As the excitement brews surrounding Polish soccer team's entry into the 2012 European Championship (EURO2012), the focus now shifts to the the National Stadium which was built for the EURO2012. The stadium to say the least is an interesting design, taking the shape of a wicker basket over Saska Kepa one of Warsaw's most popular neighborhoods, with an enclave of towering trees.
This colossal stadium has a retractable fiberglass roof and a shimmery red-and-white facade in the colors of the national flag which symbolizes Poland's source of pride. To others, the 58,000-seat arena is an eyesore and the latest affront to a unique neighborhood already threatened by a rising class of entrepreneurs and developers. Proof, if any more was needed, of how breakneck economic growth can jeopardize a vulnerable architectural heritage.
"It's like a big giant UFO that landed nearby," complains Marcin Eckert, a 40-year-old tax lawyer whose view at breakfast is now dominated by the stadium. Says his wife, Dorota Jurkiewicz-Eckert: "We feel we have been squashed by an elephant." Any change to historic areas in Warsaw provokes strong emotions because of how little survived World War II. Saska Kepa, an exclusive area before the war that was home to doctors and lawyers and other upper middle-class professionals, has the unique distinction of being the city's only prestigious neighborhood to survive in its entirety.
"This is not the Saska Kepa of my childhood," says Jurkiewicz-Eckert, a 40-year-old art historian. She and her husband are members of a group trying to preserve the neighborhood, Zielona Saska Kepa — mAdidas Euro2012 Glider Ball White/pink Size 3eaning Green Saska Kepa. "We are on the way to losing the old-fashioned atmosphere of the place. And it's because of the greed of the developers."
Saska Kepa — where maple, ash and linden trees give shade to prewar homes and trendy restaurants — has the unusual distinction of surviving the war in its entirety because of its location on the eastern bank of the Vistula River, where Soviet troops sat idly during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the occupying German forces. Polish insurgents hoped for the support of the Red Army, which by that time had made it to Warsaw in its westward push that defeated Hitler. But Soviet leader Joseph Stalin preferred to let the Germans destroy the city and its people, knowing they would have also become a democratic opposition to Moscow's postwar domination.
One can only hope that when the match actually starts, this eyesore will become a source of happiness especially if Poland advances.
