The city has always been a place for meeting strangers who differ in religious and ideological terms, or in terms of such a basic feature as appearance. One may state that multiculturalism of cities has always existed. However, due to the contemporary process of globalization, the definition and perception of multiculturalism have changed, or rather are perceived in a completely new dimension.

The assumption of my project is to support the multicultural ideology¹ which emphasizes the diversity of cultures and traditions and their combination within the common space of a multicultural city. Elaborating on this idea, the objective of my project is to construct public space in Warsaw, vibrant with life and overfilled with the Asian spirit. This will be a certain type of Asian culture center on the scale of urban development where Oriental art may be presented and compared with European art and may be subject to discussion and critic for the Polish people. This place will be represented by Vietnamese immigrants living in Warsaw who, without doubt, constitute the most colorful group of foreigners in the capital. The concept of the project is based among others on the ideology of Japanese shintoism which puts great emphasis on man’s relation not only with nature but also with other people. Harmony and acceptance are very crucial.

Close interpersonal relation also means intercultural relation in which people of various origin may mutually coexist and accept each other. This is in accordance with the idea of integration of ethnic minority with native inhabitants, where integration does not mean adapting to culture and tradition of the host but rather a promotion and clash of cultures.

The discussed project is also an attempt at a response to the problem of the closed society of immigrants which constitutes the cultural and spatial enclave within the city landscape. This is currently very typical for the modern, multicultural metropolis. According to the idea of the project, we plan out in advance the direction of acculturation of a given immigrant society, in this case the Vietnamese, in order for it to be attractive for both sides. The designed cultural town is not a place where the native inhabitant of Warsaw would feel like a guest in his own home but an attempt at shaping such a space where both sides can be the host.¹

¹ Wojciech Burszta defined the notion of culturalism in his book ‘Asteriks w Disneylandzie’ (‘Asterix in Disneyland’) as “(...) identity politics in the conditions of mutual penetration of what is universal”. A sign of culturalism is the multicultural ideology which develops two opposite tendencies. The first one strives at making culture uniform and homogeneous, the second one on the other hand emphasizes the diversity of cultures and traditions.