[zalew]

It has. I would really like to enlighten you somehow, but I don't know how to do it in short, so I can only redirect you to reading about Warsaw reconstruction history, look for names/keywords like Bierut, Gomułka, who they were and what they did for/to Warsaw. You can take also a look at the link from my other comment.

[agrostis]

I pretty much know the context — I'm from Moscow, we had it no less tough here than you Varsovians. Still, I stand to it that the degradation of architectural aesthetics in the second half of the 20th century was not limited to the Eastern bloc.

[zalew]

Yeah, but ugly is one thing, around here they wanted to make sure Warsaw gets stripped away of its history and culture (and they accomplished it not only by architectural decisions). Making the new version of Warsaw a place much less pleasant to live compared to the pre-ww2 one was kind of part of the plan by the party. The impact was huge and that's why people even from Poland or even some from here just don't like it as a whole, not only how it looks. (Future establishments also made a lot of mess here on top of it, but that's another story)

One thing I can agree is that cities that had to be rebuilt share the common thing that they are often an architectural mess and by that means they are ugly. Let's compare say, Berlin (which actually I like, because I feel it's a better version of Warsaw), even the west part, and gorgeous Prague.

> we had it no less tough here than you Varsovians.

I know.