Another Warsaw skyscraper will be demolished. The less than 23-year-old building on Jana Pawla II Avenue will share the fate of the neighboring Atrium and Ilmet, which is doomed to a similar fate. Where is sustainability in all this ?
PZU Tower
Photo: Wistula | © Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-3.0)
PZUTower, located at the intersection of Grzybowska Street and al. Jana Pawła II in Warsaw is a less than 100-meter-high office building completed in 2000. Its design in 1997 was developed by Tadeusz Spychała, Wojciech Poplawski and Willibald Furst. Until recently, the facility housed the headquarters of the state insurance company. However, PZU moved its offices to the Generation Park complex at the Daszyńskiego Roundabout, designed by JEMS Architekci. Since then, the building has remained empty. Its appearance has changed significantly once. In 2011, the outer glass skin of the facade was removed, which took away some of its aesthetic value.
PZU Tower
Photo: Adrian Grycuk | © Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-3.0)
However, the building's history seems to be coming to an end. The building's owner, PZU, is planning to demolish it and build a half-taller building on the site. The company has applied for zoning for the construction of a 150-meter-high tower. On the opposite side of the intersection, a 130-meter-high Upper One office building is to be built to take the place of the demolished Atrium International project by Kazimierski and Ryba office. The Medusa Group project has received a cool reception. Criticism has been levelled not only at the generic glass box aesthetic that dominates the Warsaw landscape, but also at the scale of the development, which will completely overwhelm neighboring residential developments. A similar situation could befall the neighbors of PZU Tower.
Demolished buildings often have high values, if not architectural - then urbanistic. This is precisely the case with the Atrium complex, which has complemented the development at the site in a very harmonious way. The PZU skyscraper, despite its dimensions, also did not overwhelm the neighborhood. Dominated by more than 100-meter-high towers, the intersection will be a rather bleak sight.
Demolition is an act of violence - Pritzker Prize winners Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal.
Generation Park - the new headquarters of PZU
photo by Adrian Grycuk | © Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-3.0)
However, in the context of the professional responsibility of architects, but also the discussion of reuse and the environmental costs of demolishing and erecting new structures, it is difficult to move past the destruction of fully functional, relatively young buildings. In the neighborhood, there would be several other empty lots within a kilometer radius waiting to be developed - do we really need to demolish to build new?
