Kamienice czynszowe Warszawy 1864-1914

Łupienko, Aleksander (1980– )

doi:978-83-63352-48-6

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Title: Kamienice czynszowe Warszawy 1864-1914

Abstrakt:

A nineteenth-century tenement house was an architectural, economic and social phenomenon. It was the most popular form of residential building and very common form of capital investment. It always had only one owner (or a small group of joint owners) who derived their income from rents paid by tenants. Usually, the number of tenants varied from several to a few dozen or exceptionally a few hundred. Architecturally, a developed type of tenement consisted of a front building on the street and side wings of the building around an inner yard. A vital aspect of tenement building was its social dimension. Throughout the whole 19th century, Warsaw’s population was of very diverse financial standing, nationality and religion, and elites of various social groups had little in common with their lower classes. Central urban tenements gave shelter to such diverse people and this fact influenced the development of this architectural type. Another important factor was different household composition of flats occupants, who lived there not only with their nuclear families, but also with distant relatives and other residents who were given a roof over their heads by the main tenants. In addition, servants were living there on a permanent basis and this fact did not change until the end of the analysed period. Each new building in the city had flats of different size intended for tenants with different level of income. A three-dimensional hierarchy of the tenement was in favour of it, for apartments closer to the street were bigger and regarded as more prestigious, while flats in the side wings were intended for less wealthy tenants (they were occupied by, among others, members of an important social group of intelligentsia, and a great number of women). In addition, apartments on the first floor were more prestigious than those on upper floors. The worst flats were located in the basement and in the attic. The subject of research is the space of tenement house categorised according to their degree of accessibility. With its façade, the tenement house contributed to the creation of public space (open to all inhabitants, favouring interaction between various people and social groups), and its appearance was designed by architects. The space of its gate and inner yard (half-public space defined as not fully public space, reserved for selected groups) was accessible mainly to the occupants of the flats, their guests and people providing various services to its residents. The space between the yard and flats I call half-private space, and it includes halls, corridors and stairwells, accessible only to occupants and their guests: more comfortable and better looking stairwells closer to the front and those of much inferior quality in the side wings of the building, and also attics and basements. Flats created a private space the access to which was not only restricted but also associated with various ‘rituals of entry’. Until the 1860s the evolution of dimensions of buildings and houses caused the maximisation of furnishings and elements of interior equipment. The increasing wealth of residents led to the increased size of their flats. After Louis Pasteur’s discoveries a new counterargument appeared against apartments cluttered with ‘artefacts’. Once associated with dust and microbes, a portière or guipure stopped to evoke the old good times and high taste of the ancestors and began to denote a ballast and threat. Thus, a dominating factor of representativeness of flats resulting from an intense social life was decreasing in importance at the end of the 19th century under the pressure of hygienists’ arguments. At the same time, architects competed to offer comfortable interior designs together with a separation and shortening of passageways of servants and tenants.