Ana-Maria Szilagyi
What does the
contrast between the polished well-cared for ‘Old Town’ and the decaying
antique Praga say about the city of Warsaw? How does architecture portray the
relationship of Warsaw with its past and more importantly, how is this past
projected into the future, now that the city is becoming one of the most visited
capitals in Europe?
The so-called
Old City, in downtown Warsaw, has been rebuilt anew after having been destroyed
during WWII. Enormous care has been devoted to rebuilding it as to recreate the
pre-war atmosphere and style. On the contrary, Praga –a district that has
become part of the capital only in the 18th century—is decrepit and
antique: it has not been significantly impacted by the war even if one can
still see wartime bullets in some buildings; not war but time is changing and
transforming its facade, as one can easily notice when walking along streets with
crumbling buildings.
Reconstructing
the Old Town has been the result of a meticulous endeavor aimed at recreating
one of the most important representations of Polish culture. As such, the Old
town is more like a well-polished but artificial memory of the past. It represents
the way Polish people have chosen to deal with the impact of the war and with
their own past: the Old Town had to be reconstructed as close as possible to
the way it was before the war to represent the attachment of the Polish to the
values incarnated by this space –elective authority and tolerance.[1]
On the contrary, Praga, with its old and
crumbling architecture is a live testimony of the life and urban space before the
war. But, since no attention has been given to its conservation during Communist
times, this district started decaying.
Until a couple
of years ago, Praga was nicknamed ‘the Bermuda Triangle’ for the danger one
could incur in when walking along its streets; even though Praga is one of the
few districts that has not been significantly impacted by the war, its
buildings have not been conserved appropriately, criminality is extremely high and
some of the poorest people in the city inhabit this area. Walking through
Praga’s streets, its yards and courtyards, one cannot but notice the poverty
and the decay. But, in Praga, we can also see and feel the evolution of the
history of the 20th century and its impact on the architecture, which
we cannot do in the Old Town.
While the people
and the authorities considered the reconstruction of the Old Town central to the reconstruction of the nation,
to the debate on how to deal with the past and what role remembering should
play in the urban space, there has been no debate nor attention given to Praga.
While Praga’s architecture might not have been as much a testimonial of Polish
culture, its multicultural population was a central aspect of pre-war Poland.
For a long time and up to WWII, Praga has been characterized by the peaceful co-existence
of Judaism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Not taking care of Praga and letting
this part of the city go into decay is representative of the decaying of the
multicultural Polish society, thriving in this part of the city before the war.
Praga has been a testimonial of a multicultural Poland and its values in the
same way in which the architecture of the Old Town incarnated Polish culture.
Leaving Praga into decay is symbolically in line with the shift towards an
ethnically homogenous society after WWII.
Even if its buildings are crumbling, the streets of Praga have started blossoming during the past years: new bars and art galleries appeared while artists are choosing this part of the city to live and burst their creativity. Hopefully, the revival of Praga is a symbol of a rediscovered desire for a more multicultural Polish society.
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