Zabytkowe bulwary wiślane na Wybrzeżu Kościuszkowskim i Gdańskim w Warszawie

The left-bank Vistula Boulevards dating back to the beginning of the 20th century constitute a valuable testimony of the hydrotechnical construction industry. The idea for the boulevards constructed in the interwar period has come from the 19th century boulevards of Georges Haussmann in Paris and constitutes a unique example of the bold ideas of President Stefan Starzyński. The idea was to connect the city with the river in order to elevate the rank of Warsaw as a European capital. The interwar boulevards were designed according to the contemporary canon of modern architecture and Bronisław Plebiński, an eminent engineer, supervised the construction works. The construction of the boulevards, initiated in the 19th century, was discontinued when World War II broke out. In the post-war period the former boulevards were connected with the abutment and the new staircases of the Śląsko-Dąbrowski bridge. The rebuilding of the retaining walls, destroyed as a result of military activities, was conducted together with the construction of the East-West road (Trasa W-Z), with the use of resources available at that time. The revitalisation designs are somewhat alarming, as they aim to transform the boulevards significantly. The levelling of the slope in order to replace it with a reinforced concrete construction, secondarily paved, seems utterly pointless and destructive. “Bulwary Starzyńskiego” (the boulevards reconstructed by Starzyński) also deserve to be protected and recognised as the testimony of a past epoch. Apart from the modernist and functional architectural form, special attention needs to be paid to the selection of noble materials and the quality of workmanship. The renovation and revitalisation of the boulevards, conducted according to conservation principles, would restore them to their original elegant form. Both the 19th century and the interwar boulevards should be protected by the conservator as monuments of significant historical value, inscribed on the register of monuments.