The Częstochowa railway station saga is coming to an end. It is now basically certain that the "Częstochowa Osobowa" station will be demolished. PKP S.A. has announced a tender for the demolition and construction of a new railroad station. We last wrote about the issue in 2022 - what happened in the meantime?
On December 11 of this year , PKP S.A. announced the second tender for the demolition of the old and construction of a new railroad station in Częstochowa. The topic of building this facility has been dragging on for 8 years, dividing residents, city activists and architects. Now, however, the days of the post-modern facility are numbered, and it looks like nothing will stop PKP from demolishing the "Częstochowa Osobowa" anymore .
The new PKP railway station in Częstochowa
© PKP S.A | Toprojekt
na pomo(c)!
As Kacper Kepinski wrote for AiB in 2022, there have been voices among those living in Częstochowa and those interested in preserving heritage, including post-modern architecture, about the need to preserve Częstochowa's railway station. The circles of city activists and entrepreneurs, including the Elanex Group, have become involved in the defense of the nearly 30-year-old building. Some of them, in addition to publicizing the issue and coming up with ideas for the future of the post-modern building, have also decided to move into action.
Main railway station, Częstochowa - proj. Ryszard Frankowicz
Photo: Travelarz © CC BY-SA 3.0 en | Wikimedia Commons
Częstochowa railway station a monument?
In August 2023, proceedings began for the entry of the Częstochowa train station in the register of monuments. The application was submitted by the Katowice-based Association for the Protection of Industrial Heritage Congress for the Protection of Monuments. In accordance with the law, for the duration of the proceedings for entry in the register of monuments, the station building was placed under a special type of protection, which prevented any construction work on the site. In view of the inherent uncertainty in the ongoing proceedings, the PKP canceled the previously announced tender for the construction of the new building.
PKP Central Railway Station, Częstochowa - designed by Ryszard Frankowicz.
Photo: Travelarz © CC BY-SA 3.0 en | Wikimedia Commons
faint hopes
Hopes of rescue for the "modern icon of Czestochowa," as residents described the station in a poll conducted by Gazeta Wyborcza, lay in ruins with the arrival of April 2024, when the Silesian Provincial Historic Preservation Officer informed of a negative review of the application sent by the Katowice-based association. "Czestochowa Osobowa" was recognized as a "modern cultural asset" instead. - a special category of objects that, although they do not represent historical value, are important products of modern culture. In this case , however, the protection of the building depends on the provisions of the study and the local spatial development plan, which has not yet been created for the area. The decision to develop it was made as early as 2015, but until now only a fragment of it has been created, not covering the area where the station is located. As Gazeta Wyborcza reported two years ago, the councilors' tardiness is precisely due to the PKP's investment plans - so it's hard to expect the city's approach to radically change on this issue, and the protection of the post-modern building to become a reality. The building's fate is therefore basically a foregone conclusion.
The new PKP railway station in Częstochowa
© PKP S.A | Toprojekt
Why will a new railway station be built in Czestochowa?
The decision to build a new PKP railway station was prompted by a number of functional and economic problems - the building was primarily expensive to maintain, which translated into rental prices for service premises and coach parking spaces. In recent years, much of its interiors blew empty, and visitors quickly shuffled between the platforms and the Council of Europe Square. The building does not meet many of today's standards, including energy efficiency or fire safety. You can read more about the arguments of those in favor of building a new facility in interviews conducted by Ola Kloc.
New PKP railway station in Częstochowa
© PKP S.A | Toprojekt
it's a Toprojekt project
Leaving aside efforts to preserve the post-modern body of the "Częstochowa Osobowa" railway station, the new design, selected in the 2019 competition and developed by the Rybnik-based studio TOPROJEKT in cooperation with the Paris-based AND Studio and Studio Antonini, will significantly improve the functionality of the building. Unlike the original building, the new station will integrate rail traffic with vehicular transport, serving as a transfer point between trains and coaches and public transportation.
The new PKP railway station in Częstochowa
© PKP S.A | Toprojekt
The form of the new building is a spatial extension of the already existing structure of the pedestrian walkway thrown over the platforms. Thus, the station in Częstochowa will take the form of a long, cuboid block, stretching from Wolności Avenue to Józefa Piłsudskiego Street. At its ends will be glass pavilions, which will house the infrastructure necessary for passenger service. It is worth mentioning that the implemented project will differ slightly from the one selected in the 2019 competition - in the updated version, the glass pavilion at the Council of Europe Square will be significantly enlarged in the southern direction. Better communication, integration of various modes of transport and adaptation to the requirements of modern users are the answers the new building will give to the accusations levelled by the PKP against the 1996 facility.
The new PKP railway station in Częstochowa
© PKP S.A | Toprojekt
railway station at the meeting point of two eras
The history of the post-modern station in Czestochowa, built on the site of the former Viennese railroad building, had its beginning back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a competition was held to design a new building for PKP. The competition was won by a team working under the direction of Ryszard Frankowicz, an architect specializing in railroad infrastructure (author of the development of the Krakow Transportation Center, including the underground station building and accompanying infrastructure, but also the modernization of 19th-century railroad facilities, including stations in Sosnowiec and Bielsko-Biała).
PKP Central Station, Częstochowa - designed by Ryszard Frankowicz.
Photo: Neo[ENZ] © CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
However,the building, which was completed in 1996, differs from the one depicting the winning design - as Anna Cymer notes in her book "The Long Nineties", the political transformation that happened during the construction of the new station left its mark on its architecture. Thus, "signs of the times" appeared in it, i.e. formal play with geometric motifs, lots of glass and painted, in this case red, aluminum in the window frames. The building was also unusually, for the time, modern - it featured escalators, glass elevators and photocell-operated doors. In line with the realities of the new economic model, a commercial section was also added to the originally designed block. As late as 2016, there were plans to "refresh" one of the building's facades by adding an illuminated sign, informing the public of its function. All this, however, was not enough for the Częstochowa Railway Station to stand the test of time - at least in the eyes of the PKP and some representatives of the architectural community.
PKP Central Railway Station, Częstochowa - designed by Ryszard Frankowicz.
Photo: MOs810 © CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
so as not to throw the baby out with the bathwater
The architecture of modernist train stations is increasingly seen in Poland as heritage worthy of protection, with great examples being Warszawa Centralna (saved from demolition thanks to a daring action by the Warsaw community) and the PKP station in Tarnów's Mościce, which has found its place in the register of monuments. Somewhat less fortunate, however, are their younger, postmodern siblings. Although not many new stations were built in the 1990s, buildings such as the Lodz Kaliska station, which is currently being rebuilt, or the station in Chelm are an interesting document of times gone by. Protecting the latest heritage is an extremely difficult task, but when weighing the fate of architecture from the second half of the last century, it's worth asking the question that was apparently not asked before the demolition of both Supersam and Solpol - are we sure we won't regret it someday?
