Quote:
Originally Posted by stupps
Hi, I'm doing a study on how warsaw residential architecture has changed since the WW2. Anyone got any idea where I could find legislation for the governments with regard to this? Any areas which are good to look at as well? I know Zoliborz has a lot of nice stuff.
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You'll have a hard time without Polish... the crucial change in Warsaw since the war has been an ambitious attempt to move away from the dark and cramped tenement houses that filled prewar Warsaw. The streets were broadened, and elements of Le Corbusier's "towers in a park" idea were adopted. All apartments need to be no closer than 12 meters from another building, and must get a certain amount of sunlight each day. Most apartment towers are long and thin, with several stairwells, allowing apartments to have north-south or east-west exposures. No apartments have only a north exposure, since that means they would have no sunlight. Before the war no one bothered much with this kind of stuff. However, "Commieblocks" built after the war, especially after the 1960s, were often shoddy and grim, and the urban infrastructure around them was often neglected, since that didn't count in fulfilling the all-important, politically decided housing supply goals.
Many of the rules concerning light and air have been kept since 1990, but there has been a return to a more traditional streetwall architecture, and prefab construction is no longer used. Browse around "Forum Polskich Wiezowcow" on ssc, particularly see the "Miasteczko Wilanow" thread in "Warszawa" for new architecture; you can also find a lot of informative Warsaw pics under "Wiezowce & Skylines."