Warszawa is the city in the rush. The rush of young ones who try to get on the train of flourishing capitalism, the rush of the older ones who try hard to stay on boards and the rush of all the others who struggle to survive in the urban hustle. It is the city with the biggest number of gated communities in Europe and the city of degenerated and always shrinking public space. Streets are bustling with enormous traffic, crowd of strangers is running. Even though not a global city, Warsaw might be vertiginous and then you really need to catch a breath. Last year an artist Joanna Rajkowska created a place for those who need to be oxygenized.
At first sight an installation seems just a pond, but at the bottom of the pond extra oxygen is created and the dew that is being produced above the pond keeps the volatile oxygen in place. The place has many cool benches around and has been frequented by people of all ages during the day and night of the summer months.
The Oxyganator demonstrated that a friendly public space is as essential to the city as breathing to man.
It is located in a hidden square where different realities of the city intersect. The corporate skyscrapers of mediocre new architecture neighbor small shops with materials for the craftsmen that remember the pre-war past of this place. Old block of flats that remember impoverished modernist planning rules next to the newly build apartment buildings supervised by the guardians. The catholic church and nearby a synagogue. The square was the part of Warsaw ghetto and was completely demolished. Here past meets present, but people who cross this square are rarely conscious of this fact. The place has dissolved identity and did not serve the community apart from dog walkers for which a huge lawn was the biggest attraction. The Oxygenator was created to give the inhabitants a place for both relaxation and reflection, where the current identity of the place could be constructed.
(Dies ist ein Gastbeitrag von Monika Komorowska, aktuell Studentin der Architektur in Warschau. In dieser Reihe werden von nun an Externe aus verschiedenen Ländern in englischer Sprache berichten).
