Next up on my plan to visit every metro station in Warsaw, this is Kondratowicza on the M2 line. It’s a recent addition to the network having opened to the public on 28 September 2022.
These information panels are commonplace across the network and they are rather useful in terms of navigation.
The photo on the right is from Google Streetview in 2018, the one on the left is from 2022. It is really a microcosm of just how fast this city is developing, expanding and improving.
The metro station is opposite Szpital Bródnowski, one of the most important hospitals on the right side of the Vistula River and a major teaching hospital. There’s an exit that goes practically right into the building, so it’s a convenient situation for patients.
As an aside, there seem to be ever more clearly laid out cycling and pedestrian sections, all rather marvellous in promoting people to get cycling.
Nearby is Park Bródnowski which is also a free sculpture park, so a rather marvellous cultural project and it has been increasing in size for many years.
I decided to take a photo of a bird using the feeder but the bloody thing flew off, so here’s a photo of a bird feeder without a bird.
This is usually full of water with a statue of a woman lying on her back in the middle of the pond. The sculpture was created during art workshops conducted by Pawel Althamer for members of a group who all have multiple sclerosis. They worked on the project together, but each person executed a different part of the figure which has deliberately led to different proportions.
This was certainly visually interesting and the sculpture is called Zinaxin and Dolacin, created by Magdalena Abakanowicz in 2005. Their names are taken from arthritis medicines and it’s apparently “a quest for a new take on the human figure in the context of the traumatic history of the twentieth century.”
The Guardian Angel sculpture, designed by Roman Stanczak in 2013 and it’s designed to have multiple values which aren’t necessarily religious.
This was quite a common thing around the park, I haven’t quite understood what the significance is.
The main water feature is a little empty….
Here’s what it usually looks like.
This quirky little shed is known as the Teahouse with Coffee Maker, it’s a steel cube that was designed to resemble a spaceship. It was returned to the original artist, Rirkrit Tiravanija, many years ago but they decided to construct a replacement one and this was overseen by Pawel Althamer and Michal Mioduszewski. It’s thought to be the smallest cultural centre in Warsaw and it can be hired out.
The Daughters of Brodno sculpture which was designed to be a self-portrait of local people, inspired to be similar in concept to Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais. Over 100 people are attended concept workshops and they decided on numerous different figures, including a goddess, a poet, a public official, a saint, a senior citizen and an athlete.
It’s quite a complex and engaging sculpture.
Back to Kondratowicza metro station. It’s a poetic arrangement in terms of its heritage as the station (and the street it’s under) is named after Ludwik Kondratowicz (1823-1862), a 19th-century Polish poet and translator of Belarusian origin who wrote under the popular pen name Władysław Syrokomla.
And another colourful affair.
