The Market Square Grammar: Reconstructing the facades of Warsaw’s old town

Abstract

During World War II, eighty-five percent of Warsaw was destroyed. After the war, the city's Old Town buildings and monuments were ambitiously reconstructed to replicate the prewar configuration - an effort dependent on a vast amount of documentation in the form of photographs, paintings, drawings, and more. Warsaw's Rynek Starego Miasta (Old Town Market Square) was a significant part of the reconstruction effort and continues to be an iconic landmark of Warsaw which exemplifies the architectural style and character of the city's past. This paper considers the way in which the Old Town Market Square can be further preserved, recreated, and newly understood through a parametric shape grammar that formalizes the characteristic facades of the historic square and subsequently generates two-dimensional elevations to celebrate this heritage.