The first asphalt expanses in Poland—that is, the major thoroughfares from the era of orthodox modernism—are being added to the register of historic monuments. This suits historic preservationists very well, as they’re fighting against new trees being planted along the streets. In Warsaw, they almost succeeded. Almost, because Krucza Street—which Kuba Głaz wrote about in May— will, after all, be greened by road builders. But wider and longer urban highways than Krucza Street are waiting to fend off the encroaching forest in the city. Where? And what do printers have to do with it? Read on.
What won’t printers do for profit? They’ll destroy Polish cities with trees.
On April 1, the media reported: Krucza Street in Warsaw had been added to the register of historic monuments. I was worried it was just another silly April Fools’ Day prank, but no: Krucza remained on the register on the 2nd and beyond.
It’s nice that the provincial conservator, Marcin Dawidowicz, has recognized and is protecting the value of this wide river of asphalt (the roadway—up to 18 meters wide; with parking spaces—about 30 meters); a river straight out of the 1950s, which the destroyers of Warsaw’s metropolitan character have been eyeing for several years. They want to narrow it and plant it with copious greenery—in other words, let’s not beat around the bush, take it back to the days of horse-drawn carriages. The preservation authority’s justification states that both the 19th-century character of the street (the surviving tenement houses) and what obscured that character after the war (the ministry buildings) are subject to protection. Very consistent. At the same time, the preservation officer swore in the media that the designation does not protect the asphalt or the “crooked sidewalks” at all. Of course—in these times of “green terror,” he can’t speak plainly about what’s really going on, because the city’s reformers would beat him to a pulp with a sapling in a dark woonerf.
It worked out wonderfully that—at the request of the Warsaw Monument Defenders Association—the process of adding Krucza Street to the registry took a mere three months and concluded just as the road authorities, after years of delay, were issuing a call for bids to rebuild the street. Now it will depend on the imagination of the city’s conservator just how much new greenery will end up on Krucza Street: a few trees on either side or the planned wide strip down the middle. The preservationists will finally put a stop to turning Warsaw into a national park, because another five hundred or a thousand new trees, and that’s exactly what the capital will become. An exaggeration? Not at all. Janusz Sujecki, a Warsaw expert from the Defenders of Monuments, commented on the greening plans five years ago:
We don’t want to see our historic sites in photo albums. And that’s exactly what it will look like, because we’ll be walking through the forest trying to figure out which historic sites are hidden behind the trees.
It’s all clear. The Nazis wanted to turn Warsaw into a desert. Now eco-fanatics and publishers are creating a forest to make money off album sales. On top of that, more and more zebras are multiplying in this forest. Pedestrians have spread out across them, no longer needing to burrow down into underground passages like moles. It’s high time to put a stop to this madness and spout some weighty remarks in the voice and style of Cejrowski: “Isn’t this zebra, by any chance, an invasi-ive species (munch)?” What is this African stray doing in the Polish cap-ital (munch, munch)? Who’s bothered by the Slavic moles? Shoo, off to the zoo, zebras, shoo!
While we’re at it, it’s time to add to the list other transportation “gems” that, back in the People’s Republic of Poland, blew up our city centers even more spectacularly: the massive Plac Społeczny interchange in Wrocław, Gdańsk’s expressway— Podwale Przedmiejskie, Poznań’s Chwaliszewska route, or the recently much-discussed case— the dilapidated overpass cutting diagonally across the market square in Chorzów (there are those who want to tear it down). It’s clear that when it comes to modernism, Poles make the right choice: they prefer long, straight “Łazienki-style” routes rather than buildings, which they’re much more likely to demolish with a pickaxe. We’re also quite particular about this. From our transportation heritage, we mainly preserve the routes and their dimensions. After all, we are rightly and without sentiment replacing the engineering slenderness, thinness, and delicacy of the 1960s and 1970s with super-masculine, steroid-fueled structures during modernization.
As we enter metropolitan highways into registers and records, let’s also strive to protect their more ephemeral aspects. Let’s add, for example, the notorious habit of speeding in built-up areas to the list of intangible heritage. We also still have wonderfully polluted air in Poland—smog with a historic composition that has long since disappeared from most European countries. The registry awaits, and a justification will surely be found. “Particulate matter is a manifestation of Poland’s age-old freedom (of choice of transportation).” “Karol Wojtyła was steeped in an atmosphere of this composition shortly before his appointment to the Chair of St. Peter.”
Let’s also add to the smog and particulate matter the historical grime from the same era. This one is actually on the decline—almost everything has already been scrubbed and polished—so as an endangered species, it certainly deserves to be listed. This will also benefit culture, because the lack of grime is increasingly making it difficult to shoot historical films. Even the recently acclaimed TV series *Ołowiane dzieci* (“Lead Children”), set in the 1970s, was indeed full of Silesian dust and soot, as well as interiors straight out of my childhood, but the interwar government buildings in Katowice often shown in it looked brand-new. Meanwhile, in the People’s Republic of Poland, not even new buildings came out looking brand-new. It wasn’t uncommon for them to require a major renovation right after opening. Today, after being clad in Styrofoam and painted with colorful stucco, they look younger than they did when they were first built. To imitate Warsaw’s Ursynów neighborhood from the 1990s , the TV series “Heweliusz” was filmed in Zgorzelec at the Zachód housing estate, which had not yet been clad. The atmosphere is supposedly similar, but anyone familiar with Ursynów won’t be fooled.
So today, it’s even difficult to shoot films set in the post-political-transition era, even though their creators go to great lengths to faithfully capture the reality. However, it’s impossible to disguise all the plastic windows, the sidewalks that are too even, and the greenery that’s too well-maintained. Trams and cars roll into the frame—historical ones, to be sure, but spruced up like never before. The reality has changed to such an extent that set designers forget about the ashtrays that were still ubiquitous just a few decades ago in government office and university hallways. Even the actors’ hair is cut and styled according to old-fashioned trends, but it’s too neat and too clean. Well, these aren’t the greasy, combed-back men’s curls that can be admired, for example, in old newsreels.
So it’s heartening that Krucza has preserved for Polish culture an entry in the registry that’s perfectly in tune with the grime, shabbiness, and curls of the past. Perhaps on a street preserved in this way, Pawlikowski will shoot his next global hit set in the People’s Republic of Poland. Perhaps, for the first time in history, an Oscar for retro set design will go to a historic preservationist.
Jakub GŁAZ
more: A&B 5/2026 – Ecology,
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