News   Jul 30, 2024
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News   Jul 30, 2024
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News   Jul 30, 2024
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Six most beautiful stations on the planet

I understand what you are saying and I am usually quite sympathetic towards socialist architecture. It is easy to see how someone would like this building and I can imagine when it was new and shiny it probably looked quite wonderful.

Unfortunately though it is cheap, flimsy, and has not aged very well with time. Try as I did to simply enjoy the charm that once was and the visions of what the station was meant to be, as it stands, its a worn out and used monument to a time that has since passed. And as a functional building serving commuters and long distance travellers, it does the job, but barely, and heavier use of the station would start to make it feel crowded and a little uncomfortable. Too each their own though and perhaps had I not been a little more chipper and energetic that day I may have seen and experienced it differently.

I would not be surprised either if an effort was made to save and renovate it. I can also see how when it comes time to modernize the station and the rail service in the city, tearing it down would be fully justified too. That will be for the people of Warsaw to decide though and I am sure whatever they do will most likely be what is in the best interest of their city based on the rather difficult times they have gone through during most of the 20th century. Growing up in Canada, I cannot imagine the kinds of choices they have to make between modernizing their city, protecting the past, and perhaps intentionally wiping out some of the past too.

Perhaps the interesting thing is: by this standard, I'm not sure if *any* "contemporary" architecture in Poland btw/Stalin and Perestroika would make your cut.

Besides, other than maybe the "cheap, flimsy" part, what you say might as well have been said about Parkin's now-demolished 1964 Terminal 1 at Pearson...or it's echoed in hypothetical arguments for a sleek MaRS-esque replacement to Riverdale Hospital...etc, etc. Not that Terminal 1 *should* have been kept; but, degraded as it was, it surely wasn't the un-aesthetic hellhole a lot of its users thought it was...
 
Well the choice of whether that architecture should remain or not is not my concern. I don't live in Poland and even if spent years living in the city, learning the history, language and culture, I would still not have the same connection and feeling with the buildings and cities that people who grow up there did and have lived the life they have. If it works for citizens and it is something they want to keep and preserve, then fine, if not, I can understand that too. Just because I can appreciate the aesthetic quality of what is or once was or what it was trying to be doesn't mean that it is going to be worth saving if it does not the meet the needs of the people who actually have to live and work and use the buildings. While I enjoy socialist architecture and do find quite a lot of it rather interesting and appealing, I am also glad I don't have to live in it because behind a lot of it is an uncomfortable atmosphere to live or work in.

Architecture and urbanism are subjective and there is anyway you can see or experience it. In my own opinion, it is not just enough that architecture exude some 'unique' design aesthetic too it. It has too work, serves its function and be able to stand the test of time. The Corbusier and CIAM inspired housing developments may have in some respects been quite wonderful architecture and in many cases you can see what they were trying to do and what could have been. But they failed. They turned out in many cases to be anti-social places to live and did not serve their need. It is much the same as buildings that use poor materials and do not age well. If they cannot stand the test of time and if they turn out to no longer meet their needs, then they are architectural failures and should be replaced. Aesthetics is wonderful and all but it is not the only component of architecture and that alone does not always justify saving a building.

Sometimes architecture amounts to nothing more than a cheap, polyester leisure suit which, might have been a different, unique fashion trend, but one whos memory is best lived on in pictures and humorous reminiscence.
 

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