There are buildings that have risen to symbolic status because of the breakthroughs they have brought. Such a role can certainly be attributed to the building of the Telecommunications Office in Warsaw at 45 Nowogrodzka St. Its construction ushered in an era of widespread use of the telegraph in Poland – an invention that overnight reduced the time it took to transmit messages from a few days or months to a few seconds.
In anticipation of the revitalisation of the historic ‘telegraph building’, we look at the history of the invention that ushered in the era of modern telecommunications. Izabela Kupietz, curator of the Museum of Post and Telecommunications in Wrocław, shares her knowledge:
One of the largest public buildings in the capital during the interwar period – the building of the Telecommunications Office in Warsaw – that is, the throbbing heart of Polish teletransmission, still stands out among the surrounding buildings. It was in this building, the flagship of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, that the telegraphic headquarters found its place, bringing together the telephone and telegraph offices previously scattered throughout Warsaw. The activities of the office, equipped with the most modern devices for rapid communication, meant that the world – not only for Varsovians, but for all Poles – began to shrink.
The road to a technological boom
On Polish soil, the first telegraph line based on the Morse system was built along the Warsaw-Vienna Railway in 1852 between Warsaw and the railway station at Granica near Krakow. The merging of telegraphs with the post office, within a single institution, took place in the last quarter of the 19th century.
After the restoration of independence in 1918, the reconstruction of telegraph equipment destroyed during the First World War began, with the aim of creating a coherent communications system covering the whole country. The equipment of the telecommunications network taken over from the partitioners classified it as one of the least developed in Europe. Such a situation undoubtedly influenced the decision of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs to modernise the telecommunications network as one of the most important tasks in its programme. Warsaw played a central role. It was here that the most important national and international connections converged. To this end, it was necessary to build new postal and telecommunications facilities, among which the Warsaw building, still an expression of technological progress, was to reign supreme.
The most modern building of the inter-war period
The competition for the design of the Warsaw headquarters of the State Telecommunications Office was announced as early as 1921. However, it was not decided until 1828, when the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs commissioned Julian Puterman-Sadłowski, a respected architect working with the ministry, to carry out the project.
Although the building was originally intended to be used exclusively for telecommunications, after the construction work was completed in 1932, the Teletechnical School and the Museum of Post and Telecommunications were also moved here . The main spaces of the building were occupied by: the apparatus rooms of the telegraph, radio telegraph and municipal and non-urban telephones, the room with technical equipment and three rooms for the public. The office, considered the largest and most modern edifice in Poland at the time, also included leisure spaces, a canteen and cloakroom for staff, leisure terraces and a gymnasium.
The telegraph – a symbol of technological progress
The building at 45 Nowogrodzka Street was primarily equipped with proudly innovative technical devices. The central telegraph was the main node of the country’s wire network and an important element in the international network. It made it possible to send telegrams to all places in the country and abroad.
Broadcasting services were performed extremely quickly, due to the presence of Poland’s first transporters, i.e. belt devices driven mechanically by electric motors. Their use enabled the rapid transmission of messages to the broadcasting apparatus. The transmitted telegrams were immediately issued to their destination, avoiding the intermediation of branch offices.
The transmission room of the central telegraph, equipped with 13 writing desks and customer service desks, was also the place for the transmission of radiotelegrams to the remotest corners of the world with which it had a direct connection. These included North America, Japan, Syria, as well as the European countries of France, England, Switzerland or Spain. In 1933, the headquarters had 14 Morse telephones, 22 tapes, 42 Hughes telephones, 4 Baudot double telephones, 6 quadruple telephones, 5 Simens telephones and 8 teletypewriters at its disposal.
Saved during the war
The office performed its role admirably until the outbreak of the Second World War. Incorporated into the structures of the Deutsche Post Osten, it luckily survived the German occupation. Despite minor damage, renovation work was already undertaken in 1945. However, the post-war changes did not have a positive impact on the aesthetics of the building, especially those introduced in the 1980s. Nevertheless, looking at the preserved modernist elements of the building, one can feel the unique atmosphere of its glory days and understand its enormous significance for the development of Polish telecommunications.
The beginnings of the digital revolution
In this day and age, when we are able to connect to almost every corner of the Earth regardless of place or time, and the use of the internet is widespread, we should remember that it was inventions of the 19th century such as the telegraph that made people living at distant ends of the world extremely close to each other.
The telegraph – that distinguished means of communication for decades – had an undoubted influence on the shaping of the modern world. It is in the telegraph that we can trace the roots of the phenomenon known as the digital revolution, which began in the second half of the 20th century and continues to transform our ability to access information. The Internet and its associated file transfer, e-mail, video games and industrial robots are just a few examples of the globalisation that puts the world around us – Internet users numbering in the billions – at our fingertips.
The entity responsible for the revitalisation of the Telecommunications Office building at 45 Nowogrodzka Street in Warsaw is ZEITGEIST Asset Management.
