For several decades, a section of the city was missing from this spot. The broken-up building frontage along Solidarności Avenue and Żelazna Street in Warsaw was a reminder of the devastation of war, postwar decisions, and the gradual disappearance of Wola’s historic fabric. Today, Chronos is being built here—a new building that does not reconstruct the lost tenement house but seeks to restore what was more important than the building itself in the urban fabric: the scale of the street, the continuity of the built environment, and the character of the place.
This is not a random part of the city. Before the war, this area was home to the dense tenement housing of Wola. At 81 Leszno Street stood a tenement building owned by Herman Sieraczek, housing both apartments and a hat workshop. It was a characteristic example of the old urban Wola—a place where residential use, crafts, and small-scale entrepreneurship coexisted.
The history of this place bore the scars of wartime devastation. The neighborhood fell within the boundaries of the Warsaw Ghetto and later became a battleground during the Warsaw Uprising. The tenement building itself survived, but in postwar Warsaw it never regained its former place in the street’s fabric. It gradually fell into disrepair until it was demolished in 2014.
Before Chronos was founded
© Moderna Holding
Chronos, an apartment development by Moderna Holding, was designed as a cohesive composition of two phases that together redefine the corner of Solidarności Avenue and Żelazna Street. The first phase introduced contemporary development in place of the former, dilapidated tenement building; the second phase completes the urban layout. Both buildings maintain a scale appropriate for the street frontage, and their cohesive architecture draws on the language characteristic of Warsaw’s tenement buildings: the regular rhythm of the facades, the proportions of the openings, natural stone, and understated detailing. The new form is intended to be clearly recognizable as contemporary, without resorting to historicizing reconstruction.
This is particularly important in a city whose urban fabric is largely the result of successive layers built up over decades. The responsibility of the design here lies not in recreating the past, but in recognizing its implications for the present. The new building can, in fact, reinforce the continuity of the site.
The second phase of the project closes off the corner of the former street frontage, introducing both residential and commercial functions. The ground floor, with its corner units, has the potential to revitalize the street, while the repetitive rhythm of the upper floors gives it a sense of scale.
Chronos, an apartment development by Moderna Holding – Phase II
© Moderna Holding
Chronos is being built in one of the fastest-growing parts of Wola. In the immediate vicinity are modern office buildings clustered around the Daszyńskiego Roundabout, headquarters of international companies, as well as an extensive transportation infrastructure—the second metro line, numerous tram and bus lines. The historic Warsaw Breweries and the iconic Norblin Factory are also located nearby—former industrial centers that today bustle with life as modern cultural and culinary hubs.
The urban scale of the project goes hand in hand with the intimate design of the building itself.
The second phase of the Chronos development includes 18 apartments ranging in size from approximately 43 to 70 m² with above-standard ceiling heights of 272 to 294 cm, as well as two commercial spaces on the ground floor with attractive corner visibility. Some of the units also offer the possibility of combining apartments or converting them into office spaces.
You can find details about the project at www.moderna.pl/chronos
