Palace of Culture and Science

Stand at the foot of the tower and tilt your head back. The facade climbs in tiers of pale sandstone-coloured stone, step after step, until it narrows into a spire. Traffic hums along the wide avenues around you. Trams squeal as they turn. And above it all, this one building fills the sky over central Warsaw, as it has for about seventy years.

You are looking at the Palace of Culture and Science. It was built in the early 1950s and opened in 1955. Officially, it was a gift from the Soviet Union to the people of Poland. In practice, it was a political message. Warsaw had been almost completely destroyed in the Second World War. Here, in the heart of the ruined city, Moscow chose to raise its own vision of the future.

At first, the building carried a different name. It was the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science. Stalin died in 1953, before the work was finished. A few years later, during the political thaw that followed his death, his name was quietly removed. The building stayed. The name did not. That small change says a lot about how Poles have related to this place ever since.

The architect was Lev Rudnev, a Soviet designer. If the outline seems familiar, there is a reason. It closely resembles the group of tall towers built in Moscow in the same era, often called the Seven Sisters. These buildings follow a style called socialist realism. That was the official Soviet approach to art and architecture: grand, monumental, and meant to celebrate the state and its workers.

Here is the first surprise. Rudnev did not simply copy Moscow. Before designing the palace, he and his team travelled around Poland. They studied old towns and historic buildings, including Kraków and the Renaissance town of Zamość. Look closely at the upper edges of each tier. You will see decorative crowns of stone, like little battlements. These echo the ornamental parapets found on Polish Renaissance houses. So this Soviet tower wears a Polish costume.

The scale is hard to grasp from the ground. Including its spire, the tower rises to roughly 237 metres. For decades it was the tallest building in Poland. Only in recent years has a newer skyscraper nearby overtaken it. Around the palace, glass towers have grown up, one after another. Yet the old silhouette still marks the centre of the city. Many Warsaw residents give directions by it.

The building was raised quickly, in only a few years. Thousands of workers came from the Soviet Union to build it. They lived in a special settlement on the edge of the city, with its own canteen, cinema, and sports facilities. Several workers died during construction. Their story is less often told than the story of the tower itself, but it belongs here too.

Warsaw has never felt neutral about this building. For many people, it was a symbol of foreign control. Locals gave it mocking nicknames. One is Stalin's Syringe, because of the sharp spire. Another is simply Pekin, a playful reading of its Polish initials. And there is an old joke that you may hear in the city. The best view of Warsaw, people say, is from the top of the palace — because from there, you cannot see the palace.

You can test that joke yourself. A viewing terrace on the thirtieth floor looks out in every direction. From up there, you can trace how the city rebuilt itself after the war. You can see the Vistula River curving past. You can pick out the reconstructed Old Town to the north, and the newer business district all around you. On a clear day, the view runs far beyond the city edge.

Inside, the palace is not one thing but many. It was designed as a public building for culture, science, and leisure, and it still works that way. It holds theatres, cinemas, a large congress hall, museums, offices, and space for schools and clubs. There is a museum of technology and a museum of evolution. Here is the second surprise. In 1967, the Rolling Stones played in the congress hall. It was a rare Western rock concert behind the Iron Curtain.

Walk around the base and look at the sculptures. Large stone figures stand in niches and on the terraces. They show workers, scholars, and young people, in the heroic style of the time. At the entrances, you may find seated figures of great Polish thinkers, including the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and the poet Adam Mickiewicz. Notice how the clock faces near the top were a much later addition, placed at the turn of the millennium.

The ground around the palace tells its own story. The great open space beside it, called Parade Square, was cleared for state ceremonies and marches. Before the war, dense streets of homes and shops stood here. Today, the square is slowly changing again. New buildings, including a contemporary art museum, now frame its edges. Warsaw is still deciding what this centre should become.

In 2007, the palace was officially listed as a protected historic monument. Some residents once wanted it torn down. Others now defend it as part of the city's layered past. Both feelings still exist, sometimes in the same person. The building carries the memory of an imposed power, and also of concerts, school trips, first dates, and evenings at the theatre.

Before you move on, take one more look up. Watch how the light changes on the stone as clouds pass. Listen to the city moving around the base. Then, as you walk away, turn around once or twice. From almost every street nearby, the spire will appear between the buildings — still keeping watch over the city it was built to impress.