Warsaw’s most prominent garden suburb
conforms in some ways to the rubric but it certainly does not contain any
actual internal reserves (in the true sense of publicly accessible, primarily
enclosed space) meaning that it would normally not be welcome on this site:
though there are some playgrounds and other spaces that might fit the bill they
are usually completely for the use of locals only, and behind high gates.
However, in tandem with the previous posts re apartment block courts, Żoliborz
provides some valuable ideas and insight into the potential and capacity for
shared communal space, enclosed or otherwise, and its architectural and spatial
mix does help in understanding the broader story of interwar planning and
spatial innovation.
The suburb is easily understood as falling into three basic areas, of apartments (many of these sandwich linear open space areas, which nonetheless are located behind street-frontage gates), freestanding or semi-detached houses (once again, behind heavy security gates) and the ogród działkowy element – a large area of allotment gardens each with its own small structure. It is not clear whether the allotments are used primarily (or even at all) by local people, though it does seem that the space was all designed as one.
It is possible, looking at the Żoliborz design, that there was provision made at one point for shared space at the rear of the freestanding houses, however if there is anything of this nature within any of these blocks, it is certainly not evident and also, not in any way accessible from the street.
The suburb in August 2016 has a large range of facilities which seem (my capacity to intuit the age of architectural features in Poland may be awry) to date back to its 1920s-30s origins, such as shelters for rubbish bins, and a building which looks like either a community facility or perhaps at one point a shop.
The allotment area is a world of its own, and a truly delightful space. Its connection to anything internal reserve-related is tenuous apart from the following: the spaces are small, productive and do not adjoin roads. Each allotment contains a small ‘house’ which, as per similar arrangements I have seen in both the UK and the Netherlands, are unofficial homes-away-from-home where authorities officially discourage residence temporary or permanent but unofficially look the other way (a similar arrangement many Australians would be familiar with is the boat sheds which dot the coast of, for instance, Port Philip Bay). The gardens are very productive, with apples, berries and tomatoes prominent.
At its northern end the suburb adjoins a place known as Marymont which might put some readers in mind of Mariemont, Cincinnati but I have no evidence of any connection – it’s surely a coincidence.
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