Miasto Stoleczne Warszawa

The citizens of Warsaw always loved their city - for better or for worse. After the war they came back as soon as they could to their ruined houses and backyards, many of which had been turned into cemeteries. A population census conducted in 1945 showed that 145,000 people returned to their homes in a very short time. If it were not for the thousands of people returning to Warsaw, the decision to meticulously reconstruct the city and to make Warsaw the capital of Poland, would not have been made.

However, the new Warsaw became a different city. While the Old Town was thoroughly and carefully recreated, the rest of the city was rebuilt in the socialist realism mode, which was totally irrelevant and foreign to the Polish urban tradition. The new icon of Warsaw, the Palace of Culture and Science built in 1956, remains a symbol of foreign domination.