The block next to the Powszechny Theater is shrinking

Kacper Kępiński

06 of September '23

Visualization

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A housing development is to be built in the vicinity of the Powszechny Theater, located in Warsaw's Kamionek district, under a housing speculative law. Subsequent versions bring a smaller and smaller number of apartments and scale of development. Developers using the mechanisms of lex deweloper are often forced to reduce the scale of their projects in order to be accepted.

View from Kamionkowskie Lake

Moderna Holding is planning an investment in the vicinity of the E. Wedel factory. Designed by Moderna Design architects, the development is to stand near the busy intersection of Jana Zamoyskiego Street and Zieleniecka Avenue. In a design from early 2023, the developer proposed a development that would reach a height of 33 meters, significantly higher than the buildings in the quarter. The currently proposed building height is less than 27 meters. Interestingly, both then and now, the height of the buildings is supposed to result from an analysis of neighboring buildings. As you can see, the interpretation of such observations can vary greatly.

view of the neighborhood development

More about the original project: Theater Passage in the shadow of blocks

The planned number of apartments has also changed. Previously, there were to be as many as 282 units, while in the new version their number is to be in the range of 170-205. The planned number of residents has shrunk from 546 to a maximum of 382. In addition to residential units, the buildings will provide space for services on almost the entire first floor—a maximum of 5 units on an area of 2140 sq m.

view from the Powszechny Theater

In order to convince decision-makers and neighborhood residents of the project, the developer declares the construction of a publicly accessible public space in the walkway between the Powszechny Theater building and the planned development, the development of the square in front of the theater and the modernization of the bridge in Skaryszewski Park. In addition, a semi-private courtyard will expose the historic cinema building, and a small public square will appear on the south side.

original version of the project—visualization

Architecturally, the proposed development is a developer's standard—rows of identical portfères and loggias are inscribed in a regular grid of elevations. The last two floors are visually connected, which is also a common procedure in modern construction. According to the authors, these solutions result from an analysis of the typology of buildings in the quarter—the articulation and divisions of the Wedel factory buildings' facades.