Young City awaits development
The neighborhood of the plots where the Road to Freedom is to be built is changing, albeit very slowly. Because new investments are scarce. Only near the ECS building a small office building sprouted up late last year. In the immediate vicinity of the ECS, the construction of the Doki housing development is being hyped: about 1,100 apartments and commercial premises, as well as 37,000 square meters of office space. Construction is expected to begin later this year and last three years.
Visualization, view of the Monument to Fallen Shipyard Workers
© Grupa 5 Architekci
Many investors operating in the post-shipyard areas complain about the lack of an agreement with the land conservator. And so only on paper remain plans for the development of the Imperial Shipyard. How the area can be transformed in 2018 was shown by architects and urban planners from Danish studio Henning Larsen. In the master plan they developed, they proposed high-rise buildings reaching up to one hundred and thirty-three meters at the extremities of the plot, while at the heart of the site, among the converted shipyard halls, they planned lower buildings.
Many future users will access their apartments, offices, public buildings through this road," Michal Leszczynski says of the Road to Freedom. - The road was to become both a memorial and an image magnet to attract investment and contribute to turning the post shipyard area into a modern neighborhood for the 21st century. On the other hand, leaving an asphalt roadway with a curb will certainly not properly highlight the historical heritage of the shipyard, such as Solidarity Square with the Monument to Fallen Shipyard Workers, the Shipyard Gate and the BHP hall.
The future in the hands of the preservationist
Piotr Lorens, head of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Gdansk University of Technology, also has no doubts about the necessity of building the Road.
At the moment we have a paved street that looks like any other. This area deserves thoughtful development. I liked the competition design very much, this form of promenade has a chance to socially activate the post shipyard areas and bring visitors there. The question is whether it will live to see implementation in this form.
Still a great unknown is what project Igor Strzok, Pomeranian conservator of monuments, will agree to.
The project will be accepted after adjusting it to the conservator's conditions, says Marcin Tyminski, spokesman for the Pomeranian Regional Monument Conservator, but does not reveal details.
Ewa Karendys
Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto journalist
