Down by the riverside

Rivers have always attracted people to settle in their neighbourhood, sometimes growing into metropolises of millions of people. Nowadays river communication routes do not play such an important role, but embankments are still an enduring feature of our citiesZuzanna Wiak Everyone who has walked at least once along the Vistula embankment tends to get the powerful feeling that the riverside is not being utilized. In 2009, hopes arose that this might finally change. Warsaw decided to take a closer look at the river banks. The most important project now being developed on Warsaw’s riverside is the Copernicus Science Centre: a 15,000 sqm cultural, exhibition and research centre being built over an area of 40,000 sqm. An ‘experimentarium’ is to be opened at the end of June 2010, for experiments and research into natural phenomena. The whole facility (including a planetarium) should be completed in