A lot of the old and grand buildings you can still see in Warsaw nowadays were built thanks to the ingenuity and skill of a certain Marconi…

While the surname may ring a bell, we’re not talking about telephones, but about Enrico Marconi, known in Poland as Henryk, who was a prolific architect and the mastermind behind dozens of buildings built in Congress Poland.

Host John Beauchamp speaks to Jakub Frejtag from Warsaw University about the Marconi effect on Polish architecture and how it came to be that an Italian found himself in Poland back in the 19th century.

A lot of the old and grand buildings you can still see in Warsaw nowadays were built thanks to the ingenuity and skill of Henryk Marconi. He built hotels, train stations, hospitals, grand palaces for the rich and famous, numerous churches, and even a synagogue.

While a lot of the buildings Enrico Marconi constructed didn’t survive the war, some did, and can still be admired today – even if not in their original form.