I often take the tram from Ratusz-Arsenał up Ul. Gen Anders before taking a right up Most Gdanski across the river.
Whenever I take this journey on the way back I feel a little sad. Warsaw doesn’t have a really have an iconic riverfront and the best view across the river is off the Old Town with the Pałac Kultury, but this doesn’t really cut the mustard when compared to a riverfront view of Paris, London or Moscow.
Added to which large parts of the central riverfront on either side are pretty dilapidated. London has some ugly parts but you can still have a really nice walk from Vauxhall up the river towards Embankment.
In addition at night I don’t think the Old Town is very well illuminated, if it was it might make more of an impression. But people do live there as well, I suppose, unlike most of central, touristy London.
Why is it important? Well, what are the defining architectural images of Warsaw that any European person might be able to recall? Pałac Kultury, possibly. Ok, fine. Next? I can’t think of one, and I am not sure there is another. Pick any other modern European capital and they all have a host of easily recognisable iconic buildings:
Paris: Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysee, Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral, Pompidou Centre etc. Etc.
Moscow: Kremlin, Red Square, Bolshoi Theatre, that big cathedral with the onion domes.
London: Big Ben, St Pauls, Buck Palace, Trafalgar Square etc. Etc.
Those are just a few off the top of my head. The centre of a city, especially a Capital city, should try to be in some way the expression of the soul of its people and should speak to foreigners saying “I’m here, come visit!” The new sky-scrapers which have been built in the centre certainly reflect the rejuvenated economy of Poland but I wonder where the imagination in them lies.
The giant Ferris wheel in central London, erected for just a year in 2000 but then retained because of its popularity, shows that it’s possible to build structures which place themselves in people’s memories as the signatures of a city and keep them coming back.
Perhaps I am being too hard on Warsaw. It’s not its fault that centuries of beautiful architecture was destroyed in the Second World War and subsequent Communist city planning, perhaps it’s more a lack effective marketing and Poland playing catch-up on the tourism Euro.
There are beautiful sights and places to visit in Warsaw, you just have to squirrel them out, and I guess in the end that’s part of the charm of this non gentrified, non ‘Starbucksed’ city. But there's still a need for imaginative, striking buildings and attractions, too.
http://img251.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=miastoruin01.png
ReplyDeleteJust to back up your point on much of Warsaw being destroyed.
The trouble with the river in Warsaw is that it's never been embanked and tamed—the city has to stand back from it on the hill because it's always been a huge flood risk. It would be a massive job and almost certainly not worth it now that commercial traffic on the Vistula barely exists.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought about that... so in that case we need more monuments! and a general clean up of plac konstytyci!
ReplyDeleteI disagree with island1, I think that the Vistula is more worth it than ever as Warsaw has no focal point and hence no focus for the people of Warsaw and tourists. Money needs to be directed somewhere and to "control" the river is actually a relatively simple process for the area it inhabits now. They had a competition about 2 years ago for designs for a rejuvenation of this area but I never saw the end results.... I think the most sensible option is to actually build a precinct above the river on the Western side with piered construction So there are river views, but above rather than across the water. The next step would be to make the river more "functional" for the population maybe with ferries up and down from North bridge with multiple stops to say New town, Old town and down to lazienkowski. Rather than seeing the river as a city divider it should be changed to be a uniter of the two sides. :)
ReplyDeleteMe Em - do you have a link to any of the designs that were submitted? would be interesting to see. A proper ferry system and a tidied up river front definitely makes it into my manifesto for a Better Warsaw, to which I will add it now!
ReplyDeleteTidied up rather than canal-ised, if that's the right word, I mean.
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