Warsaw [antikvár]

2'bis album - "Warsaw. Landscape and Architecture" - is the successive publication illustrating the encbantment of our city. It should be of interest not only to vistors to Warsaw but alsó to native Varsovians who walk tbe city's streets day after day but do not always notice the delights around them, tbe deligbts of a city with rich traditions in Polish history and culture. "Tbe city is large and densely inbabited and its panorama from the river is among the most beatiful in Europe. Wberever man treads, be finds new, encbanting sigbts pleasing alike to eyes and heart..." Thus almost four hundred years ago a visitor from distant Francé wrote about the city; from tbe first moments of his visit to the town on the Vistula River he feli under its spell. His Warsaw was not yet the capital and came low down on the list of the metropolises of Europe. A survey made in 1614 revealed that there were only 691 houses on both sides of the Vistula. However, even then tbe town with a mermaid in its coat of arms must bave been of such outstanding beauty as neither elemental disasters nor tbe catastropbies of history could extinguish. And Warsaw was not spared tragic experiences. In 1607, only a few years after it became the capital, a great fire broke which destroyed So percent of the buildings. And before the traces of the conflagration were obliterated, tbere came the Swedish invasion, during which the capital tbrice feli into tbe hands of the invaders and thrice was besieged and destroyed. Of sucb events there were several repetitions. The city renewed itself between wars; it was constantly laid low only to rise again like pboenix from ashes. By bappy chance numerous works of tbe great masters of architecture survived tbe recurrent tempests of history. The íith century left us the palace in Wilanów created by Augustin Locci and the palace of the Krasinski family built by another great master - Tylman of Gameren. The first bistorical outline of wbat is now the Saxon Axis and the present beadquarter of Warsaw architects - tbe Palace "Pod Blachq" (under tbe Sheet-Metal Roof) are reminders of the Saxon period. ln the t'nes of Stanislaus Augustus, the course of Marszalkowska Street Was traced and a genuine gem of architecture - the palace in Lazienki Park - was erected. The igth century gave us the Treasury Palace, now the seat of the Presidium of the Warsaw National Council, and the Staszic Palace - botb built by Corazzi together with development in building tbe industrial districts of Wola and Praga, with the first railway stations and the new squares: Trzech Krzyzy (Three Crosses), Warecki and Bankowy (Bank). During the twenty years between the two world wars, the city developed very rapidly. But together with buildings and settlemenls which undoubtedly represented architectural achievement, there emerged whole districts of dark tenement houses and slum quarters. A generál plan for the development of Warsaw which was worked out a few years before the Second World War broke out and which envisaged many bold and modern úrban projects, was never realised. Only a part of tbe boulevards running along the Vistula and of what is today the N-S (North-South) thoroughfare were completed. At dawn on September 1, 1939, the first bombs felt on Warsaw. An arduous and testing period ensued. The plan to wipe the capital of Poland off the map, which was systematically carried out by the Nazi barbarians led to its almost complete destruction in 1945. "Warsaw is but a geographical point on the map of Europe" Hitler screamed in the Reichstag. "Perbaps somé city will one day be built in its place, but that will not. be Warsaw" wrote the first journalists who in 1945 walked through streets which were then charred tunnels in heaps of rubble. Such extreme pessimism did not seem to be unjustified. Ninety percent of tbe buildings were destroyed, there was no light nor water, hospitals were demolished, communication was non-existent and living conditions in the dead city were nomadic. No plethora of splendid buildings reacbing for the sky - nothing but a desert of rubble. However, life rose above pessimism. As early as january íj, 1945 - that is, 4 days before the city was liberated - the People's Authority decided in Lublin that the capital would be rebuilt. The inhabitants of Warsaw returned over the frozen Vistula to their city. They returned confident that they could breathe new life into their city. From the very first days the inhabitants of the capital threw tbemselves into the arduous task of reconstruction, supported by the entire nation. Not a year passed before the city changed radically. The first factories began to operate, dozens of streets