Cracow may be full of artists and intellectuals but that doesn't mean that it's easy to erect a modern monument in the city. Far from it. Even such diminutive additions to the city's contemporary canon as the metal bins on the square were to prove too racy in the end - they vanished one morning like hapless hens on a farm. And before you knew it, out came those clunky plastic dinosaurs of old. Bizarre as it sounds, we loved those bins. Those bins were beautiful. They were jewels of the bin world. What was wrong with them? They were as inoffensive as ice-cream in summer.
Perhaps the most controversial yearly affair here in architectural matters is the annual 'worst construction project of the year' award. This year, a very elegant and restrained new Krakow hotel won the prize for most insufferable building. But it was a very fine piece of architecture? One can only commiserate with the architect.
Now, we're just a listings website, and by no means a blind devotee of all that's new. And indeed, it does seem that a lot of modern architects seem excessively interested in making their buildings stick out like a sore thumb. But it would be refreshing to have the occasional dash of modernity in the city of Prince Krak.
On this note, intriguing news breaks that one of Poland's leading contemporary architects, Kazimierz Lewicki, has won a commission to build a modern foot-bridge over the Vistula. These are excellent tidings. However, the only silly thing is that the bridge is so far away from the centre as to render it little more than ornamental (in between the disused Hotel Forum Plac Serkowskiego, Podgorze). The brave and logical thing would be to build one bang opposite the castle to the Manghha Centre and be done with it.
But enough, you're probably sick of hearing us grumble. And no one wants Cracow overrun with rubbish experimental architecture. Yet the opportunity is there to create something magnificent if the powers that be see fit to do so.
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