Prudential i pokusy wymazywania

“Prudential” – one of first and most well-known skyscrapers of Warsaw – showcases both the power and fragility of architecture as a device of social memory. Upon its completion, the building became an icon of the monumental capital of the thirties, only to achieve status as a symbol of wartime resistance several years later. Reconstructed as an upscale hotel in the postwar People’s Republic of Poland, it gained a decorative entrance with caryatides – a proper ex ample of social realist architecture. The caryatides were demolished Turing refurbishment in the 2010s. The article discusses this act in the wider framework of interferences in the visual sphere and showcases its importance to the politics of memory.