Praga, the vestigial twin city of warsaw : Its unique qualities and future prospects

الملخص EN

Warsaw is an overwhelmingly modern agglomeration that was ‘rebuilt', but to a very much greater extent replanted and thus essentially redefined, following the mass slaughter and physical destruction of the 1939-1945 ‘world’ war.

Having been condemned to systematic demolition by the Nazis, the urbs prima of Poland was then ‘rebuilt’ and ‘redeveloped’ as a major diversion on the ‘domestic front’ from the ‘cold war’.

The ‘socialist city’–with a functional layout inherited from the modernist movement and a grand-urban architectural profile as reminiscent of Speer’s Berlin as Stalin’s Moscow–remained largely on paper, but the pre-war city, with, its unique social-cultural mélange, was all but completely sacrificed.

Substantial remnants of the 'lost' metropolis predating the ‘Great War’ of 1914-1918 survived on the opposite, eastern side of the River Vistula, in a cluster of districts and neighbourhoods referred to collectively by the name of Praga.

The previously mixed residential quarters under investigation form a micro cosmos that links the modern agglomeration with its enigmatic, multicultural and multi-ethnic past.

East-bank Praga’s strongly pronounced ‘otherness’ reflects its geographical isolation from West-bank Warsaw.

Inadvertently reinforced by the abortive urban planning and social policies of the defunct ‘Polish People’s Republic’, this urban divide is so pronounced that the modern agglomeration should be viewed as two contrasting built and social environments : the greater metropolitan area (Warsaw) and its vestigial enclave inherited from the past (Praga).

The inner East-Bank districts now face complete assimilation within the Main City.

Investment in commercial and ‘luxury’ residential construction, which has altered dramatically the skyline of ‘downtown’ Warsaw, now threatens to transform beyond recognition the declining social structure and building stock of Praga.

While ‘regeneration’ in this classic case of inner-urban decay is well under way, the implications both for the area and its inhabitants are highly ambiguous, and thus disturbing.

Emphasis must be laid on the historical dimension of Praga's historical separateness and its relevance as such to the urbanity of Warsaw.

Endeavours to reinvigorate a localized sense of place and identity among the residents of Praga, known as the Prażanie, as well as restore the area’s pre-war architecture, are of paramount importance to tempering the volatile, highly competitive urban habitat the more excessive forces released by ‘freemarket’ economics have given rise to since the 1990s.

This text expands on themes from papers delivered at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina [9] and Chalmers University, Göteborg [12] in spring and summer 2005.

Issues relating to ‘revitalisation’ in Warsaw’s inner East bank quarters are addressed specifically to readers familiar with the broad question of protecting and actively helping to keep alive areas of the city inherited from the past.

The formidable and growing pressures faced by architects, municipal administrators, academics and inhabitants who are able and willing to confront the danger posed by the more destructive realities of modern metropolitan existence would appear to be remarkably similar wherever they are encountered.