Kielce Bus Station () is a

bus station A bus station, bus depot, or bus interchange is a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can st ...

Kielce Kielce (; ) is a city in south-central Poland and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the banks of the Silnic ...

, Poland. It is a

novelty architecture Novelty architecture, also called programmatic architecture or mimetic architecture, is a type of architecture in which buildings and other structures are given unusual shapes for purposes such as advertising or to copy other famous buildings. ...

type of a building, shaped to resemble a

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes ...

. Opened in 1984, it was seen as one of the more modern bus stations of its kind in Poland at that particular time. The station is built upon a large roundabout of 89 meters in diameter providing room for 15 platforms each of 18 meters length (the largest legal length of a bus in Poland and most of Europe). An additional island increases the number of platforms by 3, also providing night-time operation when the main building is closed. The main building of circular shape with a dome is located in the center of the roundabout. It is accessed by two tunnels beneath the roundabout - this feature provides maximum safety as pedestrian and bus traffic never cross each other.

History

The building was constructed from 1975 to 1984, and opened on 20 July that year, two days before the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the

People's Republic of Poland The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...

. It was designed by Polish architect . The facility was seen as highly advanced in terms of its overall capacity, and quickly became a minor tourist attraction and one of the landmarks of Kielce. It was designed to accommodate 1,500 buses and the projected number of 24,000 passengers daily. The size of the complex is about . Recently the local government has declared the building to be a monument, and the

Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship ( ), also known as Holy Cross Voivodeship, is a voivodeship (province) in southeastern Poland, in the historical region of Lesser Poland. The province's capital and largest city is Kielce. The voivodeship takes its ...

monument curator has justified this decision by describing the building as "unique and novel example of People's Republic of Poland-era type of architecture" and "one of the most valuable architectural designs of the years of 1970s and 1980s in Poland, and a material document of this period". The fortunes of the building decreased in the 1990s, as post-communist Poland saw a rise in private car ownership, and a decreased interest in public transit. The building, formerly owned by the PKS company, has been

privatized Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

in the early 2010s. While the government authorities were interested in preserving the building, seen as an important landmark, its private owners were struggling to turn a profit out of it. As of the 21st century, the building became increasingly in need of renovation, and the owner, the PKS 2 company, was planning to replace it with a new construction at a different location, with the original building being heavily modified or replaced. A spokesman for the company has even declared that they are not willing to invest in renovating the building, and in fact are waiting for the building to collapse. This has caused criticism from individuals who see the building as part of modern Poland's cultural heritage, and demand that the design is not significantly altered. The city bought back the bus station at the end of March 2016. In September 2018, a major reconstruction project was started with the goal of almost completely rebuilding the station, but preserving the basic design and the distinctive shape of the building. The works are scheduled to finish in June 2020, with a planned cost of 68,7 million PLN, 9 million of which is to be provided by the city government (with the bulk of the rest of the funding coming from the European Union).

Gallery

File:Bus station Kielce IMGP3401.JPG, The station before the reconstruction began in 2018 File:Dworzec autobusowy Kielce (020) Travelarz.JPG, Interior of the old station File:Dworzec autobusowy Kielce (022) Travelarz.JPG, Stairs leading to the main hall File:Dworzec autobusowy Kielce (061) Travelarz.JPG, The main hall File:Dworzec PKS w Kielcach.jpg, The reconstruction of the station in 2019 File:Dworzec PKS Kielce Noc.jpg, Bus station at night in January 2020

References

External links

Photos from the construction
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140720041515/http://kielce.gazeta.pl/kielce/56,35267,13872225,Tak_budowali_kielecki_dworzec_PKS__To_historia_tego.html#TRrelSST , date=2014-07-20
Photos from the interior
Googie architecture 1984 establishments in Poland Bus stations in Poland Buildings and structures in Kielce Transport in Kielce Transport infrastructure completed in 1984 UFO culture Novelty architecture

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links