Wrocław surprises us every now and then with decisions regarding architectural interventions in areas protected by preservationists. In our memory we still have the unlamented Solpol, while the tenement building, referring to the surrounding buildings, which was to be located in its place, has to be redesigned. Protection of the Worbis office building, located at the intersection of Szewska and Kazimierza Wielkiego streets, is being carried out in an unusual way. For this one was demolished last year, and the surviving fragments will be "absorbed" by a new, much larger hotel building.
In 2018, Wrocław-based Otis Investment purchased the building at the intersection of Szewska and Kazimierza Wielkiego streets, previously occupied by Wrocławskie Przedsiębiorstwo Budownictwa Przemysłowego Wrobis. Built in the 1930s, the building welcomed visitors with an ornate portal preceded by a classicizing portico, the ground-floor elevations were rusticated, and there was a modernist bas-relief on the corner. According to Otis Investment's plans, the building was to be developed into a four-star hotel, the second in the offer of the office, which had previously opened the Korona Hotel at Wrocław's market square. The investment succeeded in adapting the historic building to serve a new function. Adaptation and expansion was to await the Wrobis office building, which was protected under the Local Development Plan. From the content of the document we learn that the building presented "high cultural values" and was subject to conservation protection, in particular the decoration of the entrance façade and its portal should be preserved.
The former body of the Worbis office building at the intersection of Szewska and Kazimierza Wielkiego Streets in Wroclaw
Photo: Szlemo Lejb © CC BY-SA 3.0 | Wikimedia Commons
Rebuild, expand, or maybe.... demolish?
In January 2022, the Municipal Conservator of Monuments issued a permit for "reconstruction and expansion" of the 20th-century building at 3 Szewska St. According to the plans, the interior was to be gutted and "crammed" into the body of a new, larger building with hotel functions. Very soon, however, it turned out that the construction would not stop there. To the surprise of residents and city activists, in the summer of 2023 the complete demolition of the former Wrobis headquarters was completed.
The wall structure did not have sufficient load-bearing parameters. This was due to the numerous and deep interventions of installations in the building's structure in previous decades. The walls of the building after the demolition of the roof showed serious deviations from the vertical and cracks over a period of only a few months. An additional risk factor was the vibrations generated by passing streetcars. Excavations of the wall foundations showed a complete lack of load-bearing capacity of those foundations," explained Jolanta Pouch, president of Otis Investment, in an interview with tuwroclaw.pl.
The building's ground floor, including the portal, which is under conservation protection, was to be dismantled, renovated and then built into a new block, designed by Wojciech Błaszak Architekci office.
Szewska Centrum; the site of the demolished Wrobis building
Photo: Joee © CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
The wolf is out and the sheep are whole, only the monument is gone
The unexpected disappearance of the building at 3 Szewska Street has met with opposition from city activists, the demolition was protested by the Society for the Beautification of the City of Wroclaw, which for years has been working for the benefit of urban space in the capital of Lower Silesia. Yesterday, a photograph appeared on the Society's profile showing the exposed facade of the new development at the intersection of Szewska Street and Kazimierza Wielkiego. The view does not fill with optimism. Despite the declarations of the investor, who promised to preserve the existing elements of the facade design, renovate them and implement them in the new building, it is difficult to imagine them returning to the exterior walls, where their place is. This is because the new block is characterized by a much larger volume, into which the outline of the former Wrobis building has been inscribed in a rather caricatural way from the Szewska side. At Kazimierza Wielkiego Street there is no trace of the silhouette of the 20th century building, although it was there that the representative portal, which the investor promised to protect, was located. The basement of the new building, especially in its corner, is largely glazed, so it is difficult to expect to find room for the former rustication or portal. These elements will therefore be placed ... inside the building. In this way, the interests of the investor and the records of officials were reconciled, completely ignoring the needs of residents, aesthetic issues and the generally understood rationality of such a procedure.
New building in place of Worbis office building in Wroclaw
© Society for the Beautification of the City of Wroclaw
heated discussion
The Press Office of the Wrocław City Hall addressed the situation, according to which the new building was constructed in accordance with the general content of the MPZP intended for the area. This is because the document expects the historic building line for Kazimierza Wielkiego Street, which runs parallel to the elevation of the Szewska Centrum building, to be preserved. The 2000 building, designed by Stefan Müller and Pawel Jaszczuk, contains a multi-level parking lot, as well as office and retail and service areas. The height of the new building, which is growing on the site of Wrobis, was also to be reconciled with the post-modern parking lot. The announcement from the City Hall Press Office was commented by Pawel Jaszczuk, who was part of the design team working on the Szewska Center building.
[...] The designed parking lot referred explicitly to the existing Wrobis, connecting the designed building so [that - editor's note] the tower organizes the corner in a sensible way urbanistically. Two small plazas in front of and behind Wrobis were produced. The situation that has now arisen has tremendously degraded the spatial qualities of the parking lot and has doomed the sense of the tower's existence.
Not the first, but will it be the last?
Although in accordance with the provisions of the local plan, the sluggish mass of the new building not only "swallowed" the monument, but also negatively affected the surrounding buildings and publicly accessible space - previously there was a small square with greenery in front of the Worbis building. This is yet another controversial decision by the authorities of Wroclaw and the conservation offices overseeing the city. Some time ago we wrote about the changes in the design of the new tenement building on Świdnicka Street, forced on the investor by Daniel Gibski, the Lower Silesian Provincial Conservator of Monuments. And while we would have preferred Solpol at this location (which was demolished, by the way, in the absence of action on the part of WDKZ), depriving the Roark-designed building of its only characteristic element, which was the arcade in the ground floor, was also not received well.
