We have received sad news - Professor Zygmunt Ziobrowski, an urban planner who worked on three continents, directed research projects, was the first President of the Chamber of Urban Planners, a mentor and teacher to many generations of urban planners, and one of the founders of the Institute for Urban Development, has died.
Professor Zygmunt Ziobrowski graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Cracow University of Technology at the turn of 1960. Shortly after graduation, he began working on the Polish coast. He called this period in his life "Koszalin".
After the last year of studies, we did a construction apprenticeship in Sopot. After its completion, my friend and I hitchhiked back and forth across the coast and western lands. It was 1960, and cities like Kolobrzeg, Koszalin and Szczecin had not yet recovered from the ruins. We thought - how much more needs to be done here for these cities to start living normally! And we both decided that this is the task for us," he recalled for Dziennik Polski in 2023[source].
Zygmunt Ziobrowski received his doctoral degree in 1975 and his postdoctoral degree in 1993. During his career, he created concepts for the spatial development of many cities, including Warsaw, Katowice, Tripoli, Baghdad and, above all, Krakow, for which he created master plans in 1988 and 1994. He was also the author of the 1999 study of Krakow.
The professor also held important public and academic positions. He was the first President of the Chamber of City Planners, holding these positions from 2002 to 2006. He chaired the Main Urban Planning and Architectural Commission from 2002 to 2007. He was also a member of the Sounding Board at EPSON and a member of the INTA Board of Directors, as well as an expert at UN HABITAT. He co-founded the Institute for Urban Development (now the Institute for Urban and Regional Development), of which he was director from 2003 to 2008.
His research work included measures of urban space quality and municipal spatial management. One of the many research projects he led includes the twelve-volume "Revitalization of Polish Cities." His most recent publication, "Blasks and Shadows of Spatial Development Planning in Krakow. Facts and Memories," written with Magdalena Jaskiewicz and Robert Kuzianik, was recently published by the Institute for Urban and Regional Development.
