On this issue it would seem that everything has been said and written. To rebuild or not to rebuild? If so, in what form? Reconstruction or modern solids? What would be the new function? Or would emptiness be more telling, after all? Are we any closer today to answering questions about the future of the Saxon Palace?
The topic of rebuilding the Saski Palace in Warsaw has been present in the debate for many years and invariably antagonizes various circles.
Perhaps the classicist edifice would have stood in its new incarnation for a long time, had it not been for the discovery in 2006 of a well-preserved set of palace cellars. [The cellars [...] were backfilled, and the plan to build the palace went into a drawer. A few years ago, the plan resurfaced - for proponents of "reconstruction" it became the perfect project to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Poland's independence. The Saxon Society 2018 promoted the vision of restoring the monumental edifice to the capital, building around it the myth of one of the key buildings in the city, valuable both symbolically and architecturally. "Reconstruction" of the palace would finally complete the process of lifting Warsaw from wartime ruins - the absence of the Saski Palace, according to some, is precisely proof that the reconstruction is still not complete. [...] Most architectural historians or restorers are against the creation of a replica of a non-existent building. On the other side of the argument, however, there are also experts who believe that the palace is missing from the city space, that this breach is too visible, and since so many historical edifices have been rebuilt, this one should return as well. Each side has many arguments to support its thesis, and of course there is no room for compromise," Anna Cymer wrote in A&B in February 2020.
In May 2021, during a presentation of the assumptions of the Polish Deal program, Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced that the government's plan would include, among other things, the restoration of monuments, castles and the... Saski Palace. Earlier, in 2018, Andrzej Duda declared his desire to rebuild the edifice.
A few months after the announcement of the Polish Deal, in August 2021, President Andrzej Duda signed a law proposed a month earlier on the preparation and implementation of investments in the reconstruction of the Saski Palace, the Brühl Palace and the townhouses on Królewska Street in Warsaw. Doubts were raised about, among other things, the estimated cost of the investment and the duration of its implementation, i.e. nearly PLN 2.5 billion and 10 years, respectively. A&B's Kacper Kępiński wrote in detail about the draft of the special law in the article "SPECIAL LEGISLATION WILL ENABLE THE REBUILDING OF THE SASKI PALACE."
In response to the controversial idea of rebuilding the buildings destroyed during World War II and the rapid pace at which the bill was drafted, representatives of the Association of Polish Architects sent a letter recommending that an architectural competition be held, which would allow other solutions for the development of the Warsaw square than mere reconstruction.
Even before the bill was signed into law, representatives of the architectural community also opposed the idea of reconstructing the building, signing an open letter addressed to the president, prime minister, the marshals of the Sejm and Senate, and the mayor of Warsaw. They, too, stressed in it their concern over the haste in creating the document, the ignoring of public debate and the cost of reconstruction, especially when existing monuments throughout the country are allowed to fall into disrepair.
The somewhat dormant topic returned on October 13 of this year, when information was published about a tender being conducted by the Saski Palace Company for the preparation and execution of a two-stage architectural and urban planning competition for an investment involving the reconstruction of the Saski Palace, the Brühl Palace and the townhouses on Królewska Street in Warsaw, along with land development. The main selection criterion - price, the time to submit a bid - 9 days. Today, however, the proceedings were cancelled. The reason? No bid was submitted by the deadline.
