We return to the subject of the category of negative heritage, i.e. cultural creations that, for various reasons, may not be accepted, often arouse controversy or resentment, and for this reason are often removed, altered, not created at all, or persist, arousing unabated discussion. When it comes to architecture and museum buildings, which are very important in a symbolic sense, the 20th-century history of Warsaw knows of more than a dozen, if not dozens of such buildings that have not been built. They are worth looking at in connection with the city's cultural policy and reflecting on how the architectural past can influence the present.
In Unrealized Museum Projects in Warsaw in the Twentieth Century in the Perspective of Urban Studies, Lukasz Bukowiecki explores a hitherto unexplored topic in the history of Polish museology, despite the fact that reflection on various kinds of "unfinished projects" has a tradition in the humanities. More specifically, there are three Warsaw projects in question: first, the concept of adapting the former St. Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral on what was then Saski Square, or today's Pilsudski Square, into a "civilian treasury of the nation." This vision was proposed by Stefan Żeromski in the conclusion of his 1918 poem Wisła (The Vistula ); secondly, the changing plans in the subsequent decades of the Polish People's Republic for the post-war reconstruction of the Royal Castle for use as the Museum of Polish Culture, the Millennium Museum and thePantheon of National History and Culture; thirdly, the location of a museum of communism in thePalace of Culture and Science, which evolved from the literary vision of Ewa Graczyk (the essay Exhibition of the People's Republic of Poland in the Palace of Culture, circulated in the 1980s. The essay was first published in 1989) into the architectural design of the SocLand Communist Memorial Museum, prepared at the turn of the 20th century in Czesław Bielecki's studio, and also branded by Andrzej Wajda and Jacek Fedorowicz. The latter concept seems most relevant in the context of the ever-recurring disputes over the existence, or necessity, of the Palace.
St. Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral on Saski Square in Warsaw.
Photo: unknown [in:] R. Marcinkowski, Illustrated Atlas of Old Warsaw, Oliwka, Warsaw 2013, | Wikimedia Commons © CC-PD-Mark
The Royal Castle in Warsaw
photo: Ferdziu| Wikimedia Commons © CC-BY-SA-3.0-PL
icons and breakthroughs
The concepts of these edifices are linked to the category of negativeheritage, a proposal by American anthropologist and archaeologist Meskell. Also important in this case was the question of capturing an edifice "iconic" for the partition era, the pre-socialist period and the comm unist era in the situation of the "breakthrough" that ended it, i.e. the years 1918, 1945 and 1989. What also connects these unrealized buildings is the subject matter of the collections and exhibitions of the planned projects. Each of them was to have the character of a public museum of Polish national history and a seat in the form of a symbolically controversial historical building, which had to be newly adapted, rebuilt or reconstructed. The proposals also predated the idea of modern narrative museums. In Saski Square, which was gradually being transformed into a shrine of national memory, it was necessary, according to Zeromski's vision, to preserve the Orthodox church that was then standing there, and to designate it as a museum of national historical memorabilia. It was not built here or anywhere else, and the cathedral was demolished, and that already in the 1920s, less than 15 years after its construction was completed.In the case of the post-war reconstruction of the Royal Castle, the idea was to create museums proposed during the communist period. In the context of the SocLand Communist Memorial Museum in the Palace of Culture and Science, it can be seen as an image of the conflict, related to the evaluation of the heritage of the communist era and the concepts of its development after 1989. The site currently houses, what can also be taken as somehow symptomatic, the Dollhouse Museum.
The Palace of Culture and Science and in Warsaw
Photo: Marcin Białek | Wikimedia Commons © CC-BY-SA-3.0
the impact of the absent
What is most interesting and still relevant from a contemporary perspective in these analyses is the impact of these unrealized concepts on the functioning of the city and its users and users. How what is in fact physically absent impacts to this day on the cultural memory, social imaginary, urban layout and institutional landscape of the city.Consider, for example, the construction of the new Museum of Modern Art building on Parade Square at the foot of the Palace of Culture and Science. The ever-present theme of a museum of communism here clashes with a new project that not so much negates, but certainly calls into question the possibility of such a project in the basement of the Palace, given the cultural, urban and financial policies. It is also worth considering the contemporary trend, which is otherwise a very interesting direction, that historical museums are giving way to art museums. Another issue is what personnel and exhibition decisions are being made in these museums. In any case, a reflection on what is absent from the city space is also a reflection on history and how we remember that history.
