A treat or a threat?
LI talked to Marek Borowski, Warsaw Chief architect, about shopping centers and urban planning.
Recent years have seen a boom of all manner of shopping centers, first closing the circle around Warsaw and now reaching its heart. They are growing in both size and in customers. With Arkadia's 287,000 sqm, Zlote Tarasy's 225,000 sqm and Blue City's 160,822 sqm, one starts to wonder: commercially a golden vein, will they prove edible or poisonous to the cities they invade?
Michal Borowski, Chief Architect of Warsaw, is no optimist in this respect.
"Within the city I think it's a tragedy, and I am very unhappy because of those almost 2 million square meters of commercial space that were built in Warsaw within the last fifteen years," he complains.
Why should this be so? As Borowski himself acknowledges, shopping malls are attractive to both customers and operators. To the former they provide a wide range of quality commodities small shops are not able to offer.
So people go there and buy there, creating a huge turn-over. "Such shopping malls are incredibly profitable for those who run them."
Shouldn't it satisfy the city's authorities? After all the economy's profit may some day translate into the city's and society's profit.
"We all need to buy things, I'm not questioning that. I'm only questioning the form. I think that in Warsaw we have lost the balance between the public good and what the market's invisible hand is doing. When in the centre of the city it's easier to buy a cell phone than parsley, then something is wrong. And this is the effect of the malls' expansion."
Multiplying shopping centers are blamed not only for shaking up that balance. "The city centre is dying, trade quality in the city centre is none, and small every-day goods shops are declining."
Malls kill the local trade in the city centre but much more is at stake. "Those negative effects are everywhere. I mean-not only in the economic sense. That rents go down is, of course, painful for those who own houses or land there, but there are also social aspects." Borowski mentions the increase of unemployment in the areas where shopping centers begin to operate.
Transport is a problem too. "Złote Tarasy will wipe away the Central Station, and the city centre will be one big traffic jam."
The issue Borowski is most concerned about though is the problem of public space and the concept of a good city. Shopping malls, when located within the urban tissue, turn out to have a detrimental impact on the surroundings.
In what ways exactly? "They create a 'dead ground'". The key issue here is their facade-dull, blank, with no windows, some advertisements at best. "They have very little architecture that has anything in common with the street. They could just as well be in between two or three highways, as is usually the case."
Cinema complexes integrated into the facade are no solution. "The facade of a cinema is a nothing. From the urban point of view it's a disaster, just a piece of wall."
What would make shopping malls more city-friendly? "It's about the facade. Windows, glowing shop windows, and entrances, many many entrances. Not one but many, usually at corners, where the streets meet. And neon lights. The Time Square in Manhattan is such a place. The mayor made the tenement owners agree to neon lights, and the square is all light, it's the best lit part of New York and it has its special identity, a character." All these integrate the building with the city's life, creating one living organism.
Borowski gives examples of cities where these problems have been solved: Barcelona, Munich, Milan, Paris. But in Warsaw the local authorities have very little impact on the architecture; they may refuse to give consent to a project, but are still restricted by the law.
"The law does not give the local government much influence on the architecture or external appearance of shopping centers. Of course you can achieve something by way of persuasion or spite, but little in legal terms. Much less than in other European countries-civilized countries."
Recent years have seen a boom of all manner of shopping centers, first closing the circle around Warsaw and now reaching its heart. They are growing in both size and in customers. With Arkadia's 287,000 sqm, Zlote Tarasy's 225,000 sqm and Blue City's 160,822 sqm, one starts to wonder: commercially a golden vein, will they prove edible or poisonous to the cities they invade?
Michal Borowski, Chief Architect of Warsaw, is no optimist in this respect.
"Within the city I think it's a tragedy, and I am very unhappy because of those almost 2 million square meters of commercial space that were built in Warsaw within the last fifteen years," he complains.
Why should this be so? As Borowski himself acknowledges, shopping malls are attractive to both customers and operators. To the former they provide a wide range of quality commodities small shops are not able to offer.
So people go there and buy there, creating a huge turn-over. "Such shopping malls are incredibly profitable for those who run them."
Shouldn't it satisfy the city's authorities? After all the economy's profit may some day translate into the city's and society's profit.
"We all need to buy things, I'm not questioning that. I'm only questioning the form. I think that in Warsaw we have lost the balance between the public good and what the market's invisible hand is doing. When in the centre of the city it's easier to buy a cell phone than parsley, then something is wrong. And this is the effect of the malls' expansion."
Multiplying shopping centers are blamed not only for shaking up that balance. "The city centre is dying, trade quality in the city centre is none, and small every-day goods shops are declining."
Malls kill the local trade in the city centre but much more is at stake. "Those negative effects are everywhere. I mean-not only in the economic sense. That rents go down is, of course, painful for those who own houses or land there, but there are also social aspects." Borowski mentions the increase of unemployment in the areas where shopping centers begin to operate.
Transport is a problem too. "Złote Tarasy will wipe away the Central Station, and the city centre will be one big traffic jam."
The issue Borowski is most concerned about though is the problem of public space and the concept of a good city. Shopping malls, when located within the urban tissue, turn out to have a detrimental impact on the surroundings.
In what ways exactly? "They create a 'dead ground'". The key issue here is their facade-dull, blank, with no windows, some advertisements at best. "They have very little architecture that has anything in common with the street. They could just as well be in between two or three highways, as is usually the case."
Cinema complexes integrated into the facade are no solution. "The facade of a cinema is a nothing. From the urban point of view it's a disaster, just a piece of wall."
What would make shopping malls more city-friendly? "It's about the facade. Windows, glowing shop windows, and entrances, many many entrances. Not one but many, usually at corners, where the streets meet. And neon lights. The Time Square in Manhattan is such a place. The mayor made the tenement owners agree to neon lights, and the square is all light, it's the best lit part of New York and it has its special identity, a character." All these integrate the building with the city's life, creating one living organism.
Borowski gives examples of cities where these problems have been solved: Barcelona, Munich, Milan, Paris. But in Warsaw the local authorities have very little impact on the architecture; they may refuse to give consent to a project, but are still restricted by the law.
"The law does not give the local government much influence on the architecture or external appearance of shopping centers. Of course you can achieve something by way of persuasion or spite, but little in legal terms. Much less than in other European countries-civilized countries."
