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For a selection of views of a range of people and professions in Warszawa about the Palace of Culture and Science, go to the link:

http://www.wbj.pl/?command=article&id=27214&type=lim

which will take you to the article in Warszawa Business Journal Online. It shows just how divided Warszawa is about this 'edifice'. It starts off 'The heart of Warsaw?

From Lokale Immobilia

by Agnieszka Barteczko

There are few things that make the blood boil quicker in a Varsovian than the Palace of Culture and Science.

For some, it is an unstinting reminder of communist oppression that should be torn down; for others, it has shed its political symbolism and become as much a part of the city as the Old Town. In the run up to its 50th anniversary and with work beginning on the area surrounding the Palace, Lokale Immobilia asks some of the main personalities in Polish real estate what should happen in the future to Warsaw's most controversial building.'
And so the debate goes on.
Leslie <img src="/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

If there was a new place for all the institiutions, theatres, dance companies etc etc I would demolish the building on new years eve preferably.

JUst like Forza did say - I think that Palac could be demolished after we have new buildings for all institutions located in it. And after we have a really good plan of rebuilding the real city in it's place. However I don't agree with the article author Agnieszka Barteczko that Varsavians as a mass are eager to destroy the building on the ideaological ground only - just because it was built by the disliked occupants and opressors. For practical reasons yes - it's ugly, decorated in Russsian non-style, it's extremely expensive to ukeeep (vast corridors), it consumes a lot of the most precious city centre space. But the times of a very heated debate over Palac are gone with the communism. THEN people as a mass wanted to demolish it INSTANTLY <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Agnieszka Barteczko is late with her observations (pity she asked the foreigners mainly) Well, this is my opinion only, but at least you have 'second opinion' from a 5th generation Varsovian <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

True, true... I'm also not a fan of Palac Kultury but if there was a poll which building should be demolished and there were two options: Palac Kultury and Railway Station Warszawa Centralna I'd,without a doubt, choose the second option.
The Palac Kultury may be ugly but it's really a beauty when compared to this monstrous monument of ugliness which is the railway station.
But still, sooner or later Palac Kultury should dissapear from Warsaw's maps. And therefore on no circumstances should PKiN become a monument!! And there have already been such plans, I'm not sure, but I think there has already been a petition made to make it happen. :| PKiN may now be considred as the characteristic feature of Warsaw, but that only proves that something different should be built on it's place, and as fast as possible!

And yet in Moscow, the exact same style of building (Moscow actually has a few) is considered to be very fancy, a chef d'oeuvre of architecture!

Speaking of Moscow, it is no longer home to Europe's largest hotel. The massive Hotel "Rossiya", directly opposite Red Square, was since its construction in the 1960s the largest hotel in Europe. But apparently, Luzhkov found it too distracting (it went on for several blocks), so he began the demolition to build... 2 or 3 new hotels on its former territory!

where's al qaeda when you need them?