Parades Square

Defiladenplatz, literally Parade Square, is a once vast plaza in front of Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science and was the stage for socialist mass rallies. Laid out in 1955 together with the Stalin-era palace, it was conceived as the largest square in Europe for May Day parades and similar demonstrations. After the end of the People's Republic it lost its political function and spent decades being repurposed as a car park and market. Today it is part of a highly contested urban redesign: the new Museum of Modern Art and the TR Warszawa theatre have been built directly on the square to break up the disproportionate emptiness of the Soviet-era ensemble. Visitors can experience the tension between socialist heritage and Warsaw's new architectural identity at very close range.