I remember reading my favorite Polish book—"Miss Nobody"—in the rain and amidst lightning wandering around the magical Mt. Sleza, right next to the ancient stone Sleza bear. I was discovering this amazing Lower Silesia, absorbing the atmosphere of the region, which, after all, so many writers have fallen in love with, that until the Festival of the Mountain of Literature, that until the Nobel Prize for this Olga, that those dark stories of Joanna Bator, those Wałbrzych nooks and crannies, golden trains, secret undergrounds. „Lower Silesia—reading is here to stay”.—I thought to myself.
So, this Wroclaw is surrounded on all sides by extraordinary surroundings, complemented by the legends and climates of the Karkonosze Mountains, the labyrinths of the Table Mountains, that Jizera winding along the border, but fully defined, of course, by the Oder River.
A city steeped in water, Poland's most „river-like” metropolis; here seen from Dunikowski Boulevard
© Wroclaw City Hall
The multi-town of Wroclaw, thanks to it, becomes an archipelago of islands, that is the key thing about this city, these bridges, river branches, island features. This Oder, which flooded her city with the most important great water, then not only spoiled. She then built what we see today as Wroclaw society, that common struggle created a new Wroclaw community.
The Oder makes Wrocław—the Vistula must be shared by Kraków with Warsaw and Gdańsk, and the Oder has Wrocław, as it were, exclusively. Awareness of this aquatic, riverine nature of the city is fortunately high in Wroclaw, so we can visit the truly excellent exhibition at Hydropolis or be a participant in the congress Economy of a Water City: City-Water-Quality of Life.
If it weren't for the Oder River, there would be no Wroclaw, although the river isn't the only primeval cause of this city, as two of the most important roads of antiquity and the Middle Ages in this part of the world met here with the Oder: the famous Via Regia and the even more famous amber route. Thanks to them Breslau was rich, powerful and prosperous, Hanseatic and very, very respected in Europe.
Elements of the setting of the European Capital of Culture 2016
© City Hall of Wrocław
Historically, of course, this Breslau was also a bit Polish, Piast, Czech, Prussian, German later to become Polish again, now also very Ukrainian. That's how the thick rope of the place's history is braided, it's woven from a multitude of different threads, the more of them there are, the thicker the rope gets, the more solid, the more impossible to break. And the rope of Wroclaw is really thick, it is impressive, powerful. It's a great story to discover, understand and create its sequel.
This economic Wroclaw is interesting, full of headquarters of banks and financial institutions, strong IT and pharmaceutical industry, strong BPO sector, logistics, white goods, Korean batteries and electronics. It is a city of jobs, planning a meaningful future, ambition and great opportunities.
A panorama of the archipelago—regardless of efforts, photos do not convey the „thingness” of Wroclaw
© City Hall of Wroclaw
Okay, enough of this sweetening. And what is wrong with Wroclaw? Oh, quite a lot. Those famous crooked streetcar rails... Those potholes and cobblestone streets. Those traffic jams, those disrupted by a choppy river and bridges everywhere present as bottlenecks. Those inauthentic rebuilt monuments, numerous communist memorabilia and the tower that dominates the city prostrate, which at least has a great observation deck....
If I had to complain, I would say this: I don't feel in contemporary Wroclaw some vision, direction, some super master plan. Here a renovation, there a renovation, but strategically it is not impressive. This is not a city up to its potential, this is not yet the Breslau that would catch up with itself from its most golden days. This city could do more, much more.
Well seemingly there is this stadium, but I like the Gdansk one better. Apparently, there was EURO 2012 here, there was the European Capital of Culture in 2016, there were even the bizarre The World Games in 2017, which seemed controversial to me, to say the least, in terms of their value or positive impact on the development and image of the city. The National Music Forum (design: Kurylowicz & Associates) has appeared in the fabric of the city, providing opportunities to host a new format of events. Ostensibly, there is the Centennial Hall, but...
