Cybinka is a small town located in Lubuskie Voivodeship, in the region referred to as Torzymski Land. It is one of the youngest towns in the region. Interesting natural features are intertwined with a long history. The Polish-German border is nearby, and it is precisely this kind of development that dominates here. You can find smaller and larger post-German houses, service or public buildings.
One of the most characteristic buildings in the village is located on Slubicka Street in Cybinka. The spacious pre-war villa from the early 20th century is for the locals an object associated above all with their school years and childhood memories, as for years it housed a school. The long-decaying building was put up for sale by the local authority in 2018. Interestingly, despite its undeniable historical and architectural value, it was never entered in the register of historic buildings. In the end, the impressive property ended up in private hands and it seemed to have been saved. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.
Cybinka, house number 29 in 2018. Photo author: selene/Krystyna Filmanowicz
The new owner, unrestricted by the entry in the register and ignoring conservationist recommendations, significantly rebuilt the building, or rather built a brand new one, preserving only fragments of the former villa. Perhaps only the front wall of the ground floor and the first-floor wing with its decorative finial have survived. The latter, however, was treated as an addition to the new part and clumsily modified, which deepened the grotesque image of the whole. To the surviving and disfigured elements, a multi-family block has been added, which the developer advertises as new flats in Cybina at 29 Słubicka Street, opposite the Orlen station. It offers one-, two- and three-room flats in a three-storey building, in developer condition, with areas ranging from 26 m2 to 58 m2. The building has a car park. The overall appearance is caricatured, squat and blandly out of keeping with the low-rise and rather intimate surroundings.
The house before and after the redevelopment. Photo: selene/Krystyna Filmanowicz and Krzysztof Sławiński
The house before and after the reconstruction. Photo: Google Maps and Krzysztof Slawinski
The house before and after reconstruction. Photo selene/Krystyna Filmanowicz and Krzysztof Slawinski
In this way, an old stately building has been destroyed and the municipality of Cybinka has erected for itself a monument to the care for historical heritage, the momentum and vision of the investor and the abnegation of the architect and designers. It should be added that the project was carried out by a person with a design qualification granted by a university diploma, who legitimises something like this with his name. Nobody from the municipality took care to protect a valuable, one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It did not occur to anyone to undertake the renovation of the former school, which was a valuable and fully authentic building, living in the memory of the inhabitants as the place of their first years of education. Now there is a nightmare standing by the main road of Cybinka, which will remind us of the ignorance of the authorities and others for years to come.
Source: Conservator of Monuments, iloveslubice.pl
Read also: Architecture in Poland | Elevation | Metamorphosis | History | Archialert
