Reconstruction of Villas and Palaces from the Second Half of the 19th and the Beginning of the 20th Centuries in Warsaw after the War

Abstract

Reconstruction after the war of villas and palaces from the second half of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries was influenced by the economic problems and the changes in ownership status, and hence by appropriation of particular buildings. However, apart from this, a far-reaching influence was exerted by the state of research at that time, which gave the status of historical monuments that were protected by law only to buildings erected before the first half of the 19^th century, as well as by lack of esteem in the generation of the architects of the reconstruction – modernists - for the architectonic heritage from the times of historicism and secession.

These palaces and villas retained the most authenticity and original value that suffered the least destruction during the war and after minor repairs were brought back to the state close to that before the war, with corrections resulting from their changed function (e.g. the Zamoyskis' Palace in Foksal Street, the Dziewulskis' villa in Aleje Ujazdowskie Street). Other villas were restored to their former outward form, but the reconstruction of the interiors was designed with considerable changes resulting from the damage and the need to adapt them to their new functions (e.g. the palaces in Aleje Ujazdowskie Street: Rembieliński's, Rau's, Bławacka's / the Sobańskis). However, a lot of palaces and villas that were gravely damaged, after the initial designs to reconstruct them according to the spirit of tradition (designs from the years 1947-1949), at the beginning of the fifties were reconstructed according to moderately modernist designs, without paying attention to the original arrangement of the interiors and the character of elevations (e.g. the palaces in Foksal Street, the Rzyszczewskis' Kiślański's palaces in Chopin Street). The late fifties and the beginning of the sixties were especially unfavourable; on the air of the critique of after-war reconstructions the decisions were made to demolish the secured ruins of the Kronenberg's palace and the villas in Aleje Ujazdowskie Street (Lilpop's and Wernicki's) provisionally adapted after the war.