Pilsudski Square

An example of our attitude to historic environment is the 20 years’ long process of designing and studying the space of Piłsudski Square in Warsaw, which started with a competition won in 1988 for the development of the square and a congress hotel. One of the objectives of our studies was to provoke discussion on the sense of reconstruction of Saxon Palace and the adjacent houses. The reconstruction idea has been supported by successive local government teams, which pander to sentimental (albeit lacking real references to the past) attitudes of some of the city’s inhabitants, typical in the era of an “image-based civilization”. What we found to be the most astonishing, overwhelming and inspiring image was not a vision of pastiche of the former development, but the view of palace ruins exposed during archaeological work, juxtaposed with the monument-tomb towering above it. In our designs, we suggested making use of the existing, natural differences in terrain elevation, allowing the park together with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to be situated on a kind of bastion created within the perimeter of the former palace. The Tomb, a relic, fragment of a nineteenth century colonnade – a clearing linking the square with the park, a highly expressive “witness of the sea of ruins” would gain a new setting highlighting its symbolic significance. The bastion itself, containing fragments  of palace cellars, might serve public functions. A partly transparent floor – roof over the bastion – would allow traces of the old buildings to be discovered. Instead of houses forming a fragmentary frontage of Królewska Street and interfering with the park space, we suggested the construction of a small building, recessed from the street line, a typical park structure. Such a building, making reference to the old garden programme (summer theatre, cafés, pump rooms) would provide a counterpoint to the Visitationist Church closing the view along the street.