Inflancka Housing Complex (Warsaw, Poland)
Inflancka Housing Complex (Warsaw, Poland)
In Krzysztof Kieślowski’s DECALOGUE, the modern world—one in which people of different generations and professions cross paths, each torn by different passions, and each confronting lesser or greater universal problems in their daily lives—is manifested in a neighbourhood of prefabricated apartment buildings, the concrete panel constructions typical of twentieth-century European architecture. The Inflancka neighbourhood in Warsaw is where all the characters of THE DECALOGUE live and cross paths.
Its residents pass each other on the paths criss-crossing the apartment complex. The scene in which Ania runs out to tell Michał that she had forged the mysterious letter from her dead mother and lied to her father was shot here. In DECALOGUE SIX, Tomek sets up a stolen school telescope in his room and peeps on Magda, an older woman with whom he has become infatuated. The voyeur and voyée live in neighboring apartment buildings.
Located between Inflancka and Dzika Streets, this housing complex was built in the 1970s using prefabricated slabs of reinforced-steel concrete. Each building was assembled, floor by floor, from one-story-high H-shaped panels. Similar panel buildings were built in Warsaw’s Służew nad Dolinką neighborhood, which also served as a location for scenes in THE DECALOGUE.