Refreshing Architecture: Beat the Heat in the City
When climate change becomes a reality, searing heat is a regular occurrence, and using air conditioning harms the environment… architecture comes to the rescue.
Even in our latitude, climate warming is noticeable. So is there any way to beat the heat? When we want to refresh ourselves, we usually travel to green areas in a search of water. Nobody wants to stay in the city when it’s like an oven outside. But, strangely enough, Polish cities have secret places where we can hide from the heat! Let’s check where we can go to avoid high temperatures.
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Ku Farze Street, Lublin, photo: Wojciech Pacewicz / PAP
Southern Europe is full of narrow streets where you don’t find sidewalks and walls still warm from the sun. But did you know you can encounter narrow streets also in Poland? Lovely alleys attract tourists with their picturesqueness. But more important is that they provide coldness on a very hot day. Narrow streets were created in the process of city development. So if you want to see the most magnificent shadowed alleys in Poland, you should go to Ku Farze Street in Lublin, Ciasna Street in Toruń, Wąska Street in Bydgoszcz, and Dawna Street in Warsaw.
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Arcades, Zamość, photo: Arkadiusz Ziółek/ East News
In the 16th century, Jan Zamoyski ordered Italian architects to design the city of Zamość. With their work, they transmitted an Italian style into Polish architecture. Very appealing and extremely practical arcades, which surround the marketplace, is an idea from the times of the Italian Renaissance. The goal of these covered corridors was to protect people from rain, wind and sun and made it possible to get through the city in all weather conditions. The arcades of old-town tenement houses are present in many Polish cities, for instance in Tarnów, Poznań, Jarosław, and Tarnowskie Góry. The magnificent arcades are to be found in the Cloth Hall in Kraków, and in the picturesque Renaissance tenements in Kazimierz Dolny. This kind of architecture was also present in the times of surrealism, which usually referred to Polish Renaissance. Since the 50s, we can also admire the arcades of Marszałkowska Housing District in Warsaw and the arcades of the old marketplace in Łódź.
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Cistercian abbey in Sulejów, photo: Zenon Zyburtowicz / East News
Whilst sightseeing in a city, we usually step into churches and temples. They are not only spectacular monuments but also very significant tourist regional attractions. When the temperature goes up, the temples invite everyone to their interiors with thick stone or brick walls that isolate the building. Curiously enough, the older a temple is, the colder it is inside. So if you’re not a heat freak, you’ll surely appreciate the stone monuments from the Middle Ages, like Cistercian abbey in Sulejów or collegiate churches in Wiślica. But gothic churches also provide refreshing atmosphere, take for instance St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdańsk, Kraków Franciscan church decorated with frescoes by Stanisław Wyspiański or a richly decorated late-gothic collegiate church in Stargard.
The coldness of the crypt
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Crypts of Saint Peter of Alcántara baroque church in Węgrów, photo: Patryk Buta and Danuta Matloch, The Ministry of Culture National Heritage and Sport / UM Węgrów
If the temple wasn’t cold enough… let’s go under the ground to enter the crypts! Long ago, they were used solely to hold the bodies of numerous prominent Poles, but now they function as a tourist attraction. The coldness of the place stops the heat from draining your energy and allows you to see the graves of Polish historical figures. The crypts at Wawel cathedral are the most noteworthy. There you can encounter the graves of Polish kings, and other exceptional people, for example Adam Mickiewicz. Let’s not forget about the crypts of the baroque church of Saint Peter from Alcántara in Węgrów. This underground cemetery consists of 60 coffins with mummified bodies of the citizens that were buried 300 years ago.
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The tenement gate of Lecznica Lekarzy Specjalistów at Sienkiewicz Street 4, Warsaw, photo: Andrzej Bogacz / Forum
Even though parents always tell their kids to stay away from the city gates, it’s not that every single one of them is dangerous. The characteristic gates always provide shadowed space and protection from the heat. But that’s not everything! When you go inside, you can see sculptures, paintings, ceramics and mosaics which were made as decoration. Unfortunately, these artistic elements are often destroyed or disappear.
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Natan Morgenstern’s tenement at Sienkiewicz Street 4, Warsaw, photo: Andrzej Bogacz / Forum
Going through the gate of the old tenement, you usually enter a small backyard called studnia (Eng.: well). When you get there, raise your head to admire the extraordinary shape painted on the sky by the building. Even though the tenements don’t look as appealing from the backyard as they look from outside, you should observe what appears above. Many photographers visit the backyard of Natan Morgenstern’s tenement at Sienkiewicz Street 4 in Warsaw. What you find there is an extraordinary view of an enormous skyscraper growing out of the old tenement.
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Kłodawa Salt Mine, photo: Joanna Borowska/Forum
The greatest advantage of Polish cities is that they allow us to go even further beneath the ground. The basements of old tenements, canals, old bunkers and old storehouses have been all converted to sightseeing areas. These refreshing places offer intriguing points of interest. In Łódź, you can admire the canals created by engineers, in Chełmno you can observe how nature created underground chalk tunnels, and in the salt mine in Wieliczka – you can find art, look for some ghosts, and even have a boat trip.
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Wilczy Szaniec, photo: Andrzej Bogacz / Forum
Bunkers used to be secret places, but now they are available for tourists. In their thick concrete walls, you find coldness in every season. You can’t remain unconcerned whilst visiting the secret quarters in Wilczy Szaniec or the shelters near Cieszyn built by Germans during the II World War. And finally, we need to mention the 18-meters shelter under the Szczecin railway station. It counts with an area of nearly 3,000 square metres, which makes it the largest shelter in Poland, and puts it on the list of the largest ones in Europe. So if you’re planning to visit Poland in summer, don’t worry about the heat! There are loads of places that will make you feel cold and safe.
Originally written in Polish, translated by Sylwia Sienicka
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