WARSAW UNDER CONSTRUCTION: SOVEREIGN AND WELL FED

Entering its eighteenth edition, WARSAW UNDER CONSTRUCTION invites viewers to examine urban metabolism: the ways in which the city nurtures itself, how it breathes, what kind of mechanisms it uses for managing energy and all sorts of matter. Themed “Ecopolis—a city where food grows” this year, the festival is focused on foundations of urban life: earth, water, air, and produce. Food becomes a starting point for discussions revolving around various interconnections between people, nature, and infrastructure.

Warsaw was built on fertile soil. Back in the first half of the 20th century, the city limits were still countryside and orchards, cultivated land feeding the center. Over time, much of these areas has been developed—today, traces of past agricultural activity remain in street names; in the form of many allotment gardens or countless fruit trees growing within older housing estates or in people’s backyards; and in citizens’ memory, of course. Still, revisiting it all is more about awareness than it is nostalgic: we simply remember that the city’s growth has always relied on soil, on water, and on people able to work with one and the other well.

Ecopolis is a vision of urban planning where farming plays a key role. Rather than treating the countryside and the city as conflicting domains, it considers them to be complementary parts of a single ecosystem. Urban cultivation—arable land, allotments, orchards, backyards, and community gardens—contributes to the overall shape and structure of the city no less than roads, squares, and buildings do. This way, farming enters the very city center as food becomes a vital link between economy, culture, and everyday life. At the same time, Ecopolis recognizes and supports cultivated areas surrounding the city—its breadbasket, providing produce for all citizens. That zone extends 50 to 60 miles away from Warsaw, but parts of it are present well within city limits too: these are traditional farms and greenhouses as well as hydroponic systems or fungiculture in people’s basements and garages. This local activity is what makes the city self-sufficient and truly resilient.

In a world where large supply chains break and energy policies fail increasingly, it is the self-regulated cities with local production networks that are more likely to survive and thrive. Warsaw, being historically backed by agriculture and offering farmable land to this day, is well-equipped to become a testing ground for this new model.