Warsaw has a new landmark

Won't be long now until Our City gains yet another shopping and office complex. This one's right outside my office... Temptations by the score... due to open next month, in good time for Christ's Mass.

This is Plac Unii, located on Pl. Unii Lubelskiej (Plac = Platz = Place = Square but this one's more of a roundabout). Like Rondo ONZ 1, the development is named simply after its address.

Since moving here, I've been watching it grow and grow; controversially, its height looms large over the panorama of the Belvedere palace from Łazienki park. "Sacrilege!" shout traditionalists - they have a point.

But in the less rarified environs of the bottom end of ul. Marszałkowska (where it meets the top end of ul. Puławska), the new development is a) welcome and b) pulls the neighbourhood in an up-market direction. It is, however, a shame that Warsaw's first self-service supermarket, the modernist Supersam (1962), had to go to make way for it.

Anyway, today, for the first time, I noticed that shops are in place in the new complex. There's a Maximo Ponci on the corner. There's an ING logo on top of the office tower. And leaving work this evening... Hang on a second... That's wonderful! Just look at that lighting...

May I be the first to offer a popular name for the building... Kameleon?

This time last year:
Tatra time (worth another watch and listen!)

This time two years ago:
The passing of Old Poland

This time three years ago:
A glorious week

This time four years ago:
Trampled underfoot: Sobieski and the Turks at Vienna

This time five years ago:
The first, spontaneous signs, of a Park + Ride at Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
Early autumn atmospheres, Jeziorki