Bazylika Katedralna Świętego Michała Archanioła i Świętego Floriana Męczennika, Warszawa

The soaring pair of towers belongs to St Florian’s Cathedral, the Catholic cathedral at Floriańska Street in Praga-Północ. Its Neo-Gothic design, a nineteenth-century return to medieval Gothic forms, was created by Józef Pius Dziekoński. Construction began in eighteen ninety-seven, and the church took shape as a powerful Catholic answer to Russian rule in partitioned Poland and to the nearby Orthodox church of Mary Magdalene.

The towers facing Solidarity Avenue reach seventy-five metres and end in bronze spires; the brick mass beneath them gives the façade its forceful presence. Notice the mosaics placed above the entrances: they show Christ and the emblem of Kazimierz Romaniuk, the inaugural bishop of the Warszawa-Praga diocese. This church became a shelter during wartime for Jewish people, the Warszawa Army, and civilians.

German forces destroyed it during their withdrawal after the Warsaw Uprising. Local people from Praga helped begin its rebuilding in the nineteen-fifties, and the restored cathedral opened again in nineteen seventy-two. It now serves as the cathedral of the Warszawa-Praga diocese and has held the rank of minor basilica since nineteen ninety-two. Its patron, Saint Florian, is associated with trades exposed to fire, including firefighters and bakers.