2B Jerzego Waszyngtona Avenue high-rise is a

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

residential high-rise in the city of

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It is located at 2B Jerzego Waszyngtona Avenue in the neighbourhood of

Saska Kępa Saska Kępa (, ''Saxon Meadow'') is a neighbourhood in Warsaw, Poland, part of the Praga Południe (South Praga) district, with a population of over 40.000 inhabitants. It is also the home to one of Warsaw's largest urban parks, the Skaryszew Pa ...

in the district of

Praga-Południe Praga-Południe (), also known by its anglicized names Praga-South, Praga South, and South Praga, is a district of the city of Warsaw, Poland located on the east bank of the Vistula River. It consists of Grochów, Gocław, Kamionek and Saska K ...

. It was designed by architect Marek Leykam, and built in 1963. It is an early example of

modernist architecture Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, or the modern movement, is an architectural architectural movement, movement and architectural style, style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco Architectu ...

in Poland, and upon construction, it was the first high-rise built on the right bank of

Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...

river in Warsaw, and the first building in the city, with at least one wall with fully glass-covered elevation.

History

The building was commissioned by the

housing cooperative A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity which owns real estate consisting of one or more residential buildings. The entity is usually a cooperative or a corporation and constitutes a form of housing tenure. Typically hou ...

of Wspólny Dach. It was designed by architect Marek Leykam in

style, and was built between 1962 and 1963. The building was originally built with its south and north walls having elevation consisting fully of glass windows which reached from floors to ceilings. The glass walls were hold by concrete V-shaped s, one on each sides. The high-rise also had lift shafts partially covered in glass, through which were visible the

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...

s. In the building were located apartments and a library. It was also planned to place a

revolving restaurant A revolving restaurant or rotating restaurant is a tower restaurant designed to rest atop a broad circular revolving wikt:platform, platform that operates as a large turntable. The building remains stationary and the diners are carried on the rev ...

at the roof, which was never realized. The reminder of such plans is a concrete circle at the top of the building.Magdalena Piwowar, Grzegorz Piątek, Jarosław Trybuś: ''SAS. Ilustrowany atlas architektury Saskiej Kępy''. Centrum Architektury, 2012, p. 16. ISBN 978-83-934574-0-3. (in Polish) The glass elevation was badly isolated, causing the apartments to get very hot in the summers, and very cold in the winters. Many inhabitants also complained about lack of privacy. As such, in 1973 the glass elevation was replaced by brick walls and two-times smaller windows. The characteristic V-shaped concrete supporters at the base of the building, and the windows of lift shafts, were also removed.Hanna Faryna-Paszkiewicz: ''Saska Kępa''. Warsaw: Murator, 2001, p. 114. ISBN 83-915407-0-7. (in Polish). In the 1990s, on the roof of the building was placed a

turret clock A turret clock or tower clock is a clock designed to be mounted high in the wall of a building, usually in a clock tower, in public buildings such as Church (building), churches, university buildings, and town halls. As a public amenity to enab ...

and a

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in Decem ...

advertising the store Jubiler.

Characteristics and design

The apartment building is located at 2B Jerzego Waszyngtona Avenue. It has 13 storeys. On its roof is placed a concrete circle, which was originally placed there as foundation of a planned

which was never finished. The elevation of south and north walls of the building is covered in brick walls and glass windows. Originally, the building was designed and built with aforementioned elevations fully covered in glass windows, which extended from floors to ceilings.

In popular culture

The photography of the building, for its innovative design as an early example of

in Poland, had been used to depict entry "Polish architecture" (''architektura polska'') in the

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

of ''

Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN The ''Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN'' (Great Universal Encyclopedia PWN) was, until 2005, the largest Polish encyclopedia ever written. It was published between 1962 and 1970 by Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe (State Scientific Publishers, P ...

'' (''Great Universal Encyclopedia of PWN'').

References

External links

{{commons category-inline 1963 establishments in Poland Modernist architecture in Poland Praga-Południe Residential buildings completed in 1963 Apartment buildings in Warsaw Skyscrapers in Warsaw Residential skyscrapers in Poland