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Zlote Tarasy

This is a project by The Jerde Partnership and it is located at Warsaw, Poland. Project's program: Office, retail entertainment, public/open space, parking. There are twelve images for Zlote Tarasy.

: © The Jerde Partnership

Project details

Project name: Zlote Tarasy
Location: Warsaw, Poland
Program: Office, retail entertainment, public/open space, parking
Area: Site Area: 7.8 acres • Total Building Area: 186,000 m2 • Retail: 65,032 m2 • Entertainment: 9,290 m2 • Lumen: 23,500 m2 • Skylight: 21,500 m2
Year: Completion: 2007
Client: ING Real Estate Development
Project by: The Jerde Partnership
Team: Principal Designer: David Rogers

Project images

Designer's statement

With Warsaw lacking an urban center in the mid-1990s, ING Real Estate, one of the world's largest real estate companies, recognized that a commercial and public space in central Warsaw would serve residents and tourists. ING approached Jerde to create central Warsaw’s first sizable mixed-use development. Located on a 7.8-acre site near the Warszawa Centralna train station and the Palace of Culture, Zlote Tarasy would serve as the center of the City’s proposed new high-rise district.

Zlote Tarasy is inspired by Warsaw’s historic urban parks, which were spared from the otherwise total destruction of the city during World War II. The preserved historic parks form a centuries old “necklace” of green “pearls” through the city. Envisioning Zlote Tarasy as metaphorically adding another “pearl” to the series, Jerde reinterpreted the historic parks by creating the project as a lively indoor and outdoor urban environment with generous open spaces that are reminiscent of the city’s great parks. Zlote Tarasy takes the form of a below-grade pocket park that opens to a lively, retail and entertainment plaza. Designed as an extension of the park, the plaza is enclosed by an innovative glass roof with an undulating surface inspired by the tree canopies crowning the city’s historic parks. Spanning 120 meters with individual spans of more than 30 meters, the thin glass roof creates the feeling of being outdoors while providing weather protection during the winter cold.

Surrounding the interior plaza, a three-level retail and entertainment center is organized in terraces, as suggested by the name Zlote Tarasy, which means “golden terraces”. The terraces, which contain local and international retailers, restaurants and a multiplex cinema, overlook the interior courtyard and open-air park. Mid — and high — rise towers rising above the three-level retail and entertainment center will house office space, including ING Real Estate’s Eastern European headquarters.

Designed as a connector to weave central Warsaw’s urban fabric back together, Zlote Tarasy includes an interior circulation path that connects to the city’s existing pedestrian patterns, linking to the Warszawa Centralna train station on the south with pocket parks and the historic city center on the north. Additional entrances around the perimeter of the project connect and help recreate the historic urban grid lost during World War II and revitalize public spaces nearby. Situated within the master plan area for the Palace of Culture, Zlote Tarasy is expected to play an integral role in connecting the Palace with a new high-rise district planned for the city, acting as a landmark destination offering year-round shopping, leisure and social opportunities for the residents and visitors to the city.