W 1929 r. oddano do użytku wyższą szkołę zawodową wychowania fizycznego. Centralny Instytut Wychowania Fizycznego, projektu Edgara Norwertha, stał się jedną z najlepiej rozpoznawalnych warszawskich ...inwestycji okresu międzywojennego. Jego historia była przedmiotem wielu opracowań, rzadko jednak odnosiły się one do tej części inwestycji, której nie udało się zrealizować. W niniejszym tekście, na podstawie źródeł archiwalnych oraz materiałów prasowych, poddane analizie zostają nieurzeczywistnione, a przez to niemal zupełnie zapomniane elementy bielańskiej inwestycji – stadion reprezentacyjny, tor wioślarski, otwarta pływalnia, fontanna, kolorowe elewacje. Tłem porównawczym rozważań będą inne reprezentacyjne inwestycje sportowe Warszawy międzywojennej – Stadion Wojska Polskiego oraz tor wyścigów konnych na Służewcu.
Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) appeared in Poland in 1918. Three years later, the American branch of the organization ceased its activity in this country. In its place the Christian Young ...People Association ‘Polska YMCA’ (The Polish YMCA) was established. This organization, although maintained contact with the centers of organizations in other countries, remained fully independent. The Polish YMCA was most active in large cities and centers of particular symbolic and economic importance for the Second Republic of Poland – Warsaw, Cracow, Łódź and Gdynia. The Polish YMCA was one of the most active and efficient social organizations dealing with physical education and sport in interwar Poland. It gained considerable popularity and was one of the most important institutions offering extracurricular activities for young people. One of the reasons for its success was its excellent material base. The Polish YMCA successfully built three representative buildings in the center of Cracow, Warsaw and Łódź in the interwar period. Their construction was partially financed by American funds. There were sports equipment, rare in interwar Poland, such as indoor swimming pools, sports halls and indoor tennis courts located in there. The Polish YMCA also developed the infrastructure of summer camps.
In 1859, the first Modern Panhellenic Games were held in Athens. The Games, initiated by the wealthy entrepreneur Evangelos Zappas, although originally planned as a regular event, were held only ...three more times – in 1870, 1875 and 1888/1889. These were also pioneering times in the development of Polish sport. The Polish press was interested in the competitions in distant Greece, calling them the Olympic Games. Especially their first edition received relatively great in- terest in the Galician and Warsaw press. The press releases contained information about the com- petition programme, the involvement of the royal family in the event, the setting of the event and the interest of the audience. However, short, laconic references prevailed, and the Games them- selves were presented as an exotic curiosity rather than an event of great social and cultural im- portance. There is also little evidence that the press reports on the events of 1859–1889 had a significant impact on the development of Polish sport.
In the history of Warsaw, the initiative to build Olympic-sized sports infrastructure has been undertaken several times. None of those attempts resulted in the submission of an official host city bid ...to the International Olympic Committee. At no time in the twentieth century were there sufficient financial resources to build Olympic venues and hold the games in Warsaw, or at least there was no conviction about the existence of such resources and the legitimacy of their use. The effort to organize the Olympics in the capital city of the Second Republic of Poland (1918-1939) required elevating the project to the top of the hierarchy of investment priorities of the young state. The outbreak of World War II prevented the completion of the initiative. After the war the prospective development of an Olympic District in Warsaw turned out to be impossible due to the enormity of more urgent needs. The last attempt to organize the games in Warsaw was the project of The Vistulian Games in 2012 launched during the post-communist political transformation of the 1990s. This project did not gain political support, as at that time Poland was recovering from the economic and social crisis.
Po odzyskaniu przez Polskę niepodległości powstały nowe możliwości finansowania polskiego ruchu sportowego. Zaowocowało to stworzeniem pierwszych społecznych, samorządowych i państwowych rozwiązań w ...zakresie finansowania sportu. Możliwości wspierania ruchu sportowego środkami samorządowymi i państwowymi pozwoliły w znacznej mierze pokonać istotną przeszkodę dla rozwoju sportu w II Rzeczypospolitej, jaką był brak odpowiedniej liczby obiektów sportowych. Proces ten był szczególnie intensywny w latach 1926–1929 ze względu na klimat gospodarczy i polityczny. W okresie międzywojennym powstało kilka reprezentacyjnych obiektów o randze międzynarodowej. Głównym lub jedynym inwestorem w tego typu przedsięwzięciach było państwo, które dostrzegło korzystne konsekwencje rozwoju sportu wyczynowego i organizowania międzynarodowych imprez sportowych dla promowania wizerunku kraju na forum międzynarodowym. W przypadku obiektów sportowych o znaczeniu lokalnym i regionalnym inwestorami często były organizacje samorządowe lub społeczne oraz kluby sportowe. Po 1926 roku na ogół realizowały one projekty, zabiegając o wsparcie środkami państwowymi. Inwestowanie w tego typu infrastrukturę pozwalało poprawić kondycję fizyczną i stan przysposobienia wojskowego społeczeństwa. Duże, reprezentacyjne stadiony i urządzenia sportowe powstawały niemal wyłącznie ze środków publicznych, ewentualnie w formie partnerstwa publiczno-prywatnego. Można postawić tezę, iż Państwo było głównym sponsorem rozwoju sportu polskiego w okresie międzywojennym, szczególnie w zakresie tworzenia monumentalnej infrastruktury sportowej o znaczeniu międzynarodowym.
After Poland regained its independence, Polish sports achieved beneficial conditions for development. It resulted in the creation of the first community and government sports management solutions. ...The opportunity of the State’s financial support helped to overcome one of the significant obstacles to the development of sports at that time – the lack of an adequate number of sports facilities. This process was incredibly intensive during the years 1926–1929 due to the economic and political circumstances. Several representative facilities of international importance were erected during the interwar period. The main or the only investor in this type of projects was the State, which was aware of the beneficial consequences of sports for promoting its image on the international forum. Local and regional investors in sports facilities often included the self-government or community organisations and sports clubs. Even then, they usually completed their projects with the support of state funds. It was the State – independently or as a principal partner in the public-private partnerships - that was the main sponsor of sports in the Second Republic of Poland, especially in terms of the symbolic facilities of international significance.
Central Institute of Physical Education, designed by Edgar Norwerth, was completed in 1929. From the very beginning, it become one of the most recognizable investments of the interwar Warsaw. Its ...history is relatively well – known. However, researchers paid less attention to the unrealised elements of the project. The aim of this article is to reconstruct unaccomplished and therefore almost completely forgotten facilities – central stadium, rowing course, outdoor swimming pool, fountain, coloured elevations, according to the interwar documents and press. The reconstruction would be followed in compare to other representational sporting investments of interwar Warsaw – the Polish Army stadium and the Służewiec horse-racing track.
In 1918, the moment of regaining the Polish independence, Warsaw was a city neglected in many ways. One of the aspects of this neglect was its removing from the natural main axis – the Vistula river, ...which banks were built-up with infrastructure of less importance. In the interwar period there was an ongoing debate in the Warsaw press about the necessity of reversal the city „to face the river”. It was said that creating a representational Vistulan boulevard would increase safety on coastal districts, improve urban public transport as well as make city more prestigious, making it more similar to some other Western European metropolis. Despite some political discrepancies between the editors, they all agreed that changes and investments by the Vistula are indispensable. Unfortunately, because of the outbreak of the Second World War only a little part of the Vistulan boulevards was realised. The aim of the article is to reconstruct the discussion of Vistulan banks management in the Warsaw press of the interwar years.
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