To Poznań for my third business trip of 2024. As with my two January trips to Łódź, I have been focusing on architecture, as it is a city's architecture that most impacts its klimat. Poznań's period under German rule is still visible in its older buildings. Below: Ulica Bukowski 31.
Below: plinthed steam locomotive, standing forever outside ... an H. Cegielski Poznań-built Ty51 2-10-0 engine stands outside the Enea stadium. (For a side view, plus photos from Poznań's old town, click here.)
Below: Poznań's old post office; as with Szczecin, Opole, Gliwice and other cities of the former Reich, the building was meant to be imposing and project administrative efficiency to the local populace.
Below: the western end of Poznań's sprawling main station, Poland's busiest. Whilst the eastern side of the tracks is now a giant shopping mall, the original entrance to what was Poznań Zachodni station has been retained and renovated. Note the winged wheel on top. This is the Flügelrad, a symbol denoting the railway in common use across German (and then Central and Eastern) railway systems from their earliest days, regardless of operator.
Below right: the new-style digital timetables dispense with track numbers, on the basis that it's more important to guide passengers to the right platform; once there, they can work out from which track their train will depart. Below left: traditional printed timetable still tells you the platform (top) number, with the track number beneath it. The trouble is, station announcers still state the track number before the platform number. Track numbers must die. They only serve to confuse passengers.
My trains are all on time in both directions; PKP has improved greatly over the past 26 years since I moved to Poland. The interchange at Warsaw West could be easier (it will be once the new station is completed); and punctually I'm back at Chynów. The evening sun is streaming in. It's good to be back, even after just one night away. The brief sunshine brings a touch of warmth to an otherwise chilly spell. April's like that – see next post – summer one day, winter's return the next. Last year, I also visited Poznań at this time; on my walk from the station to my hotel, it was so warm I have to take off the thin Gore-Tex cycling jacket I had on over my suit; the next morning walking from my hotel to the conference venue, I was shivering in suit and jacket and walking fast to keep warm. An overnight fall in temperature of around 20°C. This year, it was cold when I set off, so my parka rather than anything thinner!
This time last year:
The price of stuff and the cost of living
The price of stuff and the cost of living
This time two years ago:
Post-Lenten photo catch-up
This time three years ago:
Qualia memories – Edwardian railways
This time eight years ago:
This time nine years ago:
Lublin – pearl of Poland's East
This time 11 years ago:
70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
This time 12 years ago:
Tarkovsky's Stalker: a zone of my own
This time 13 years ago:
Warsaw's big billboards
Lublin – pearl of Poland's East
This time 11 years ago:
70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
This time 12 years ago:
Tarkovsky's Stalker: a zone of my own
This time 13 years ago:
Warsaw's big billboards
This time 15 years ago:
Pace of development falters
Pace of development falters
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4 comments:
Great photos as always.
Not sure about a musician, but according to this, the name of the airport comes from a village:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%81awica,_Pozna%C5%84
Pozdrowienia. Enjoy your travels!
MK
You were right! The name of the violinist Wieniawski is included in the full name of the airport. I spoke too soon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozna%C5%84%E2%80%93%C5%81awica_Airport
Ramble warning! The buildings-“klimat” relationship you’re talking about echoes Churchill’s ‘first we shape our buildings and then the buildings shape us’ observation. Like a lot of naïve art critics (that’s naïve critics not naïve art) I’ve had a long-standing fascination with art deco. I still do – how can you not love the Chrysler Building in NY or the old Prudential building in Warsaw – but it does not take long to make out the evil, sinister and anxiety-inducing character that lurks behind the pleasing facades. The style presaged the age of the machine and the machine shows its face in these walls and windows if you look hard enough. I mistook Dworzec Zachodni in Poznań for an example of art deco in your picture, mostly because the picture is small. I’ve googled it and it was apparently built in a neo-classical style. Neo-classical comes in various stripes and sizes, of course, and art deco was supposed to cast a furtive eye to classical anyway. But what I am getting at via this circuitous route is that the track numbering chaos you describe is a sign of the degenerated, imitative and self-regarding stage the age of the machine has reached. Bankruptcy of ideas. Yes, people might have been confused in the past when they heard a railway announcement and gone “Hang on, was that track 2 platform 3 or track 3 platform 2?” At railway stations, airports, etc. our senses have to work extra hard due to multiple stimuli so it is easy to make a mistake. So, some idiot who had studied too much of behavioural economics, crowd psychology, management theory, etc., had been paid $$$ to come up with this brain fart, most likely in a brain storming session, that if the track numbers are widely different than the platform numbers, people are not bound to get them mixed up (Lublin is a classic example, as you may remember). Examples proliferate. An infuriating one is the shoe lacing pattern you will find when you go to buy a pair of shoes today. What was wrong with the old criss-cross style? And don’t even mention phones and computers. There are too many “Norman Doors” everywhere today. Each Norman Door should be identified and redesigned and the creators shamed and pilloried.
@ Michał Karski:
Wieniawski... he's famous, isn't he? [Again, like Dworzec Kolejowy Warszawa Centralna im. Stanisława Moniuszko aka Warsaw Central, named after someone I can't hum a tune by.]
@ Jacek Koba:
Pics should enlarge if you click on them; then, if you Open In New Tab, you get a version that will enlarge further still so you can see all the detail.
"A Norman door is a wrongly or poorly designed door (UX design) that confuses or fails to give you an idea of whether to push or pull. It was named after Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, who discovered the phenomenon." – I did not know that! Thanks, useful!
Track (as opposed to platform) numeration has some arcane logic, though it's only understandable to railway personnel. There's some Da Vinci Code behind it.
Lacing shoes: I use the British Army method, with parallel lacing from bottom to top so that with one slice of a knife, the laces can be swiftly cut and the boot removed from an injured foot/leg. This cannot be said for the criss-cross lacing style.
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