'WZ' Cinema

('WZ' Cinema) - demolished

Main data:

Year of construction: 1950
Year of demolition: 2010
Designer: Marian Piprek, Kazimierz Marczewski, Stefan Putowski
Location: ul. Leszno 17

This object is now unfortunately only history. In June 2010, just after its description was put on the website, the building has been disassembled. So today we can watch it only virtually.

This unusual building stood until June 2010 just in the middle of the quarter between Mlynarska, Leszno, Karolkowa an Solidarnosci Avenue. In last years of its existence it was completely neglected, but still it was possible to see its interesting architectural form. It had an untypical wavy roof and an entrance in a form of a round annexe.

This building was the former "W-Z" Cinema. Its name came off course from the nearby highway, which was one of the biggest investments of the early People's Republic of Poland. And it was also built at the same time as the highway. The building used to be one of the main centres of cultural life in the district Wola. Schools from the whole neighbourhood used to organise trips for students to see films that were presented in "W-Z" cinema, also because that was actually the only cinema in the area of Kolo and Mlynow, another cinemas were further, in the city centre.

In 1940s and 1950s three buildings similar to this one were constructed in different places in Warsaw: "Ochota" at Grojecka street, "Stolica" ("Capital") at Narbutta street in Mokotow (later known as "Iluzjon") and "1st of May" at Podskarbinska street in Praga Poludnie (today used as a supermarket) - all of them were also cinemas and were also designed by Marian Piprek.

The cinema functioned until 1991. Then, the building had some different functions. First, from 1992, it was a music club "Fugazi" - there was a time when this club used to be very popular, but then it was liquidated, probably because of some trouble with mafia. Then a shop "Grosz" ("A Penny") - selling rather cheap assortment, was located here, but also it was closed soon, probably as a result of a fire. Later there was a club "Dekadent" ("Decadent") and in 1995 an election meeting of Jacek Kuron, who was a candidate for a president at that time, was organised here (Jerzy T. Majewski, T. Urzykowski and D. Bartoszewicz wrote about this fact in the second part of their "Warsaw walking guidebook" - "Spacerownik warszawski").

Later on only worse and worse time came for the building. It stood empty and was more and more devastated. Probably it was also a result of the fact that its legal state was not fully clear. Actually some vague ideas of its renovation and allocating cultural functions here appeared (there was an idea to locate a Warsaw orchestral here) but finally nothing came off from it, and the plot together with the building was purchased by a private investor. Also a proposal of introducing the building to the register of monuments was not realised. Just before the building's demolition there was even a conflict between Warsaw and Mazovian authorities of monuments' conservation, who argued about who is actually responsible for the building's preservation.

In any case, it is now too late for any divagations, as the building does not exist anymore, and probably a modern apartment house will be constructed on its place. On one hand we could say that it is normal that the city changes, old houses are being disassembled and replaced with new ones. But those which are the most valuable should be preserved for sure. We used to say that a monument is a building which was built at least before Second World War, but also many architecturally valuable buildings were constructed later, indeed. Hopefully, such buildings are lately appreciated more often and sometimes they are even introduced to the register of monuments. But unfortunately also many such buildings were disassembled lately nearly without any reflection - apart from this building for example also 'Skarpa' Cinema or 'Supersam' (first supermarket in Warsaw).

Photos of a model of a fragment of Mlynow district with the cinema (from 1940s):