Upper Mokotów (Polish: Górny Mokotów, [ˈɡur.nɘ̟ mɔˈkɔ.tuf]) is an area in the city of Warsaw, Poland, forming the western side of the Mokotów district. It contains six out of its twelve City Information System areas, which are: Ksawerów, Old Mokotów, Służew, Służewiec, Wierzbno, and Wyględów. Upper Mokotów is a residential area which predominantly consists of mid- and high-rise housing estates with apartment buildings, with lesser presence of low-rise single-family housing. A portion in its central west also constitutes a financial district with office buildings, known colloquially as Mordor.
Among the historical structures, the area includes several neoclassical buildings, such as the Rabbit House built in 1786, the Mokotów Tollhouses built in 1818, the Ksawerów Manor House built in 1840, and the Fanshawe Palace from around 1850. It also includes the Szuster Palace, a Gothic Revival palace built in 1774, and the Church of the Ascension of the Lord, a Lutheran eclectic temple built in 1904. Upper Mokotów also features cultural institutions, including the Geological Museum of the State Institute of Geology, the Museum of the Cursed Soldiers and the Political Prisoners of the Polish People's Republic, and Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture, as well as several theatres, and the Iluzjon arthouse cinema. It also has campuses of the Łazarski University, the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, and the Warsaw University of Technology, as well as research institutions, such as the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Furthermore, the State Medical Institute of the Ministry of Interior and Administration, one of the most prominent hospitals and medical research institutions in Poland, is also present in the area. Upper Mokotów also has several public parks, including Arcadia Park, Dreszer Park, Eye of the Sea Park, and Służew Little Valley Park. It also features Plac Unii, a 90-metre-tall (295.28 ft) modernist office building and shopping centre, and Westfield Mokotów, one of the largest shopping malls in the city. The area is served by the M1 line of the Warsaw Metro underground rapid transit system, with the stations of Pole Mokotowskie, Racławicka, Służew, Wierzbno, and Wilanowska.
By the 13th century, the village of Służew was present in the area, forming a small farming community. In 1238, the St. Catherine Church was founded there, with its Roman Catholic parish becoming the oldest within the current boundaries of Warsaw. It was later rebuilt in the 19th century. In the 14th century, the villages of Mokotów and Służewiec were also recorded nearby, both later being granted the Kulm law privileges. The village of Szopy was also founded in the following century. The area was raided and devastated by the Swedish Imperial Army in 1656 during and following the siege of Warsaw in the Second Northern War. By the 16th century, the settlement of Wyględowo-Kościesze, the predecessor of the modern neighbourhood of Wyględów, was recorded in the area. In the 18th century Mokotów came to prosperity with the development of numerous manor houses, villas, and palaces for wealthy landowners and townspeople. The area was demolished and plundered by the soldiers of the Imperial Russian Army during the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, and began to rebuild in the 1810s. In the 1770s, the hamlet of Wierzbno was founded to the south of the village Mokotów, with the hamlets of Henryków, Ksawerów, and Królikarnia also developing in the area in the 19th century. In said century, Mokotów and Wierzbno became popular holiday villages. On 13 January 1867, the village of Mokotów became the seat of government of the eponymous rural municipality of Mokotów. In the 1880s, several sets of fortifications of the Imperial Russian Army were developed across Upper Mokotów, being later decommissioned and partially demolished in the 1910s. In the 1890s, the narrow-gauge railway tracks were constructed crossing Upper Mokotów, being operated by the Grójec Commuter Railway and the Wilanów Railway, and operating until 1969.
At the turn of the 20th century, and continuing until the Second World War, the area of Mokotów and Wierzbno begun to develop into a suburbia of Warsaw with the construction of numerous tenements. On 8 April 1916, the municipality of Mokotów, which constituted most of Upper Mokotów, was incorporated into the city of Warsaw. In 1910, the Mokotów Aerodrome was established to the north of the village, featuring dirt runways. It became the city's first aerodrome and operated until 1947. In 1932, the neighbourhood of villas, known as Służew-Parcele, was developed to the northwest of Służew, and together with Służewiec, was incorporated into Warsaw in 1938. During the Warsaw Uprising in the Second World War, the German officers conducted a series of executions on local population, and displaced thousands of the residents from the area, with its large portions being devastated and destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising, and in its aftermath in the planned destruction of the city, especially affecting Ksawerów, Old Mokotów, Służewiec, and Wierzbno. After the conflict, the area of Służewiec was re-developed as a major industrial district in the 1950s, known as Służewiec Przemysłowy (Industrial Służewiec). The first major residential developments after the war included the construction of a housing estate of apartament buildings in Old Mokotów between 1947 and 1952, developed by the Warsaw Housing Cooperative. Later, between the 1950s and the 1970s, a series of major housing estates, predominantly consisting of pre-fabricated apartment buildings, were developed across Upper Mokotów, including in Ksawerów, Old Mokotów, Służew, Wierzbno, and Wyględów. In the 1990s, the industrial area in Służewiec was transformed into the largest financial district in Poland, colloquially referred to as Mordor. After 2019, the rented office spaces in the area began to decline, as it converted into a residential district. In the 1995, the M1 line of the Warsaw Metro was opened crossing Upper Mokotów.
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