Gruba Kaśka, Warsaw

Gruba Kaśka is the familiar name of an eighteenth-century classical well-house in Warsaw, set between the carriageways of Aleja Solidarności. Szymon Bogumił Zug designed it. It was built in seventeen eighty-seven.

Its classicism draws on the composed, antiquity-inspired taste of that era. The small structure is a cylinder, with an outer diameter of four point three metres. Notice the deeply textured wall panels, the triglyph band, and the stepped copper roof capped by a gilded ball.

This was among the scarce water sources created in Warsaw at that time. War left clear scars here: during the Warsaw Uprising, shells tore three large breaches through the structure and shrapnel struck its walls and roof. On the sixteenth of May nineteen forty-three, German forces destroyed the Great Synagogue that had stood opposite.

After the war, construction of the W-Z Route placed Gruba Kaśka amid the broad avenue. Restoration in two thousand four reopened bricked-up windows, renewed the entrance doors, strengthened the foundations against nearby tram vibration, and returned the well-house to its earlier character.