Krakow gets an Illuminated Glass Pyramid

This is truly the most mindblowingly dumb thing to have foisted on Krakow's historical Rynek Glowny. It cost a staggering 3m zl to install this glowing glass pyramid, a tacky replica of the one by the Paris Louvre and equally as insensitive.

Clearly the sterility of the mindset of Krakow's Rada Mieska is reflected in the simple minded notion that if something is trendy and "Western" or Western European in origin or design then it just must be good. This in nonsense but shows a lack of confidence. Krakow does not need to import this dreck. It was lucky to avoid the planning blights on the West in the 1960s.

The Rada Miejska clearly wants to unlearn such lessons about bad architecture that those in Britain or France or Germany still have not fully learnt. People want to see Krakow because it is different and unique and beautiful. Not in making a shoddy attempt at "modernisation" that strips away its ancient charms and ambience.

This pyramid clearly violates the UNESCO World Heritage criteria. Such a repellent and ill suited innovation must reflect either corruption or incompetence or both. It is symbolic of the systemic mismanagement of Krakow and the moral and aesthetic bankruptcy of the Rada Miejska and Mayor Jacek Majchrowski.
Poland needs a conservation movement and responsible citizens to put into practice vocal and consistent opposition to these increasingly pointless and expensive follies. These spineless bureaucrats can not be depended upon to preserve Krakow as a unique and beautiful city from the forces of rapacious greed.

Krakow needs to avoid the process of Disneyfication and banalisation, turning a city into a ghastly and more overcrowded version of Prague which is at least big enough to absorb large numbers. The irresponsible way that so-called planners have blighted Krakow with ugly hotels such as the Park Inn and the Hotel Sheraton is an international disgrace.

The unique ambience of Krakow is being slowly eradicated as soulless, self serving third rate bureaucrats and bland technocrats along with craven politicians genuflecting before global financial power combine to convert the city into a theme park as opposed to an organic really lived in historical centre where a cup of coffee is even more expensive than London.

The new glass pyramid is as vacuous and empty, as devoid of meaning and belonging as a branch of McDonald's or Planet Hollywood. The globe is suffering from a spreading malady of homogenisation where life is being drained of its charm and becoming ever more boring. Greed and a shoddy craving for cheap tourist lucre moulds the townscape.

There needs to be reclaim the streets of Krakow from the stupid and rapacious back to the people the politicians are meant to serve.

There needs to be vocal protest and a conservation movement to stop these moronic gimmicky innovations that serve no purpose and will only destroy the very charm of Krakow that attracts people there. Even as a feeble tourist attraction it fails pitifully. Nobody wants to go to Krakow to see an illuminated glass pyramid.