ACROSS the BORDER 1995
Warsaw, Poland
Coming to the River
In October 1995 Philip Courtenay followed the LODE line over the border to Warsaw and Gdansk to scope possible LODE developments. Over a period of three days several walks around Warsaw city centre were captured on Super8 film.
Both Warsaw and Gdansk are cities that lie on the banks of the river Vistula; Polish: Wisła, German: Weichsel, Low German: Wießel, Yiddish: ווייסל.
Four names, four languages, four histories!
This is the longest and largest river in Poland, at 1,047 kilometres (651 miles) in length and rises at Barania Góra in the south of Poland, 1,220 meters (4,000 ft) above sea level in the Silesian Beskids (western part of Carpathian Mountains), where it begins with the White Little Vistula (Biała Wisełka) and the Black Little Vistula (Czarna Wisełka). It then continues to flow over the vast Polish plains, passing several large Polish cities along its way, including Kraków, Sandomierz, Warsaw, Płock, Włocławek, Toruń, Bydgoszcz, Świecie, Grudziądz, Tczew and Gdańsk. It empties into the Vistula Lagoon (Zalew Wiślany) or directly into the Gdańsk Bay of the Baltic Sea with a delta and several branches (Leniwka, Przekop, Śmiała Wisła, Martwa Wisła, Nogat and Szkarpawa).
This river is less of a geographic border and more of a communication artery that geography provides to a history that produces the conditions for these important Polish cities as centres to be founded and developed over the centuries.
These walks down to the river Vistula, took place in the area of Warsaw known as Śródmieście, meaning "city centre", or "downtown", is the central borough of the city of Warsaw that includes the best known neighborhoods of the Old Town (Stare Miasto) and New Town (Nowe Miasto).
Almost everything of the urban fabric visible in the Super8 footage has arisen from the rubble and ashes of the destruction of Warsaw during WW2. Before the war Warsaw was one of the most beautiful cities in the world until. The German invasion in 1939, the massacre of the Jewish population and deportations to concentration camps led to the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 and to the major and devastating Warsaw Uprising between August and October 1944.
In 1945 the city was in ruins with 85% of the its buildings destroyed, but like a phoenix rising from its ashes through a remarkable programme of reconstruction, the old city stands again, surrounded by a post war architecture and urban fabric that reflects a post-war history.
These walks also crossed areas of Muranow, a neighborhood consisting mainly of housing estates in the districts of Śródmieście and Wola in Warsaw. It was founded in the 17th century and named after the island of Murano in Venice because of the palace built by Józef Bellotti, a Venetian architect.
Before WW2 this was a district inhabited mostly by Jews. Because of this, the Warsaw Ghetto was set up here in 1940 by the occupying Germans. After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 c the district was completely destroyed.
Modern Muranow is a unique place, with the housing estate located on the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto, built in most part from this reconditioned rubble.
In contrast to the devastation left behind by the Germans the housing here reflects the ideas of modernist design and social housing that the pro-Soviet communist government had embraced as part of a post war re-construction not only of urban fabric but society itself.
Gdansk and the Tri-City, Trójmiasto, Gdynia and Sopot
This research was continued with a visit to Gdansk on Poland's Baltic coast, and the neighbouring cities of Sopot and Gdynia.
One of the many good reasons to visit Gdansk was the fact of the city twinning agreement between Sefton Council, on Merseyside, and Gdansk in Poland.
Southport is where the Council has it's main offices, although Bootle, where Yellow House was based in those days is a part of Sefton rather than Liverpool.
Until 1945, Gdansk was a predominantly German city, although not part of Germany:
Gdańsk (German: Danzig) is one of the oldest cities in Poland. Founded by the Polish ruler Mieszko I in the 10th century, the city was for a long time part of Piast state either directly or as a fief. In 1308 the city became part of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights until the 15th century. Thereafter it became part of Poland again, although with increasing autonomy. A vital naval city for Polish grain trade it attracted people from all over the European continent, including Germans and Scots. The city was taken over by Prussia during the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 and subsequently lost its importance as a trading port. Briefly becoming a free city during Napoleonic wars, it was again Prussian after Napoleon's defeat, and later became part of the newly created German Empire.
After World War I the Free City of Danzig was created, a city-state under the supervision of the League of Nations. The German attack on the Polish military depot at Westerplatte marks the start of World War II and the city was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1939. The local Polish, Jewish and Kashubian minorities were persecuted and murdered in the Holocaust. After World War II the city became part of Poland and the German population either fled or was expelled to Germany. During post-1945 era, the city was rebuilt from war damage, and vast shipyards were constructed. The center of Solidarity strikes in the 1980s, after abolishment of communism in 1989 its population faced poverty and large unemployment with most of the ship building industry closed down.
And, Southport is famous for its pier too!
What emerges from this juxtaposition is the key organising idea of:
similarity and difference.
What emerges from this juxtaposition is the key organising idea of:
similarity and difference.
The resonance that occurs in this situation is actually more to do with the "difference".
'resonance comes out of difference'
See LODE Legacy '97 page
