Plac Defilad, Warsaw

Plac Defilad, the immense square beside the Palace of Culture and Science, covers roughly one hundred and forty-seven thousand square metres and ranks as Europe’s largest city square. It was laid out in the nineteen fifties with the Palace, occupying the former lines of several streets. Memorial plaques preserve those vanished routes in the paving.

The space was conceived for mass assemblies, marches, and state parades, which gave it its name. On the twenty-fourth of October nineteen fifty-six, several hundred thousand people came here after Władysław Gomułka returned to power. From the reviewing stand, he denounced Stalinism and promised political change; the crowd also called for Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński’s release.

In nineteen sixty-six, a vast parade marking a millennium of Polish statehood filled this ground. Pope John Paul the Second celebrated Mass here in June nineteen eighty-seven, with an altar at the Palace entrance, and beatified Bishop Michał Kozal. The same expanse later became a football supporters’ zone during Euro twenty twelve. Let the sheer openness of the paving suggest how this place has repeatedly been made into Warsaw’s public stage.