Pre-war Inspirations in Shaping Green Spaces in Post-war Warsaw

This article explores green space planning in Warsaw between 1916 and 1954, as an example of the creative development of the concept of shaping green spaces through years in the city. Based on relevant plans and documents this study shows that regardless of the conditions or political system, the urban green areas adopted after the war was optimal, because it resulted from the real needs of the state capital, which after many years of partitions, regained independence, and thus the ability to self-decide about its further development. The article examines the impact of planning concepts from the interwar period on the reconstruction of Warsaw in shaping green spaces. The paper focuses on indicating the similarities and differences in urban plans derived from the interwar time and the “social-realistic” period. The research starts with studies at the general level and leads to detailed solutions. The research uses the method of critical analysis of source data, including cartographic studies and the comparative method. In addition to strictly scientific research methods, the study also uses artistic evaluation of the designed urban greenery assumptions. As a result of the war, many European cities suffered severe damages. Warsaw belonged to the most experienced in this area. Paradoxically, the city’s destruction has become an opportunity for rebuilding it as a better one, also in terms of strengthening the resources of green urban areas. Already in the pre-war period, the need to increase the city’s area resources was strongly articulated to enable a coherent and future-oriented urban policy. The idea of strengthening the field base constituting urban resources was at the root of the idea of cooperative activity so popular in the Scandinavian countries or Germany. However, in Poland, right after the war took a pathological form. Under the so-called decree on communalization, also called the Bierut Decree, the ownership of land within its administrative boundaries was transferred to the municipality of Warsaw, which facilitated the process of implementing changes. The concept of building Warsaw in 1945 assumed functional segregation of the city following the idea of Le Corbusier. The overall thought was to rebuilt Warsaw as the town for the new “socialist” type of citizens. Although the urban planners working during the so-called “social-realistic” period (1945-1954) affirmed that their ideas of the development of towns were entirely new, the plans prepared for Warsaw depict many similarities to the ones worked out in the interwar period, from 1916 on. At the same time, the plan assumed maintaining wedge-shaped zones of greenery entering downtown. Subsequent proposals of the first post-war years followed this principle. Subsequent concepts for the development of Warsaw arising in the second half of the 1940s were consistent with the assumptions of the Athens Charter of 1933, guaranteeing residents’ access to greenery, accompanying residential districts, or creating a city-wide recreational space.