The rubble and waste of a forgotten wartime mound discover new life as an city park within the coronary heart of Warsaw’s Mokotów district
Images by Michał Szlaga that includes the Warsaw Rebellion Mound Park
Phrases by Jessica-Christin Hametner
In Warsaw’s leafy Mokotów district, a forgotten warfare website is present process a daring transformation. The Warsaw Rebellion Mound Park is born from a collaboration between Polish structure studio archigrest and landscaping agency topoScape, who use post-war rubble and progressive design ideas to show an deserted website right into a sprawling, biodiverse park.
Rising 35 meters above town, this once-overlooked mound was initially an unplanned memorial. Following World Conflict II, Warsaw’s city panorama was destroyed, with 20 million cubic metres of particles accumulating within the metropolis’s lakes and meadows, slowly forming hills of rubble.
Even amid the devastation, early images from 1947 reveal a metropolis of resilience: residents repurposed bricks to create rubble concrete, a waste materials that helped rebuild Warsaw’s housing and infrastructure. Drawing on this resilient spirit and impressed by town’s resourceful previous, archigrest and topoScape have reimagined the 82,919 sq m website for a brand new era.
Images by Michał Szlaga that includes a rubble concrete brick
‘Veterans first marked this place because the Warsaw Rebellion Mound in 1944,’ explains Maciej Kaufman of archigrest. ‘Out of the blue, the notion of this place modified utterly—it went from a landfill to an emblem of remembrance,’ shares Kaufman. Over the following 20 years, the positioning lay principally forgotten, with visits reserved for the Warsaw Rebellion anniversary. When Kaufman’s workforce gained the competitors in 2019, they got down to reintroduce the positioning to town, transforming the mound’s rugged historical past into an accessible and sustainable park.
archigrest and topoScape’s ambition was symbolic and experimental: to create a “dwelling monument” that honours its previous. ‘The thought was to maintain the whole lot we discovered right here,’ continues Kaufman, ‘to work with what was left behind—weeds, bowls, ground tiles. As a result of this website is a chunk of heritage, we tailored all the fabric assets we discovered.’ Embracing the world’s uncooked panorama, the workforce launched footbridges and passageways to melt the journey up and over the mound, making a park that beckons town’s residents to stroll, pause and replicate. Each flip reveals one thing new—secluded groves, playgrounds for kids and viewpoints over previous and new Warsaw.
The positioning’s vegetation performed a key function within the landscaping and total dedication to reuse. Working intently with ecologist Piotr Sikorski, the designers mapped a planting technique that built-in current flora with new species of native crops, reintroducing herbs and shrubs whereas additionally strengthening Warsaw’s ecological community. ‘This doesn’t seem like a typical park,’ explains Magda Wnęk of topoScape, who views the design as extra forest than park. ‘Invasive crops had taken over the land, however we’re seeing native ones returning now, sprouting underneath bushes, so the panorama is already altering.’
Images by Michał Szlaga that includes a concrete wall that’s rising moss after the architects used a pure combination containing yogurt
To extend biodiversity, the architects created habitat the place there was none earlier than. Lifeless wooden, a key part for enhancing the biodiversity of forest ecosystems by as much as 50-60%, affords various microhabitats for crops and animals. But it surely additionally acts as an “eco-sponge”, clarify the designers, amassing rainwater and slowly releasing it again into the soil. ‘It’s a giant experiment,’ admits Wnęk. ‘We don’t know precisely what’s within the soil; there is likely to be an previous tire or a big block of concrete.’
This unpredictability of progress has introduced a wild magnificence to the park and deepened its impression as a dwelling memorial. On concrete partitions, the workforce cultivated moss through the use of a combination of moss and yogurt (or kefir), which hastens the weathering course of and encourages lichen, a sort of organism that consists of an alga. Over time, this dwelling layer of moss alters the floor’s pH, inviting quite a lot of vegetation to unfold throughout the positioning.
Equally, when Warsaw was left in ruins after World Conflict II, life started to develop on the brand new and naked rubble. Whereas rocks, boulders and stones usually are not typical locations for all times, lichens, microorganisms and weathering processes can create soil. This permits different crops, similar to ferns or shrubs, and in the end bushes, to develop—a course of often called ecological succession. ‘The crops rising right here have been the primary inhabitants of Warsaw,’ ponders structure historian Aleksandra Kędziorek, who displays on how the park captures a shift in Warsaw’s architectural approaches. ‘For years, we adopted different cities’ fashions, however now we’re discovering what makes us distinctive. This pure regeneration is in our DNA.’
Images by Michał Szlaga that includes the steps of the Warsaw Rebellion Mound Park alongside discovered objects and supplies
The rugged, unpolished aesthetic might have taken some residents without warning and the workforce labored to introduce the general public to ‘rubble aesthetics’ and its environmental advantages by means of guided excursions and discussions. On the entrance, an out of doors set up enhances the tutorial potential of the park, with historic narratives woven into the pure setting.
Alongside the heritage and nature trails, two exhibitions by Adam Przywara and Kasper Jakubowski, embed local weather and nature into studying, utilizing the mound as a case research in regeneration and giving guests an area to ponder the layers of historical past and ecology beneath their ft.
‘We anticipated the roughness could be uncommon,’ explains Marcin Maraszek, ‘so we centered on displaying those that harmonised design is nice for the setting, and I believe individuals perceive that. It may not look good, but it surely works.’ The park has progressively gained admiration not solely as an progressive inexperienced area but in addition as a sustainable mannequin—most lately, it was awarded the European Prize for City Public Area.
Images by Michał Szlaga that includes the Warsaw Rebellion Mound Park
For Kaufman and Wnęk, the undertaking is private; their very own households skilled the Warsaw Rebellion, and the connection to this historical past introduced their skilled sensibilities into a brand new focus. Reasonably than controlling the panorama or making a manicured park, the designers let nature take the lead.
Standing on the mound immediately, one can see throughout Warsaw—the historical past and the brand new metropolis skyline facet by facet. ‘I stand right here on the previous metropolis and look out in direction of the brand new metropolis,’ says Wnęk. ‘And I can’t even recognise the rubble metropolis within the images of my grandparents’ albums anymore. However being right here, I perceive why it appears to be like so totally different now.’
Inviting each reflection and connection, this considerate regeneration undertaking demonstrates the progressive methods by which rubble can be utilized to rebuild a metropolis. The Warsaw Rebellion Mound Park is a testomony to Warsaw’s resilience, displaying that town’s energy lies not in stone, however within the life that rises from the ashes.
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