Lost in a dream

"We want to demolish because we want to go onwards and upwards!" - seems to be the latest cry of the developers active in the Polish capital. The construction work on the Złota 44 and Cosmopolitan luxury apartment buildings - Warsaw's two latest skyscrapers - is now coming to a gradual conclusion. Things are also happening in the city's Wola district. Warsaw Spire is now emerging from a huge hole in the ground, poised to shoot up to vertiginous heights. Things are also interesting in the city centre - the Mercury hotel on al. Jana Pawła II has been razed, with heavy equipment ready to enter the site at any moment for the construction of another tall building.
Counting the number of such high-rise projects in Warsaw seems almost as difficult as counting the stars in the sky. GetHouse Golub is another company that is preparing to develop a tower on ul. Grzybowska next to Ghelamco's flagship project. Yet another skyscraper is in the pipeline nearby - Liberty Tower. And these projects are just the beginning. The premises of the National Remembrance Institute are to be torn down to make way for a new home for the organisation - taller, more beautiful and, of course, ecological. Nearby, on ul. Łucka where the recently-built Prosta Tower with its wavy lattice façade stands, attached to Warsaw's ugliest tower block, Impexmetal wants to build another tower. My mistake! In fact, not just one tower block, but two of them - because one would simply not be enough.
A few steps away and we are on ul. Żelazna, where a large area is under the management of the Polish Mint. Printing money, however, is apparently no longer lucrative. So what would be more profitable? Skyscrapers, of course! Continuing our stroll up to the ONZ roundabout, what do we find? The Ilmet building, which is obviously too small, too old and not green at all. It just has to be demolished. Its replacement would naturally be taller and offer more square metres. On the other side Skanska is finishing another of its series of Atrium buildings. This one will be a kind of mini tower... but don't worry too much, because the company is planning yet another Atrium, which will be a genuine tower block.
Not enough space? No problem. Polski Holding Nieruchomości is about to demolish a building on ul. Świętokrzyska for a high-rise project of its own. It also plans to dismantle the neighbouring Kaskada building for, wait for it [drum roll]... another tower block! The Rondo 1 skyscraper completed in 2006 is another one that is soon to be demolished. Oh, sorry! I got a bit carried away there. So far there are no such plans, but who knows what developers might be dreaming up? One day in the not-too- distant future the wrecking balls and bulldozers might be set upon Rondo 1 too, because in Warsaw any building more than 15 years old can be a candidate for the knacker's yard and replacing with a younger, more dynamic tower.
Is there a method to this madness? If there is, it's hard to fathom what it might be. All these planned projects are to be built in areas mostly uncovered by zoning plans. They are like raisins in a half-baked cake...
However, the majority will probably never see the light of day - at least not in the next few years. Many of these tower blocks are developers' fantasy visions of Warsaw - to build more, higher and more spectacularly. I am, of course, aware that the some of these projects do stand a chance of being developed and that some of them are quite feasible. However, the vast majority are just the kind of pipe dreams that will not be indulged by the bankers.

And do you know what? I like this daydreaming, the visions, the virtual buildings and the impossible fantasies. Because they are evidence of the city's potential and its energy. Even if Warsaw is a 'half-baked city', it could actually be quite a tasty one when it finally rises.