Waliców Street is a special address in Warsaw's Wola district. It was almost entirely within the boundaries of the ghetto, Warsaw robins hid in the ruins here, and after the war most of its buildings were destroyed. Reminders of the difficult history of this part of the capital are the landmarks, tenements that have survived and that house painful memories in their scarred walls.
warsaw's landmarks
Three abandoned tenement houses on Waliców Street - at numbers 10, 12 and 14 - have been listed in the register of monuments since 2018. They survived wartime air raids and avoided postwar reconstruction. Today - empty - they are deteriorating, although they arouse the interest of architects from all over the world. What future awaits them?
© Wolskie Centrum Kultury
Architects from Warsaw's Grupa 5 Architekci studio, a team experienced in architectural restorations, have proposed a project to adapt the buildings, which are falling into disrepair, to a public function, including the headquarters of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.
Tenement house at 14 Waliców Street in Warsaw
photo: Adrian Grycuk | Wikimedia Commons © CC BY-SA 3.0 pl
The concept is to merge the existing fabric with the new one - the added parts are to match the street frontage and correspond to the dimensions of the destroyed parts of the original volumes.
The project meets preservationist recommendations regardingthe preservation of historic values and the prominence of the buildings themselves. Our concept of expansion and the creation of new buildings harmoniously combines into a unified compositional whole with the differentiation of historical architecture from the added ones
- explain the architects.
unhealed wound
The tenement at number 10, preserved in the best condition, is subjected to the least interference in the project. In the partially destroyed building number 12, the architects propose to supplement the demolished fragments with a glass structure, so as to clearly separate the new architecture from the existing one. The most war-damaged building at number 14, of which the bare brick walls today are a reminder, will face the biggest changes. Instead of a new volume, the architects designed a meaningful void in this place.
A view of the development at 14 Waliców Street
© Group 5 Architects
The space at the front of the Waliców 14 tenement is roofed over, although the volume under the roof remains unbuilt with walls. The shape of the roof slopes corresponds to the envelope form of the tenement's roofing from July 1944, before its demolition. [...] The canopy creates a place, separating it from the space of the street, provides and at the same time symbolizes protection and shelter. The lack of introduction of walls under the canopy provides a connection between the building space and the street, leaving the war wound visible
- explain the project's authors.
The space prepared in this way is to serve public functions - office, service and intercession. Courtyards of townhouses covered with glass canopies are also to be accessible.
bird's eye view
© Group 5 Architects
Although Group 5 Architects created the project back in 2022, plans for its implementation are still unknown.
elaborated: Ola Kloc
