Warsaw, especially the district of Wola, was one of the most devastated areas of the city during World War II. Previously densely built up with tenement houses and industrial plants, after the war it became a sea of ruins with few surviving buildings, often in poor technical condition. Some of them, although damaged, survived the post-war demolitions and were rebuilt to serve the capital’s residents for decades to come. They have been called the Warsaw Landmarks. Recently, we wrote about the tenement standing at 46 Grzybowska Street, which survived the war conflagration, but is now to be demolished for the widening of the street. A few years ago, a similar battle was fought over the building standing at 37 Grzybowska St. It is one of the few pre-war buildings that have survived on this street. The 1930s modernist tenement house was listed in the municipal register of historical monuments, but this did not prevent its demolition. In its place, a multi-storey high-rise building was erected, and Warsaw thus lost another historically valuable Warsaw landmark.
37 Grzybowska Street – a modernist monument with history
The tenement house at 37 Grzybowska Street was built between 1936 and 1937, designed by architects Józef Łowiński and Jerzy Ostrowski. It was a modernist building that was considered extremely modern in its time. The property belonged to the Tarasiewicz family, owners of the well-known Polish coffee brand “Pluton”. The history of the business dates back to 1882, when Wiktor Matyjewicz founded the company, later taken over by Tadeusz Tarasiewicz. There was a coffee roasting plant on the premises, just behind the tenement, which was one of the largest in the industry in pre-war Poland. ‘Pluton’ coffee was highly regarded among gourmets, and its popularity even reached beyond the country’s borders.
Photo: Google Maps
Wartime destruction of Warsaw and reconstruction
The tenement and the adjacent factory suffered during the Second World War. The front building was included in the Warsaw Ghetto, and as a result was repeatedly looted by the German army. The coffee roasting plant escaped inclusion in the ghetto, but was destroyed in a bombing raid. During the Warsaw Uprising, the Tarasiewicz house suffered severe damage, but after the war it was able to be rebuilt and even added another floor. The property was characterised by modern architecture with horizontal strips of windows, a vertical staircase window (commonly referred to as a ‘thermometer’) and an undercut ground floor supported by pillars (later built over) where shop windows were located. Balconies were placed on this rear elevation. The building survived, becoming one of Warsaw’s Ostańców and a handful of pre-war buildings on Grzybowska Street.
The dispute over the future of Wolski Ostaniec
For many years, the building was included in the municipal register of monuments as a safeguard against its demolition. Efforts were also made to enter it in the register of monuments, but before this could happen, the investor decided to demolish it. In the end, the Wola authorities failed to save the pre-war building. The information about the planned demolition came at a symbolic moment – on the International Day for the Protection of Monuments.
New buildings in place of the tenement house
In April 2019, the demolition of the tenement started. Together with it, the neon sign of the Speditors’ Work Cooperative “Polsped” disappeared. In the place of Tarasiewicz’s house, a modern 17-storey residential block has been built. True, the developer has recreated the shape of the old building, but with new technology and modern finishing materials. When a passer-by is unaware of this fact, it is difficult to even notice that the black block under the overhanging skyscraper mimics the demolished monument.
Grzybowska 37 in 2017 and today. Google Maps photo
Grzybowska 37 – a lost heritage
The demolition of the building at 37 Grzybowska Street is another example of how the capital is losing its historic buildings to modern development. Although modern architecture has its place in a dynamically developing city, the lack of adequate mechanisms for the protection of historical monuments is leading to the destruction of the last remnants of old Warsaw. The case of the Tarasiewicz tenement is not only the loss of a physical object, but also a fragment of the city’s history that could have served as a monument to the past for future generations.
Source: Tu było, tu stało, och-historia.pl
Read also: Architecture | Tenement | Modernism | History | Warsaw | Interesting facts
