Who here, when traveling to Poland and wanting to visit Warsaw (The Capital City) did not put in the iconic Palace of Culture and Science on the list? To be fair, even if you didn’t you for sure ended up in its vicinity, admiring its heights! It is one of Warsaw’s most famous landmarks, so I always enjoyed visiting it – not to mention the 360 degrees view from the top is stunning! I like the architecture of the Palace and I enjoy it immensely so hearing from my Polish friends and colleagues what pain causes them, I wanted to know more – how can one grow to hate a piece of architecture, a symbol of Warsaw?
The Palace of Culture and Science of Warsaw has many nicknames – some of the many include: “Peking” (from the acronym PKIN – Palac Kultury i Nauki); “Nightmare dream of a drunken pastry cook” (given by the Polish poet and soldier Władysław Broniewski) and the most used one: “Stalin’s present“.
Why do Polish people hate it?
As one Lidia Fedorska nicely put this on a Quora answer: “To Polish people, The Palace of Culture doesn’t represent Warsaw’s rebirth from post-war rubble. It represents brutal interference in the heart of our city. It’s a symbol of post-war political oppression under an unwanted system“.
The building of the Palace was proposed by Viachesłav Molotov – if the name rings a bell then you are right: it is the same person who signed the pact of the partitioning of Poland with Ribbentrop. Agreed by Hilary Minc, the project was accepted (barely) by a team of Polish architects.
80-90% of Warsaw has been grazed to the ground during WWII
To understand where the hate and animosity come from, we must rewind to the times right after World War II. Different sources report a percentage from 80 to 90% of Warsaw being devastated during the war. To give you an idea of how people were living back then, it will suffice to say that 10 people per room was the norm (if the building was still standing). Many (almost all) buildings had no access to running water or electricity. You would think, logically, that housing would be the top priority … but no! Stalin wanted his foot dug deep in the heart of Warsaw.
Stalin’s Gift
Stalin did not want just any place in Warsaw but its very beating heart. He wanted this symbol to be the first thing that people would look at when they looked out their windows… tall and proud. He wanted the Polish people to walk past it and feel dwarfed by its sheer size! But also by what it was a symbol of… a gift for decades! The supremacy of socialism would show from every corner of Warsaw.
The Polish architects tried hard to salvage the situation by putting forward 5 other locations – that were already grazed to the ground by all the shell bombing during WWII, but to no avail… The Soviet authorities decided that 6 streets (that were still standing, and completely functional!) had to be demolished in order to build the Palace. Those 6 streets had 80 functional apartment buildings and 3500 habitable rooms!
Besides of the question where the people inside could live, as all other buildings were grazed to the ground… there was also the question of National Heritage – destroying buildings that were culturally unique and precious, in order to build a gigantic Palace void of any connection to the hearts of the Polish people that lived through WWII.
The painful process of building the Palace of Culture in Warsaw
The construction of the Palace of Culture and Science took 1176 days – started in 1952 and lasted until 1955. It took 3500-5000 Soviet workers & 4000 Polish workers to finish it! 17 people were killed in accidents during the construction, including 2 children. It took 40 million bricks, 26 thousand tons of steel, and the labor of thousands of people. This comes in a time where all construction material was almost non-existent and should have definitely been put to better usage by raising places where people (now without a home) could live.
We could have had a Metro!
A legend says that the Soviets could have built a metro or a giant hospital instead of the Palace of Culture, but president Bolesław Bierut chose to do the Palace instead. The least more useful option for those times… Besides being the chief proponent for the reconstruction of Warsaw (rebuilding of the historic district) and the erection of the Palace of Culture and Science, he is the only President that ruled Poland until is death (heart attack in Moscow).
The object of Cultural Heritage
With a total height of 237 meters (778 ft) it is the tallest building in Poland, the 5th-tallest building in the European Union (including spire) and one of the tallest on the European continent. Constructed in 1955, it houses various public and cultural institutions such as cinemas, theatres, libraries, sports clubs, university faculties, and authorities of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 2007 it has been enlisted in the Registry of Objects of Cultural Heritage. The Palace was also the tallest clock tower in the world until the installation of a clock mechanism on the NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building in Tokyo, Japan.
What are your thoughts and feelings on this piece of historical architecture? Many say it looks like a cake badly done, but I think it is a unique representation of those times – made by Polish architects! And I always loved visiting it and going to the viewing terrace on the 30th floor – which, btw is open every day from 10 AM to 8 PM 😉 and they do open it on Friday’s as well during evening time – 8 PM to 10 PM (that still is on my list to do!).
Yours truly,
The Twisted Red LadyBug, Bringing You a Piece of Polish History
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