The tenement house as a building form in relation to the large-scale urban development of Warsaw 1864-1919

The evolving urban landscape has been investigated in thesocio-economic context of Warsaw's incorporation into theRussian Empire (another defeated Polish Uprising, ruralimmigation in the wake of tsarist social reforms from 1861,Jewish immigration from the Empire's interior, economicintegration and the city's expansion as a trading andbanking centre between Russia and the West). Spatialgrowth has been interpreted as resulting primarily fromprivate property speculation, limited spatially by tsaristmilitary strategy (fortifying of the city 1878-1911).Secondary urban-creating factors have been identified inindustrialisation and St. Petersburg's control of themunicipal budget, thereby emphasising the private sector'sprimacy.The tenement house is defined as "barracks"-typehousing, subdivided into multiple dwel1ing. units. Thisbuilding form is perceived as the fibre in the city’slarge-scale urban development until World War I(E. Szwankowski).The importance of 1919; the year when fair rentlegislation and new regulations to control private propertydevelopment were introduced by a reconstituted Polishadministration, seeking for the first time to curb theexcesses of private tenement construction, is taken to bepurely symbolic,- the end of tenement speculation as it hadbeen known until that point in a purely hypothetical sense(J . Cegielski).Most commercial and • even certain industrialenterprises, dominated by small manufacturing firms andworkshops rather than factories located in more outlying areas (W.Pruss) are expected to have been absorbed by thetenement house.The tenement emerged in the raid-180Os as a complex ofinterconnecting building components arranged around acentral courtyard or courtyards, subject to broadly appliedbuilding regulations (Polish and from the 1860s tsarist),which nevertheless increasingly failed to preserveconstructional standards and even, so far as the PolishHome Rule era is concerned, a certain uniformity for whichsuch legislation had originally been devised (S. Herbst,J. Roguska).An "inner" city of tenement houses is identified asthe main area for investigation, unfolding during earlierstages of development on open terrain, later replacingolder buildings or occupying remaining undeveloped areas,including gardens as well as infill projects and streetblock "back-building". Cells or landscape unitsoriginating from the period under investigation usuallyinclude, or are composed exclusively, of tenementmulti-apartment housing blocks which may serve as subjectsfor empirical research. A degree of functional continuityis expected (A. Rottermund, J. Chroicicki, J. Roguska, B.Chmiel, 2. Walkiewicz, J. Sujecki).The thesis is divided into three main parts:1. analysis of the urban profile in 1914, based on adetailed property and apartments census from 1919.municipal statistics from 1913 and a 1:2500 scale base plangiving rise to a model of urban physical structure composedof functional zones;2. hypothetical urban form and land use patternsresulting from urban-creating processes of the second halfof the 19th. and early-20th. centuries are tested in sub-study areas within the inner urban area and especiallyin districts shaped largely during the period ofinvestigation (street block analysis in the inner urbancore, tenement belt and inner-peripheral areas; alsoidentification of urbanising districts outside of the mainstudy area as regions potentially ripe for advancingproperty speculation, where other building formspredominated over tenement-barracks housing, or the latterbuilding type was entirely absent from the profile);3. the tenement house in the urban landscape(Stadtlasidschafi) : building layout, plot parcel 1 isation,changing constructional forms (flat subdivision, subsequentoutbuildings and raising of additional storeys), socialcompositional and stratification considered in relation toidentified tenement "types", empirical examination ofsurviving tenement houses or ensembles constitutingfragments of 19th. century urban topography within thepresent day Mid-town . Reference is also tobe made to inner city areas which have undergone completeredevelopment since their total obliteration in 1943 or1944 in order to permit an integrated evaluation of the"historic" urban form regarded as evolving organicallyuntil the 20th. century, of which cells or landscape unitshave survived in other parts of Warsaw's Mid-Town.A methodological question crucial to the analysis hasbeen the undertaking of an inquiry conducted at varyingscales: metropolitan area (Greater Warsaw) - inner city(Warsaw city within its pre-suburban incorporationmunicipal boundaries) - functional zones or districts -urban units - street blocks - building plot3 accommodatingtenement property cells or real estate divisions. InPart I the study area is delineated according to property and demographic data from 1919/1913 in relation to streetblock research units, with an aim to facilitating the breakdown of this area into sub-study areas of approximatelyconsistent building and housing density characteristics(Part II). In Part III tenement properties of varyingconstructional, functional and social characteristics(often undergoing changes during the study period itself)may be interpreted in relation to their location within thestudy area, constructional chronology, later extensions orinternal alterations and functions these buildings performat the time of writing in cases where continuity or adegree of continuity has been retained in the city'sfunctional structure (especially residential, but alsooffice space, shops, workshops in groundfloors and evenbasements).Particular complications have arisen in connectionwith the unavailability or total absence of documention.Primary sources are centred around property censusstatistics (municipal records from the 1860s, 1882 and1891, as well as the all important 1919 survey) andcartographic evidence from the study period or the interwaryears, supplemented by fragmentary published information,including articles taken from contemporaneous newspapersand periodicals, land registry files for selectedindividual properties, certain tsarist bureaucratic sourcesas well as photographic information from the time.Secondary sources taking the form of published research ormonographs which have proved directly relevant to the urbananalysis are listed in the literary survey, while otherpoints of reference are contained in the notes placedbefore the conclusion.A comparative aspect of the thesis would endeavour to place 19th. century Warsaw's urban pattern In a regionalcontext thereby acknowledging the irnpoi tance of seekingmodels of urban growth and form, together with broad socialand economic processes common to cities in history. Modelsof "tenement city" development have been sought in studiesof the urban profiles of Berlin and Vienna, although in thespecific case of Warsaw comparisons might be drawn withurban form and tenement house evolution in such principalcities of the Russian Empire as Riga, Odessa, Kiev, Vilna(Vilnius) and Minsk, apart from Moscow and St. Petersburg.This latter aspect, while considered fundamental to placingthe urban case study in a wider urban context, has had tobe cut short in view of limited time and space.Historical analysis in urban geography of this periodin particular is regarded as being of relevance to our owntimes, not least because the reinterpreting andrehabilitation of the 19th. century urban fabric - and inWarsaw's case the question of regenerating large parts ofthe inner city, substantial portions of which weredesignated. or quite by accident turned into, urban fallowareas - have become pressing contemporary issues.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral (Level 8)

Year dc:date.issued

1991

Author dc:creator

• Martyn, PJ

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1336901

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1336901