Arkady Kubickiego, Warsaw

Arkady Kubickiego is the long arcade building below Warsaw’s Royal Castle, on the escarpment above the Vistula. It was designed by the Polish architect Jakub Kubicki and built between eighteen eighteen and eighteen twenty-one as part of the royal residence and its riverside gardens. Notice the repeated openings, the circular windows, and the sandstone trim.

After the November Uprising was defeated, Russian forces sealed those openings and converted the building into stables and barracks. It came through the Second World War intact, yet later military use brought gradual deterioration. A major restoration, led by Professor Stanisław Fiszer, renewed the arcades and castle gardens; visitors entered the revived complex in April two thousand nine. The terrace was created to join the vaulting with the ground beside the castle, making room for planted trees and shrubs above the river slope.