Mission: Warszawa Centrum II

The Royal Route, Our Route.

Dear Readers! The remarkable weather here continues and we decided that a trip into the city was appropriate for our next adventure. Since we live very close to Wilanów Palace (it is just across a field behind the house) we would follow the historic Royal Route (Trakt Królewski) from the palace north to its end at the Royal Castle in Old Town square. Afterwards, we would drop down the escarpment, then make our way back along the river, as in our previous Warszawa Centrum mission. It was forecast to be warm later in the day, but our 7:00 AM start guaranteed that our experience would actually be quite chilly. Long sleeves would be necessary.

About a month ago, a dear, former student of mine sent me the first page of a reading she was assigned for one of her university classes.  The thesis of the chapter was: a city cannot be a work of art. Without seeing the entire chapter (the full context), I can't comment on the author's arguments, even though I have an immediate response to the claim--namely, she's correct. I can also say that the thesis has stuck with me for a month in my travels in and around Warsaw and other parts of Poland. Whether in a taxi, bus, walking, in the car or riding with Kościuszko, I'm constantly looking around and making mental notes of the aesthetic components of Warsaw, as a city.




As we headed out it was apparent that the wind was out of the south-southeast (as is usually the case), so I knew that going into the Centrum (North) would be easier than the coming home (South). The start was relaxed and the low morning sun cast eerily long shadows. I was so transfixed by the dayscape and by feeling nearly alone in the sunny chill, that we missed our turn onto Sobieskiego Avenue! No matter, we had no time constraints and I felt completely free to make mistakes. Gently chiding Kościuszko for not reminded me to turn, we backtracked to the intersection and resumed our northwards course towards Old Town.

The origins of Warsaw are shrouded in something of a mystery. Rather than engage in speculation about these beginnings, suffice it to say that it started as a fishing village between the larger, fortified settlements of Bródno (on the right bank of the Vistula) and Jazdów (on the left bank of the Vistula). When the settlement of Jazdów was raided and destroyed around 1300, Bolesław II of Masovia (Bolesław II mazowiecki, 1253-1313) ordered the village of Warsaw to be fortified with walls and a moat. This new stronghold grew and quickly became an important power center in Masovia, to the detriment of Czersk, further south, which I wrote about last week.

From the 14th through 16th centuries, ecclesiastic and secular lords founded small settlements outside the now Royal Village (what we now call Warsaw Old Town, Stare Miasto). These settlements would eventually become the neighborhoods of Warsaw and grew separately from the area around the fortified Royal Palace. At this early period in Warsaw's history there was no city plan, but there were two primary roads leading from the Royal Castle that remain to this day: (1) Aleje Ujazdowskie, which runs south through what used to be the fortified village of Jazdów (and the Ujazdowski Castle) thence to Wilanów Palace (this road being the Royal Route), and (2) Senatorska, which heads southwest out of town (changing names as it goes). These are shown in light green on the map below.

The first real attempt at city planning didn't happen until the early 1700s under Augustus II the Strong (August II Mocny, 1694-1733), an interesting character, to be sure. Augustus was both King of Poland and Lithuania as well as the Elector of Saxony. Augustus was known as a patron of the arts and for Warsaw he envisioned a large Baroque-style, Versailles-like set of gardens and palaces extending from the Vistula southwest to Iron-Gate Square (Plac Żelaznej Bramy), nearly a mile away (1.6 km). This complex, small compared to Versailles, was to be called the Saxon Axis (Oś Saska), since an imaginary extension of the midpoint line of the garden-palace grounds would link up with Augustus' residence, Dresden Castle, in Dresden, Saxony. The axis is shown in yellow on the map. Although the land was bought and some gardens and structures were built, the project was never fully realized. This failure was due to Augustus' rather complicated political and interesting personal life, worthy of some further exploration, but not today.

The second real attempt at city planning didn't begin until 1780, under Stanisław II August Poniatowski. Stanisław August was another particularly interesting ruler with truly mixed reviews, he was reviled for failing to stand up to the partitions of Poland, but was--at the same time--beloved for his patronage of the arts and sciences. He conceived of a complex of roads, patterned after the French star style, focused at the Ujazdowski Castle (Zamek Ujazdowski), which would connect all of the important parts of the city. This set of roads is referred to as the Stanislavski Axis (Oś Stanisławowska) and is shown in magenta on the map.

Kościuszko and I cruised past a host of impressive structures: The Belvedere Palace, important Polish government offices, the monument to Frederic Chopin, the grounds of Łazienki Park, and finally to the point of the Stanlislavski Axis that touched the Royal Route. This was a truly impressive array of avenues!

As Warsaw rolled into the 19th Century, growth continued, incorporating more of the surrounding lands. The resulting city seemed something of a chaotic maze with no apparent thoughtful organization. This haphazard mashup of villages continued unabated until after World War I, when Poland gained its independence.

Żoliborz Neighborhood. Source.

In the ensuing interwar period (1918-1939), with Poland determining its own destiny, Warsaw became the exciting proving grounds for a whole generation of Polish architects. These young and talented architects (mostly Modernists) left their mark on the newest of Warsaw neighborhoods such as Ochota, Mokotów, Wola, and Żoliborz, in the form of Modernist villa and worker estates. A particularly striking example of this is in Old Żoliborz where housing was designed and built based on the occupations of inhabitants; military officers, writers, clerks and workers.

Also during this period, after more than 100 years of Russian rule, Poles were keen on dismantling any structure that hinted at Russian Imperial authority. Some orthodox churches were removed, Russian-style wooden houses were destroyed and replaced by more European-looking dwellings, secular buildings were remodeled in European fashion, buildings and streets were renamed, and many roads were straightened; anything that could be done to give Warsaw a Western European face was the goal. An almost conscious planning of the city's social and economic functions seemed to be happening during this time.

Kościuszko and I, still seemingly alone in this large city, made great time towards the Royal Castle, passing notable monuments, churches, parks and buildings. By the time we passed the Nicholas Copernicus statue, a few more vehicles were beginning to appear and there were some people on the street. The Saxon Garden (part of the Saxon Axis), passed by to the left and in no time we found ourselves in Castle Square, where there was already a very large tour group (30+) of Korean tourists hoofing their way past the Royal Castle and into Old Town.

We know, of course, that this interwar makeover didn't last. The war came and by now we all know the outcome of that conflict and that Warsaw was probably the most-devastated city of the entire unpleasant affair. I only say "probably" because some city centers were more damaged (Hiroshima, Dresden), and some cities approached the damage of Warsaw's Centrum (Berlin, Nagasaki, Coventry). However, by the end of the war nearly 85% of all of Warsaw's buildings, citywide, had been destroyed. This included 95% of the historical buildings and monuments and most libraries, schools and universities. No other city could lay claim to this level of widespread destruction.

Jan Kiliński, 1947. From Henry N. Cobb.

In 1945, the rebuilding of Warsaw seemed a daunting, perhaps hopeless task. Some even wanted to leave the city as-is, like some permanent war memorial, but homeless Varsovians were already flooding back into the city and this option couldn't be seriously considered.

It is astonishing to me to see this city now and to look at photographs from immediately after the war. For the keenly interested, in 1947, Henry N. Cobb, an American architect, visited Warsaw. He took scores of amazing color photos during his visit. In 2011, he published an informal manuscript of some of these photos, which you can view on this page. One picture shows the surviving statue to Jan Kiliński (1760-1819), who was a commander under Kościuszko during the 1794 Uprising. He appears to be alone in a field, but in fact was in Old Town on Piekarska street. During the restoration Jan was given a new plinth and pedestal and bears no resemblance to Cobb's picture in this post. Click here to see pictures of him now.

By and large most Poles were in favor of restoring as much of the city to its pre-war state as possible. This objective was opposed by the new government, which wanted a new city and complete turn towards what we now might call Stalinist Modernism. For them, the old buildings--particularly the large villas and estates from the turn of the century and many of the Modernists' experimental designs--were bourgeois relics that had to be destroyed, and Warsaw represented the perfect tabula rasa to implement an ideal socialist city. Obviously, the drama of reconstruction played out for many years.

On the side of complete reconstruction of the pre-war Warsaw was Jan Zachwatowicz, an architect and professor at Warsaw University of Technology and on the other side, advocating a new city with limited reconstruction, were Roman Piotrowski and Józef Sigalin. In the early years of reconstruction Zachwatowicz won the day, but as the Communist government began to discourage ties to the past and clamp down on freedom of expression, the forces of Sigalin and Piotrowski prevailed. By 1955 Socialist Realism and state control were the rule of the day, even though many reconstruction projects lingered on into the 1960s and 1970s. By 1974, when the restoration of the Royal Castle was finally completed, the reconstruction period had officially ended. Within 30 years of the destruction of the city, Warsaw had rebuilt itself.

Royal Castle, Old Town Warsaw, 14 October 2018.

Kościuszko and I said our good-byes to the Royal Castle and left via the Royal Route. At the Bristol Hotel we took a left on Karowa Street, a narrow, looping, cobbled descent down the escarpment to the river embankment below. This is something of a treacherous descent, so we went slowly. I would guess that it is actually safer to go up this steep little hill, than to go down...but then there is the question of the cars. Luckily, only at 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning can you expect to find no traffic in this part of town!

The Communist regime came and went, and in the 1990s Poland found itself with complete autonomy to decide its own fate. Since then, Warsaw has continued to grow and change. There are new challenges, too. Shoddily constructed buildings and infrastructure hastily built 40 or 50 years ago are showing signs of age. Much of the construction I see is the repair of these post-war structures. Too, with the city growing, urban planning has become a must--and that accounts for the other half of construction projects taking place. As part of this post, and because I am a concerned resident of this city, I read a publication of the Warsaw Office of Architecture and Spatial Planning. It is an expansive document that lays out some of the current challenges and solutions that Warsaw faces. If you're interested in city planning or in Warsaw itself, give it a read. You can find it here.

I agree that a city cannot be a work of art. There well may be an aesthetic intersection between art and architecture that may lead one to believe that it can be, but the disciplines come from different starting points and are moving in different directions. Still, Warsaw is an amazing and beautiful city. Consider for a moment the excellent examples of architectural styles to be found here: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Functionalism, Modernism and Stalinism, Post-Modernism, Contemporary and whatever other styles I may have neglected to mention or am ignorant of. This eclectic mixture of original and restored architecture from all styles is highly symbolic of the turbulent history not just of Warsaw, but of Poland itself. We would be far poorer if we did not have these myriad architectural reminders of the rich history and culture of this place.

Kościuszko and I steered into the wind and headed south. We picked up the pace a bit, wind notwithstanding, and did a few intervals to actually break a sweat. The sunrise, now complete, was still radiant and the sights along the Vistula of a waking city were a gentle reminder that every day is an opportunity for transformations. We cruised home comfortably at 18-19 mph (30 kph), breathing deeply and grateful for the opportunity to see yet more of this wonderful city and country.

Until next time, Dear Readers, Ride On!