Plac Bankowy ( en, 'Bank Square', formerly ''Plac Dzierżyńskiego'') is one of

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

's principal squares. Located in the

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

district, adjacent to the

Saxon Garden The Saxon Garden ( pl, Ogród Saski) is a 15.5–hectare public garden in central ('' Śródmieście'') Warsaw, Poland, facing Piłsudski Square. It is the oldest public park in the city. Founded in the late 17th century, it was opened to the publ ...

and Warsaw Arsenal, it is also a principal public-transport hub, with

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

and

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...

stops and a Warsaw Metro station.

History

Created in the 19th century, under the

Congress Kingdom Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...

, the square was designed to be an elegant area of the country's capital. Notable buildings included the

Palace of the Ministry of Revenues and Treasury The Palace of the Ministry of Revenues and Treasury ( pl, Pałac Komisji Rządowej Przychodów i Skarbu) is located at 3/5 Bank Square in Warsaw. It is sometimes simply referred to as the Commission Palace. Currently it is not the home to the name ...

(a building reconstructed by

Antonio Corazzi Antonio Corazzi (born 16 December 1792 in Livorno, died April 27 1877 in Florence) was an Italian architect working in Poland from 1819 to 1847, mainly in Neoclassical style. Biography Antonio Corazzi was the son of an impresario of the Aval ...

), the

Bank of Poland The Bank of Poland (Bank Polski) is the name of two former banks in Poland, each of which acted as a central bank. The first institution was founded by Prince Francis Xavier Drucki-Lubecki in 1828 in the Kingdom of Congress Poland. The second was ...

and the

Warsaw Stock Exchange The Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), pl, Giełda Papierów Wartościowych w Warszawie, is a stock exchange in Warsaw, Poland. It has a market capitalization of PLN 1.05 trillion (EUR 232 billion; as of December 23, 2020). The WSE is a member of the ...

(also by Corazzi). The square was originally

triangular A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- collinea ...

-shaped. Between 1875 and 1878 the Great Synagogue was built on the eastern side of the square, across from the palace. At the time of its building, it was the largest synagogue in Warsaw and one of the largest in the world. After the

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; pl, powstanie w getcie warszawskim; german: link=no, Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany' ...

in 1943, the Nazi occupiers blew up the building, destroying it. In the 1944

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...

, the remaining buildings on the square were destroyed. After the war, city planners reconstructed only its historic western part, changing it into a

rectangle In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram contain ...

. The synagogue was not rebuilt and currently in the same location is the Błękitny Wieżowiec office building. Under the communist

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...

, the square was renamed ''Plac Dzierżyńskiego'' (Dzierżyński's Square) after

Felix Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky ( pl, Feliks Dzierżyński ; russian: Фе́ликс Эдму́ндович Дзержи́нский; – 20 July 1926), nicknamed "Iron Felix", was a Bolshevik revolutionary and official, born into Polish nobility ...

, a Polish-born communist politician and founder of the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...

political police. In 1951 a monument to Dzierżyński (by Zbigniew Dunajewski) was erected in the southern part of the square. Four decades later, in 1989, the statue's toppling helped mark the

fall of communism in Poland Autumn, also known as fall in American English and Canadian English, is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southe ...

Today

Bank Square's present-day landmarks include ''Błękitny Wieżowiec'' (the Blue Skyscraper), and the former seat of the Ministry of Treasury now serves as Warsaw's

city hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

, the seat of the

President of Warsaw The city mayor of Warsaw, or more literally the ''city president of Warsaw'' (the official title in Polish is ''"prezydent miasta stołecznego Warszawy"'', literal translation ''"president of the capital city of Warsaw"'') is the head of the exe ...

and the provincial office of the Mazovia province. In 2001, a monument to

Juliusz Słowacki Juliusz Słowacki (; french: Jules Slowacki; 4 September 1809 – 3 April 1849) was a Polish Romantic poet. He is considered one of the "Three Bards" of Polish literature — a major figure in the Polish Romantic period, and the father of mod ...

, by

Edward Wittig Edward Wittig (September 20, 1879 – March 3, 1941) was a Polish sculptor and university professor, notable for designing many monuments in Warsaw. Born in Warsaw, Wittig went on to study art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under the t ...

(actually designed in 1932), was erected on the spot previously occupied by the statue of Feliks Dzierżyński. In front of the Błękitny Wieżowiec is a

statue A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...

Stefan Starzyński Stefan Bronisław Starzyński (19 August 1893 – between 21 and 23 December 1939) was a Polish statesman, economist, military officer and Mayor of Warsaw before and during the Siege of 1939. Early life, studies and career Stefan Bronis ...

, the pre-World War II President of Warsaw, by Andrzej Renes.

References

Squares in Warsaw Śródmieście, Warsaw {{Warsaw-geo-stub