on the corner of Gagarina and Belwederska at the southern end of Lazienki Park.
This is the atrium of the former Communist Headquarters Building, now very much the caldera of capitalism from which all eruptions effuse.
Recently restored in 2008 the Hera building, with its guardian hickory, stands on the corner of Gagarina and Belwederska at the southern end of Lazienki Park.
Although Warsaw was home to a stock exchange since 1817, in 1945, because of political changes after World War II, it could not be recreated. It only started operating again in April 1991, after the reintroduction of the free-market economy. From 1991 until 2000 the stock exchange was situated in this building pictured on the corner of Jerozolimskie and Nowy Swiat. It was previously used as the headquarters of the Central Planning Committee of the Polish Communist Party (PZPR). The reason for using this building was two-fold: the first was the symbolic value attached to the building, and the second was the fact that no other building in Warsaw was as well connected with telecommunications.
This is the atrium of the former Communist Headquarters Building, now very much the caldera of capitalism from which all eruptions effuse.
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