Smyk, Warsaw

The Smyk Department Store was a department store in Warsaw. Its building, at the intersection of Bracka, Widok, Krucza, and Aleje Jerozolimskie, was built from 1948 to 1952, and was designed by Zbigniew Ihnatowicz and Jerzy Romański. The building was designed in the late Modernist style, while the majority of new projects being built in Warsaw at the time were constructed in the politically-favourable socialist realist style. The modernist design of Smyk made it a unique building at the time, yet also a very controversial one. Stalin believed that modernism was the architecture of capitalism and particularly disliked it as the favoured style in the decades just before the Second World War and thus its association with the Second Polish Republic. Unlike much of Warsaw's immediate pre-war architecture, the building is simple and functional, using no excess motifs or decorations to enhance its contemporary appearance. The current owner of the building is the "Centre for Development & Investments - Poland Sp. Zoo" ()