Everyone knows of Kraków as a beautiful city.
But when I first visited the city (and country) around fifteen years ago, I was surprised by the amount of… well, sorry to say it, but… ugliness – so many buildings seemed utterly clapped out, and the city was a riot of terrible signage.
Since then, incredible progress has been made in restoring and refurbishing buildings, both here and nationwide – and in Kraków the advertising resolution has fixed the latter problem.
Yet there is still a huge number of buildings with grim, sooty facades, with decades of smog caked on. They look like they’ve never been cleaned in their lives. And there’s no guarantee they ever will be. (I won’t complain about graffiti, as that’s a Europe-wide issue.)
In Kraków the worst offenders seem to be concentrated in the west and north-west of the city centre, for example on or near Aleje, Długa, or in Salwator, or the western edge of Inwalidów park. Podgorze too.
On a grey, gloomy day (not unusual in the northern half of Europe during winter), they seem particularly depressing and ugly.
But unlike other ugly buildings (e.g. the Sheraton), their ugliness isn’t intrinsic. They don’t need pulling down. They’re only ugly in their current state. With a lick of paint, many would be, for example, perfectly decent examples of 1930s modernism. In some cases there’s some great detailing hiding beneath all that grime, too.
Unfortunately, many of these buildings don’t have a sufficiently prime location or sufficient architectural value to qualify for local and national government grants that I know already exist for building restorations. Nor are they suitable for the other route to the same ends, which is tourism (and it’s not desirable anyway for every knackered building to be converted into hotels or holiday apartments, especially when there’s already a housing shortage).
So my question is: should more be done to encourage building-owners to improve and maintain the appearance of their buildings?
Is there a case to be made that they should be legally required to do so?
I’m inclined towards thinking ‘yes’ to this. But there may be good arguments against it that I haven’t thought of, hence my asking.
Obviously, provision would have to be made to prevent owners dramatically hiking service charges to cover costs.
And the debate may be more complicated if buildings are owned by public bodies – I don’t know if this is the case.
The libertarian counterargument would be, no, it’s their building, they should be able to do what they like with it.
But while it may be just an asset to them, to everyone else, it’s scenery.
And it’s not just a Kraków thing – that’s just where I live. All over Poland I’ve seen similar examples. If a city is the sum of its buildings, and a country the sum (in part) of its cities, shouldn’t building-owners have more of a duty and responsibility to contribute positively to the streetscene?
I realise it’s not the most important thing, yet I can’t help but think it takes the shine off the country a bit – especially when in so many other respects there’s a good-news story to be told about Poland.
I believe other countries such as the Netherlands have legislation for this. As Poland grows more developed and prosperous, and moves away from its reliance upon coal, is it time to consider doing likewise?
by sokorsognarf