Beautiful chaos

Ulica Grzybowska, much abused in the past by both occupying armies and town planners, is now a hotbed of modern developments - posing architects some very specific problems

Lying almost entirely within Warsaw\'s Central Business District, ul. Grzybowska is a street whose complex and tragic history seems to be a microcosm of Warsaw itself. Ul. Żelazna divides it into an industrial western side and a residential eastern end. Densely built up before the war, during the German occupation part of it fell inside Warsaw\'s Jewish ghetto. However, by the time hostilities finally ceased, ul. Grzybowska had been almost totally destroyed. Poland\'s new rulers - the communist Polish People\'s Republic - could have chosen to restore the street to its former state, but instead opted to build it anew.

End of the industrial era
The western section of ul. Grzybowska, running from ul. Żelazna to ul. Karolkowa, had always been dominated by industrial buildings and continued to have this function after the war. When political and economic change once again swept through Poland, most of these buildings eventually became defunct, often falling into ruin after years of neglect. But what they left behind was a golden opportunity for modern buildings  in the city centre, as Olgierd Jagiełło, architect and partner of  JEMS Architekci explains: "There is a lot of land to build on - despite being still in the centre of the city. This district has been undergoing a transformation in the last few years, from being a former industrial area, and this has been helped by the fact that the remaining buildings are easily demolished or converted."

Waiting for the green light
JEMS Architekci are currently involved with 3 projects at the west end of ul. Grzybowska. They are applying for the development conditions for a 100 m high, 28-storey residential building on the corner of ul. Żelazna. The plot has been granted to the Warsaw Jewish Community by the city in compensation for other properties for which restitution was impossible.
Also awaiting a decision over conditions are JEMS\' plans for the Browary Warszawskie brewery, which has a Spanish investor, Grupo Prasa. Although still at the sketch stage, the project will involve several new buildings (again residential) with gardens, together with the conversion into loft apartments of one of the few existing pre-war buildings in the area, which is under the protection of Warsaw\'s buildings conservator. A third development, 40-storey apartment block on the corner of ul. Waliców, would be the highest residential building in Warsaw at a height of 140 m. This project is still looking for an investor. The development conditions for the scheme have already once been granted, but since the owners of neighbouring plots have appealed against this, a second application now has to be made.
Another luxury apartment block in the pipeline is that of Irlandzka Grupa Deweloperska at ul. Grzybowska 78, which has the development conditions, but is still waiting for the building permit, which should take 12 months. The construction work on this 82 m high, app. 28-storey building is therefore likely to start this time next year, taking another 18 months to be ready. The app. 20,000 sqm apartment building will contain 200-250 flats, the average size of which will be 80 sqm. This development lies on the opposite side of the road to the future Warsaw Hilton complex, which as well as the 313-room hotel will include 3 residential towers with about 700 apartments and 4,000 sqm of commercial space.

Build \'em high
Objections and appeals do pose something of a problem for the development of skyscrapers, as there is no master plan for the area, and so getting permission for such projects can be a tortuous process. But one serious advantage that ul. Grzybowska does have in this regard is that high-rise buildings already exist in the area - Kolmex was the first on the street, and the Warsaw Trade Tower and Łucka City apartment block are close by. Under Polish law, this allows similar structures to be built.
The reason why high-rise apartment blocks seem to be springing up on ul. Grzybowska is that, as Olgierd Jagiełło explains, they are very profitable for developers: "The price of land is very expensive, so there is a need to build with a high-density. This means skyscrapers, but these bring along with them technical problems for designers and engineers." The most serious of these include air-pressure and circulation, where opening windows can be a problem, as well as water-pressure and adequate fire protection.

Spaced out
The history of the eastern end of ul. Grzybowska, beginning from where it joins ul. Królewska, towards ul. Żelazna, is quite different from the western part. After the war, the state embarked on developing a series of 16-storey tenement blocks. There are fewer opportunities here for demolition, as these dwellings are still inhabited and it would only take a few objections to prevent this from taking place. Nevertheless, even though clearances of these unloved blocks are for the moment out of the question, they way they have been built may prove them to be a blessing in disguise. According to Grzegorz Stiasny, a chief architect with the ARE studio, the designers of the new 14-storey residential block in Grzybowska\'s east end: "Of course it was nonsense to build such an estate in a city centre location. But because they couldn\'t afford a denser development of the area and left a lot of green spaces, we can turn this absurd idea into a great opportunity for architects."
The blocks were spaced at least 100 m apart, leaving a substantial amount of greenery and free spaces to build in. But these old Corbusian-style blocks of the communist era have left the street looking very chaotic. Built on a north-south axis in order to catch as much sunlight as possible, they face away from the road, and thus prevent ul. Grzybowska from having the look of a traditional street with buildings facing onto it. Another problem for the appearance of the street that Grzegorz Stiasny points out is that "for years, development only occurred on the northern side of the street. So what we have now is a modern northern side facing a southern side frozen in the communist past. A master plan could have avoided this, but it is too late now."

Beautiful chaos
The lack of such a plan is, however, regarded by Mr Stiasny as a bonus rather than a hindrance, and in a way personifies Warsaw itself. "Grzybowska looks very chaotic - lots of layers of history, planning and mistakes. It will be very difficult to sort out," says Mr Stiasny. "The street is still a challenge - remember that it was once a desert, a carriageway through a housing estate. It has now become a real urban space." What he doesn\'t want to see is the homogeneity that comes when there is a plan, such as in Wilanów at the moment: "I think people want more choice than this. As a designer you can do nothing with such a plan and simply have to follow it."

City living
The new developments along the street are overwhelmingly residential, and is a reflection of the current state of the real estate market. But what makes ul. Grzybowska unusual is the sheer number of residential projects on a street in a city\'s business district, when large scale housing developments usually come to the suburbs. For Grzegorz Stiasny of ARE, this is another point in Grzybowska\'s favour: "A good thing about residential developments within the Central Business District is that Warsaw won\'t empty during the weekends, something you can see  in London\'s \'square mile\'."
Piotr Czarnecki, also an architect with JEMS, says that: "What we would like to see for the Grzybowska area is a return to the living city area, serving as a part of city centre, densely overbuilt with services for local inhabitants and people working here. But this is sadly not possible now - it was destroyed too completely." Grzegorz Stiasny agrees with the latter point, but has a distinctly modernist vision for the future of the street: "I like big buildings - they change the face of the city, giving it a face-lift. Warsaw should not be re-created - this is impossible anyway. It has to look to the future - pre-war, it was simply a different city."
Ul. Grzybowska is at the moment holding the attention of developers; but despite - or perhaps because of - its history and unruly nature, it is clearly exciting the imaginations of Warsaw\'s architects too.

Nathan North