The photograph shows a view of the original reinforced concrete structure of the modernist Central Department Store building, designed by Zbigniew Ihnatowicz and Jerzy Romanski in 1947-1948, on which the developer has hung a rendering of its appearance after redevelopment. Despite the building's inclusion in the register of historical monuments in 2006, the new owner obtained a permit for its complete demolition. He created a perfect reconstruction, albeit reduced by the office building. "Smyk" is lucky, as many iconic modernism buildings on Warsaw's most important streets did not live to see their reconstruction and were erased from the city's landscape.

Nicolas Grospierre

Nicolas Grospierre is an artist, photographer and graduate of the Institut d'études politiques de Paris and the London School of Economics. He was the Winner of the Golden Lion at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2008 (together with Kobas Laksa, Grzegorz Piątek and Jarosław Trybus). He was also a recipient of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts scholarship (2014, 2020). His photographs and photographic installations address the main issues of modernism architecture. On the one hand, he shows the formal richness of modernist buildings; on the other, he interprets the most important tenets of modernist design.