Palace of Culture and Science
Warsaw is a city whose skyline is dominated by the Stalinist-era Palace of Culture and where a heated debate is under way on how to turn the vast space around it into a genuine human-scale city centre, its argued that in its present shape this empty space is not a genuine city centre.
‘These vast spaces as were created around the Palace of Culture which stands in the middle, like a candle in a birthday tart…they don’t encourage people to stay longer. The people run through this space, there’s continuous traffic, they’re in movement; this is what’s contradicting with the idea of the city centre.’
Professor Lech Kłosiewicz of the School of Architecture at Warsaw’s University of Technology
‘…to fill up city fabric with more structures but not necessarily so high. These tall buildings do not contribute to the direct use by the citizens. They are mostly offices and banks. What serves people are large number of small spaces – cafes and small shops offering a variety of attractions, so the essence of the issue is that Warsaw during the reconstruction process lost its human scale.’
‘There’s no city centre in Warsaw at all. People have no place to go, to spend a whole day and meet with friends. There’re only lots of shopping malls but it’s not a social space.’
