This unit was developed by Małgorzata Kmak Bibliography Didactic Comments
Information Text: Krakow – Communism 1945-1956 – Nowa Huta Housing Estate
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The Nowa Huta housing estate was supposed be: “… the human resource for industrial works” (A. Chwalba, Dzieje Krakowa t. 6, Kraków w latach 1945-1989, Kraków 2004, s.221). It was the first big city built from scratch in post war Poland. Its urban project was chosen in a competition in which the architectonic vision of Tadeusz Ptaszycki won. The project was improved and corrected in the years 1949–1950, and it was finally accepted by the Political Bureau of PZPR.
The individual city areas were divided into four parts identified by the alphabet letters from A to D. The parts possessed their own specific features, for example:
- A-1; cafes and restaurants, offices, bank, post office;
- B-1; vocational schools, training workshops, school stadium;
- C-1; several storey blocks of flats;
- C-2; small houses.
The structural division of Nowa Huta was simple and uncomplicated. The designations of the four parts of the housing estate ran from right to left anti-clockwise. The main streets radiated symmetrically and they constituted the line dividing the individual parts of the city.
The building of the first living quarter called “Wanda” started on June 23, 1949. The first building, No. 21, was finished on December 18, 1949. The plaque with the following text was placed on it: “At this place, the building of Nowa Huta, the symbol of socialist transformation of the People’s Republic of Poland, commenced.” (A. Chwalba, Dzieje Krakowa t. 6, Kraków w latach 1945-1989, Kraków 2004, s. 225).
Nowa Huta houses were mostly low, two-storey, with steep roofs and without decoration.
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According to the Soviet directives, the blocks of flats had strong foundations. They had cellar air-raid shelters, reinforced-concrete walls and strong ceilings. At that time, the Korean War was going on, and the possibility of a military conflict was taken seriously. The inhabitants were not too enthusiastic about the “war-like” sturdiness of the construction. They said it was a prison-like, “bunkers-not-houses” architecture. The streets radiated in all directions from Central Square. On November 23, 1953, the District National Council approved the names of the main streets: Lenin Avenue, October Revolution Avenue, Six-Year Plan Avenue and Work Leaders Avenue.
The following five years witnessed the successive construction of the main urban design. Housing quarters, schools and shops were built; the tram line between Kraków and Nowa Huta was opened. Nowa Huta, originally planned as a 100,000 proletariat housing district, slowly became more than a 200,000 settlement.
