- Hotel Europejski (Raffles Europejski)
Hotel Europejski on Krakowskie Przedmieście was built in 1855–1877 to a design by Henryk Marconi and was one of Warsaw's grandest hotels before the war. The building burned in September 1939 during the defence of Warsaw; after the war it was rebuilt, first for a military academy, and it reopened as a hotel in the early 1960s. After a 2013–2018 renovation that added two new storeys under a new roof, it reopened in 2018 as Raffles Europejski Warsaw.
- Plac Zamkowy (Castle Square)
Castle Square lies at the gate to the Old Town, with Sigismund's Column (1644) and the Royal Castle, the residence of the President of Poland in 1926–1939. The castle burned after German shelling in September 1939 and its remains were blown up by the Germans in 1944; the column was toppled during the Warsaw Uprising. The column was re-erected in 1949, when the W-Z route tunnel was built under the square, and the castle was rebuilt in 1971–1984.
- Krakowskie Przedmieście by St Anne's Church
The northern end of Krakowskie Przedmieście, part of the Royal Route, runs past St Anne's Church and the former Bernardine monastery towards Castle Square; before the war trams ran along it. Buildings here were damaged in September 1939 and burned in 1944, while St Anne's Church survived with damage. In 1947–1949 the W-Z route was cut in a tunnel under the street beside the church, and most of the historic buildings were rebuilt; in 2006–2008 the street was repaved and largely closed to private traffic.
- Tomb of the Unknown Soldier / Saxon Palace (Piłsudski Square)
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was created in 1925 in the central colonnade of the Saxon Palace, which closed the west side of today's Piłsudski Square. German troops blew up the palace in December 1944; only three arcades of the colonnade with the tomb survived. The tomb was restored and reopened in 1946 as a free-standing monument in front of the Saxon Garden. In 2021 the decision was taken to rebuild the Saxon Palace, and archaeological excavations on its site followed.
- Dworzec Wiedeński (Vienna Station) – today Patelnia
The Warsaw–Vienna Railway Station, the city's first, opened in 1845 at the corner of Marszałkowska Street and Aleje Jerozolimskie, and from 1919 served as the Main Station. Most of the building was demolished in the 1930s during construction of the cross-city railway tunnel, and the remainder burned in September 1939; the ruins of the clock tower were blown up in 1947. The site became part of the square around the Palace of Culture and Science, and since 1998 the sunken 'Patelnia' square has formed the entrance to Centrum metro station.
- Rynek Starego Miasta (Old Town Market Square)
The townhouses of the Old Town Market Square largely kept their 17th–18th-century form until 1944; in 1928–1929 their façades were repainted with new polychromes. During and after the Warsaw Uprising the Old Town was almost completely destroyed. In 1949–1953 the townhouses were reconstructed using surviving fragments and historical records, and the square was reopened on 22 July 1953. The rebuilt Old Town has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980.
- Plac Teatralny (Theatre Square)
Theatre Square is framed by the Grand Theatre and the Jabłonowski Palace, which served as Warsaw's City Hall from 1819 until 1944. The theatre was bombed in September 1939 and burned in 1944; it was rebuilt and greatly enlarged after the war, keeping its original façade on the square, and reopened in 1965. The ruins of the Jabłonowski Palace were demolished in 1952 and the Warsaw Nike monument was unveiled near its site in 1964; the monument was moved away in the 1990s and the palace was reconstructed in 1995–1997.
- Plac Zbawiciela – Church of the Most Holy Saviour
Plac Zbawiciela on Marszałkowska Street is dominated by the Church of the Most Holy Saviour, built in 1901–1927. In September 1939 German shells destroyed the church's west tower, the spire over the crossing and the roof, and in 1944 it suffered further severe damage. The church was repaired after the war and its towers rebuilt; in the early 1950s the square was enclosed by the arcaded buildings of the MDM housing estate. The central spire over the crossing was never rebuilt.
- Plac Trzech Krzyży (Three Crosses Square) – St Alexander's Church
St Alexander's Church on Three Crosses Square was built in 1818–1826 to a classicist design by Chrystian Piotr Aigner and enlarged in 1886–1895 in neo-Renaissance style, with two towers and a large dome. It was largely destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. In 1949–1952 it was rebuilt in its original, smaller classicist form, without the 19th-century extension, while new buildings rose around the square.
- Nowy Świat at Aleje Jerozolimskie (Rondo de Gaulle'a)
Before the war the crossing of Nowy Świat and Aleje Jerozolimskie was one of Warsaw's busiest corners, lined with tenement houses and cafés, with the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego building completed on one corner in 1931. Most of the surrounding houses were destroyed during the war and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. In 1948–1952 the monumental Party House, seat of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, was built on the corner of Nowy Świat. After 1991 it became the Centrum Bankowo-Finansowe and housed the Warsaw Stock Exchange until 2000; since 2002 Joanna Rajkowska's artificial palm tree has stood in the middle of the Charles de Gaulle roundabout.
- Plac Bankowy (Bank Square)
Bank Square took its classicist form in the 1820s, when Antonio Corazzi built the palace of the Government Revenue and Treasury Commission, the Treasury Minister's Palace and the Bank Polski building around it. The palaces were burnt out in 1944 and rebuilt in the early 1950s, while the square was widened into a major traffic junction and renamed after Felix Dzerzhinsky, whose statue stood here from 1951 to 1989. Today the palace complex houses Warsaw City Hall, the Blue Skyscraper (completed in 1991) stands on the east side near the site of the destroyed Great Synagogue, and a monument to Juliusz Słowacki has stood on the square since 2001.
- Plac Grzybowski (All Saints Church)
Grzybowski Square was a busy market square in the heart of Warsaw's Jewish quarter, dominated by All Saints Church, built from 1861 to Enrico Marconi's design. In 1904 it was the scene of the PPS armed demonstration, and during the occupation the square lay within the Warsaw Ghetto. The church was badly damaged in 1944 and rebuilt after the war, while most of the surrounding tenements were replaced by post-war housing blocks and office towers. The square itself was redesigned as a green public space in 2010.
- Poniatowski Bridge (Most Poniatowskiego)
Poniatowski Bridge, a steel-arch bridge over the Vistula with gatehouse towers designed by Stefan Szyller, opened in January 1914 as the continuation of Aleje Jerozolimskie. Russian troops blew it up in 1915 and it reopened only in the 1920s; in September 1944 German forces destroyed it again. The rebuilt bridge was reopened on 22 July 1946, and it still carries trams and road traffic to Praga, with the National Stadium on the eastern bank since 2011.
- Barbakan (Warsaw Barbican)
The Barbican, a semicircular fortified gate in Warsaw's city walls, was built in the mid-16th century on the road from the Old Town to the New Town. After losing its defensive role it was partly demolished and built over with tenement houses, and only fragments were uncovered during restoration work in the late 1930s. The area was devastated in 1944, and the Barbican was reconstructed in 1952–1954 from old drawings and the surviving remains. Today it is a pedestrian gateway between the Old and New Towns, part of the Old Town UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Zachęta Gallery (Plac Małachowskiego)
The Zachęta building on Małachowski Square was designed by Stefan Szyller for the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts and opened in 1900. In December 1922 Poland's first president, Gabriel Narutowicz, was assassinated inside it. The gallery survived the war with damage while much of the surrounding square was ruined, and after 1949 it housed the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions. Since 2003 it has been the Zachęta National Gallery of Art.
- Prudential (Hotel Warszawa)
Built in 1931–1934 for the Prudential insurance company to a design by Marcin Weinfeld, the 66 m tower was one of the tallest buildings in pre-war Europe. During the 1944 Warsaw Uprising it was hit by heavy artillery and burnt out, but its steel frame survived. It was rebuilt by 1954 with a socialist-realist facade and reopened as Hotel Warszawa. After years of disuse it was renovated and reopened in 2018 as a luxury hotel that again shows its pre-war modernist lines.
- Plac Konstytucji (MDM)
Before the war this was a dense area of 19th-century tenement houses at the junction of Marszałkowska, Piękna and Koszykowa streets; most of it was destroyed during the war. In 1950–1952 the Marszałkowska Housing District (MDM) was built here in the socialist-realist style, and Plac Konstytucji was opened on 22 July 1952 with its arcades, reliefs and three tall ornamental lamp posts. For decades much of the square has been used as a car park.
- Hale Mirowskie (Mirów market halls)
The two brick market halls were built in 1899–1902 on the site of the former Mirów guards' barracks, designed by Józef Pius Dziekoński and Apoloniusz Nieniewski. During the 1944 Warsaw Uprising the Germans executed civilians here and the halls were burnt and partly blown up. After the war the western hall served as a sports hall for the Gwardia club, while the eastern hall was rebuilt and reopened as a market in the early 1960s. Both halls are again used for trade today, with a street market around them.
- Warsaw University of Technology Main Building
The Main Building was erected in 1899–1901 to a design by Stefan Szyller for the Emperor Nicholas II Polytechnic Institute, and from 1915 housed the Polish Warsaw University of Technology. It was burnt out during the war and repaired after 1945; in December 1948 a mass rally for the congress uniting the PPR and PPS parties was held on the square in front of it. Under communist rule the square was renamed Plac Jedności Robotniczej. Today the restored building, with its large glass-roofed main hall, is again the university's centrepiece on Plac Politechniki.
- Rondo Daszyńskiego
The roundabout at the junction of Prosta, Towarowa, Kasprzaka and Okopowa streets in Wola was for decades surrounded by industrial plots, low office blocks and the RSW press complex. Since the opening of the Rondo Daszyńskiego metro station in 2015 the area has become Warsaw's second high-rise business district, with Warsaw Spire (2016), Generation Park, The Warsaw HUB and Skyliner rising around the junction.
- Palace of Culture and Science
Before the Second World War this part of Śródmieście was a dense quarter of tenement streets such as Chmielna, Złota, Zielna and Wielka, with the Vienna Railway Station at the corner of Marszałkowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie. After the wartime destruction the remaining buildings were cleared and the Palace of Culture and Science, a gift from the Soviet Union, was built in 1952–1955, surrounded by the vast Plac Defilad. In recent years the square has been redeveloped, with the Museum of Modern Art and the new Plac Centralny.
- National Stadium
The 10th-Anniversary Stadium (Stadion Dziesięciolecia) was built on the Praga bank of the Vistula largely from wartime rubble and opened in July 1955. From 1989 its crumbling embankments housed Jarmark Europa, one of Europe's largest open-air markets, which closed in 2007. The National Stadium was built inside the old bowl in 2008–2011 and hosted the opening match of UEFA Euro 2012.
- Copernicus Science Centre and the Vistula boulevards
For most of the 20th century this stretch of the Powiśle riverbank was a sandy embankment and, later, the route of the Wisłostrada riverside expressway. The Copernicus Science Centre was built in 2008–2010 over a newly extended tunnel that took the expressway underground, and its planetarium opened in 2011. In the 2010s the riverside promenades were rebuilt as the Vistula boulevards, now one of the city's busiest public spaces.
- Rondo ONZ
The roundabout at the junction of Aleja Jana Pawła II (formerly Marchlewskiego), Świętokrzyska and Prosta streets was laid out after the war among new housing blocks and office towers. Since the 2000s it has become a cluster of high-rises, including Rondo 1 (2006) and Q22 (2016), and the Rondo ONZ station of metro line 2 opened beneath it in 2015.
- Warszawa Centralna and Varso Tower
Warsaw's modernist Main Station (Dworzec Główny) on Aleje Jerozolimskie was still unfinished when it was destroyed in 1939, and for three decades after the war the city made do with provisional station buildings. Warszawa Centralna, designed by Arseniusz Romanowicz and Piotr Szymaniak, opened in December 1975 above the underground cross-city railway line. Since 2022 its western neighbour has been Varso Tower, at 310 metres the tallest building in the European Union.
- Ulica Miodowa
Since the 17th and 18th centuries Miodowa Street has been lined with aristocratic residences such as the Pac and Branicki palaces, and with churches including the Capuchin church and the Basilian Greek Catholic church. Before the war it was also a busy shopping street with trams. Most of its buildings were burnt or ruined during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and were rebuilt after the war, largely in their historic form. Today it is a quiet street of palaces, government offices and academies close to the Old Town.
- POLIN Museum and the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes
Before the Second World War, Muranów was the heart of Warsaw's Jewish community. During the occupation it lay within the Warsaw Ghetto, and after the Ghetto Uprising of April–May 1943 the area was systematically razed. The Monument to the Ghetto Heroes by Natan Rapoport was unveiled in 1948 amid the rubble, and the post-war Muranów housing estate was later built around it. The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, designed by Rainer Mahlamäki, opened facing the monument in 2013, with its core exhibition opening in 2014.
- Śląsko-Dąbrowski Bridge (Kierbedź Bridge)
The Kierbedź Bridge, Warsaw's first permanent bridge over the Vistula, was built in 1859–1864 to a design by Stanisław Kierbedź as a long iron lattice truss carrying road traffic and trams. It was blown up by the retreating Russians in 1915 and rebuilt, then destroyed by the Germans in September 1944. On its old piers a new steel girder bridge, named Śląsko-Dąbrowski, was built in 1947–1949 as part of the East–West Route and opened in July 1949. It still carries cars and trams between the Old Town and Praga.
- Powązki Cemetery
Powązki Cemetery (Stare Powązki), founded in 1790, is one of Warsaw's oldest cemeteries and the resting place of many of Poland's best-known writers, artists, scientists and statesmen. The Church of St. Charles Borromeo stands at its gate on Powązkowska Street. It was rebuilt and enlarged into its present form at the end of the 19th century.