Wola Guide: Skyscrapers, Factories and Memory West of the Centre

No district of Warsaw has changed faster this century than Wola. A working-class and industrial area for two centuries, it now grows the tallest office cluster in the country - while keeping its factories and its memory closer than anywhere else in the city.

The new skyline

Around Rondo Daszynskiego and Plac Europejski, towers like the Warsaw Spire mark the business capital of Poland. The streets below fill at lunch with the office crowd - and at night with the restaurant scene that followed them.

Industrial Wola

The district's factories survived as destinations: the Norblin Factory with its open-air machinery museum and Food Town, the Warsaw Gasworks Museum (free on Fridays), and Stacja Muzeum, the railway museum in the old main station (free on Mondays).

Memory

Wola suffered some of the worst violence of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, and the Warsaw Uprising Museum in a former tram power station tells that story. Further north, Powazki Cemetery, founded in 1790, is the great historic necropolis of the city.

Visiting

Metro line M2 serves Wola at Rondo Daszynskiego and Rondo ONZ. One day comfortably covers the Uprising Museum, the Norblin Factory and an evening in the district's food halls.