Thursday 29 January 2015

Warsaw Spire - still getting higher

A visit to (near) the top of Rondo ONZ One offered me the opportunity to see from the city centre how Warsaw Spire - the 44-floor, 180m (220m with masts) skyscraper is coming on. According to a post on Skyscraper City last week, there are two more floors of offices and two technical floors to build yet, so it's still got a little bit to go.

Below: Warsaw Spire pierces the skyline of the western edge of the capital. When completed next year, it will draw the city's centre of gravity westwards towards Wola. The area between Al. Jana Pawła II and ul. Okopowa has seen increasing development in recent years, and the opening of the second line of the Warsaw Metro will link Wola to the city centre and Powiśle and Praga beyond. Photo taken from the 37th floor of Rondo ONZ One, the highest accessible floor to the public.



Below: view from the 28th floor, a wider angle shot taken one hour later. Photo tweaked with the latest versions of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. HDR allows me to render the pic in a slightly surreal way. Note the (rotating) Mercedes-Benz logo on the Ilmet building in the left foreground. The building - 103m to the top of the logo with 22 floors, was only completed 18 years ago, and yet is now earmarked for demolition and replacement with a 188m-high tower, which will be higher than either Rondo ONZ One or Warsaw Spire.


The broad thoroughfare heading out west is ul. Prosta, the continuation of ul. Świętokrzyska. Both have recently been re-opened ahead of the second line of the Metro. Today I heard from a source very much in the know that there are some serious delays and it might yet be some time before the second line is finally opened (something to do with water leaks).

This time last year:
Plac Zbawiciela, lunchtime, winter

This time two years ago:
Is this winter's end?

This time three years ago:
The other Jeziorki station

This time five years ago:
Launching the General's book

This time six years ago:
A pavement for ul. Karczunkowska?
(For a while there it looked like the city authorities would provide us locals with a pavement so that we could safely walk to the station or bus stop with clean footwear. Six years on - not a bit of it. Still waiting. A Big Boo to Bufetowa)

This time seven years ago:
Taking off over Okęcie

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