ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the defense of socialist modernist architecture in Poland and explores its entanglement with today’s urban condition. Many pre-1989 buildings are currently threatened with destruction. Three such cases—Supersam supermarket and Emilia furniture store in Warsaw and the central railway station in Katowice—are described in order to show a variety of strategies employed by activists who protest against demolitions. The strategies involve what Luc Boltanski calls denunciation, sentiment, and aesthetic sublimation, the latter of which is especially widely used. The chapter argues that the selective defense based on the preservation of aesthetic values and nostalgic feelings is insufficient for meaningful and effective defense. Only when it extends beyond that, is it able to strengthen the democratic potential built into the architecture, empower people, and in consequence influence existing in urban space.
