The City of Warsaw has considerably modified the plan it adopted last year for the redevelopment of Defilad Square. The City Council claims the old plan failed to fully exploit the potential of the square's prime downtown location and that a site of such significance demands something more ambitious.

Defilad Square was to have been redeveloped with a rectangular street layout and a height restriction of 36 meters. A competition to design a new Museum of Contemporary Art was held and building conditions for the Merchant Department Store (KDT) were issued. These two additions to Marszałkowska Street were designed to border the square opposite the entrance to the Palace of Culture and Science (PKiN). But the present council believes this lacks vision given the centrality of the site and its proximity to the historic and majestic PKiN. They find the height restriction limiting, the street grid unimaginative and the controversy that would inevitably erupt once development encroached on Swiętokrzyski Park decidedly unwelcome.

A resolution was passed in July this year to draft a new plan based on the existing one but incorporating elements of a design by Andrzej Skopiński and Bartłomiej Biełyszew, which had won an international competition to develop the area around PKiN in 1992. Plans to build on parkland have been abandoned but the existing plans for the museum, department store and square have remained more or less intact. Their architects are merely required to make whatever adjustments are necessary to comply with the overall development. For example, passageways will need to be constructed to accommodate an elliptical boulevard that will pass through those parts of the two buildings nearest the PKiN. The architects of the department store have already signaled their intention to create a 26-meter hallway in the foyer of the musical theater to be located in the building.

The most significant change is that high-rise development is back on the agenda. Buildings 100-150 meters tall are to form a wall along Emilii Plater Street although there are calls for at least one of them to surpass the 230.68 meters of the PKiN spire so as to break its stranglehold on the skyline.

The new plan seeks to utilize the space as esthetically and economically as possible without unduly disturbing existing arrangements. To this end skyscrapers have been pressed into service to put an end to PKiN's monopoly of the cityscape and to make the most efficient use of prime real estate. This latter consideration is not trivial given land prices in Warsaw. The Warsaw Council claims that its new plan is attracting considerably more interest from potential investors for this reason. Some, however, simply feel that a real metropolis needs skyscrapers.

The only question remaining is when we can expect to see any of this. The best case scenario for adopting the new plan is 18 months and construction will take longer. The museum and the department store should be completed earlier than that. This might give added impetus to the rest of the Defilad Square development.