Katowicka Street

Katowicka Street is a street in Warsaw located in Saska Kępa, running from the intersection with to the intersection with. The name of the street refers to Katowice, the capital of the then youngest Silesian Voivodeship, which fits into the nomenclature of many other streets in Saska Kępa, referring to the new political order after World War I. It is mainly lined with residential buildings, including those from the interwar period, 13 of which are listed in the heritage register. Several buildings were designed by architects associated with the Praesens group. Katowicka Street also bears traces of an urban experiment from the late 1940s.

Mileage and traffic
Katowicka Street runs parallel to the Vistula river. It is located in the northwestern part of Saska Kępa, between and Francuska streets. It begins at the intersection with Zwycięzców Street, then intersects with, and ends by intersecting with Walecznych Street. The street is one-way, allowing traffic only in the northward direction. There are no public transportation routes or bike lanes running through it.

History
The history of Katowicka Street dates back to the 1920s when the land in Saska Kępa was drained and divided into plots. The completion of the Poniatowski Bridge also spurred residential development in the area. The name of the street was officially given by the Warsaw City Council on 27 September 1926. The oldest part of the architecture, known as Kolonia Łaskiego, dates back to 1926. From 1928, single-family houses, including those inspired by the latest global architectural trends influenced by designers such as Le Corbusier, began to appear on the street.

After World War II, the villas on Katowicka Street were converted into multi-room apartments, forcibly accommodating tenants in the pre-war owners' residences. Moreover, a section of the street between Zwycięzców and Obrońców (approximately 250 meters ) was selected for reconstruction by the. The experiment aimed to transform it into a showcase street ("Street of Warsaw's Future") by removing fences, introducing greenery, and decorating it with street furniture. According to press reports, the initiative was well-received by residents. The team of architects responsible for the reconstruction, led by Bohdan Lachert, also collaborated with a group of sculptors, mainly residents of Saska Kępa, who worked on their projects voluntarily under the direction of Professor Tadeusz Breyer. The best-preserved decoration from that period is the bas-relief  from 1947, which was restored in 2011. Other remnants of the post-war reconstruction of the street include remnants of benches, the external decoration of the staircase in house number 8A, and a few surviving house marks from the Capital Reconstruction Office (plates marking buildings rebuilt with the help of Capital Reconstruction Office). The former layout of the square in front of Plon became an inspiration for one of the projects submitted in 2014 to the participatory budget. Katowicka Street was also home to the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, through which around 6,000 citizens of the East Germany attempted to escape to the West in the summer and autumn of 1989. These events were commemorated in 2010 with a monument titled Through Warsaw to Freedom (Przez Warszawę ku Wolności).

The architecture and history of the street are utilized and showcased by public institutions and private companies, including during the organization of urban games.

Facilities
Most of the buildings on Katowicka Street are residential houses. An exception is the building of School Complex No. 77, located at the corner of Katowicka and Zwycięzców Streets. The design of the building was created before the onset of socialist realism in Poland (1949) and is the work of Barbara and Hieronim Karpowicz. The facade is covered with characteristic brick decoration (1953–1954). On the wall facing Katowicka Street, there is a bas-relief depicting the Mermaid of Warsaw, created by.

Residential houses

 * House at 2 Katowicka Street – a villa of the Avenarius family from 1937, designed by.
 * House at 4 Katowicka Street – until 1964, it was the headquarters of the Blood Donation Station.
 * House at 5 Katowicka Street – a rowhouse from 1937, designed by Stanisław Barylski.
 * House at 7 Katowicka Street – a house from around 1930, which housed the headquarters of the Capital Reconstruction Office. The building is listed as a historic monument.
 * House at 7A Katowicka Street – a house belonging to the Avenarius family from 1930, originally designed by Stanisław Barylski, but redesigned by Bohdan Lachert and Józef Szanajca in 1938. During the renovation, a glass staircase was added, which is the first example of using béton brut motif in Poland. The tower wall (bearing traces of WWII bombardment) is topped with a perforated roof. Notable residents included . An illustration of the house at 7A Katowicka Street was featured on the cover of the book Saska Kępa by Hanna Faryna-Paszkiewicz. The building is listed as a historic monument.

Sculptural decoration and street furniture
Although the changes introduced on Katowicka Street in the late 1940s were significant, little remains of them today, especially the decorative elements introduced at that time. The fate of the sculptures located there is unknown. They likely fell victim to devastation over the years, or possibly were stolen. Among the missing works are the Bear Playing with a Fish (a fountain made by Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz), Bear,  Boy with a Sailboat, and  Badger. New elements included concrete benches (on stone walls) and park lanterns placed on both sides of the street, lower than the common lanterns (pastorałki) in Warsaw at that time. Remnants from this period include the decoration on the facade of the house at 8A Katowicka Street and the Plon bas-relief (both works by Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz). Due to the poor condition of the bas-relief, the local community initiated the Around Plon project, which led to its restoration in 2011. Further actions planned under the project include restoring benches and organizing the square at the corner of Katowicka and Zwycięzców Streets. Bench construction began in September 2014, followed by planting greenery. In 2016, the bas-relief and square were awarded the Bohdan Lachert and Józef Szanajca Award for Best Architecture of Saska Kępa in the Public Space and Greenery category.

Post-war changes on Katowicka Street are viewed differently. Initially, they were heavily criticized, including by Jerzy Baurski in Architektura magazine. Advocates for the changes included Bohdan Lachert, who wrote that the glaring contrasts of snobbery, profit motives, bad taste, shoddiness, and cheap labor were mitigated by composing space between buildings, adopting a common plan for front gardens, introducing greenery, removing fences, and placing decorative sculptures. However, all elements of the new concept did not violate the original assumptions of the architecture represented by pre-war buildings. According to Hanna Faryna-Paszkiewicz, this may have been an attempt to implement such changes to meet demands for democratizing space without violating examples of interwar architecture.