More than a thousand people signed a petition in defense of Solpol in the first three days. The authors of the letter addressed to the city authorities are calling for the building to be placed under conservation protection and for the suspension of proceedings to issue a demolition permit for the building.
Photo by Wojciech Jarząbek
As we reported in an April article, the owner of Wroclaw's Dom Handlowy Solpol, Polsat Nieruchomości, has applied for a demolition permit. The valuable building has been fought over for years by city activists and those concerned with architectural history. Preparations to demolish the iconic department store on Świdnicka Street have been going on for years. The building was supposed to disappear as early as 2012, but the matter did not come to fruition.
We ask you to take legal action to protect the Solpol Department Store, located at 21-23 Świdnicka Street in Wroclaw, and to counteract decisions aimed at demolishing this valuable object for the history of the city. This petition aims to show how numerous supporters are for the preservation of this post-modern building and the huge role it plays both in the history of Wroclaw and in the creation of its own cultural identity after 1989.
Excerpt from the petition
photo: Wikimedia Commons
As Rafal Rydz points out in his petition, the Solpol has received recognition in numerous architectural journals and has become one of the most recognizable buildings in Wroclaw. It is an icon not only for Wroclaw itself, but also a significant building for the modern history of Poland. The campaign is supported, among others, by the Society for the Beautification of the City of Wroclaw. It was TUMW, together with the Transformer Foundation, that in 2015 applied to the Lower Silesian Provincial Conservator of Monuments. In it, the activists called for the building to be entered in the register of monuments and placed under conservation protection. Barbara Nowak-Obelinda, the provincial historic preservationist, made a negative decision.
The petition can be signed HERE
Progress related to the petition, but also private memories and graphics related to the building can also be followed on the gaining popularity of the @solpolposting profile on Instagram.
photo solpolposting
Solpol is an aesthetically controversial building. However, its historical and architectural value is indisputable, and it is these that should be protected. The building has been recognized as a modern cultural asset, but this is not enough to protect it from demolition. Zbigniew Maćków, Lidia Klein and Alicja Gzowska, among others, stood up in defense of the building. The design of the building is the work of a team of architects including Wojciech Jarząbek, Pawel Jaszczuk, Jan Matkowski and Jacek Sroczynski, with Pawel Spychala and Leopold Chyczewski also bidding on the concept. The building opened in 1993 and became an icon of transformational pop culture.
