Adgar PDT Wola, Warszawa

Adgar PDT Wola is the office-and-service building at Młynarska eight slash twelve, where the street meets Solidarności Avenue in Wola. It began as a department store: construction lasted from nineteen forty-nine to nineteen fifty-six, to a design by Michał Przerwa-Tetmajer. The building’s style is modernism.

Along the attic band, notice the relief panels at either end; Kazimierz Danilewicz designed them. In March nineteen fifty-six, the Powszechny Dom Towarowy opened here, and it became a familiar Warsaw shopping address during the communist era, prized for goods that were scarce elsewhere. Its salesrooms once ranged from electronics and furnishings to cosmetics, household supplies, clothing, children’s goods, and toys.

A later transformation changed the building’s role. After its purchase in two thousand five, renovation converted it into office-and-service space, removed interior partitions, revealed the atrium, and renewed the facade while retaining its original appearance. The work also removed artistic glass-panel paintings by Marek Włodarski and Tadeusz Błażejowski.

The distinctive “Wola” neon returned in two thousand eighteen. Since two thousand twenty-one, Adgar Poland has owned the building and given it its present name. The Warsaw architects’ association had already placed it on the city’s list of contemporary cultural assets in two thousand three.