Can Krakow get a new linear park in Grzegórzki?

Wiktor Bochenek

19 of September '22

Designed space of the linear park

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The park project was created by the design team: Piotr Bujas, Malgorzata Burkot, Janusz Jeżak.

What would Krakow residents say if they learned about the possibility of creating a brand new park right next to the city center? Such a vision seems almost impossible. A few years ago, an idea was conceived to create a unique linear park connecting Grzegórzki and Olsza, also taking into account the unique industrial heritage.

Piotr Bujas, founder of the Bureau of Architecture Design-Research studio and initiator of the creation of the Grzegórzki-Olsza linear park, talks about the genesis of the idea for the linear park, what Grzegórzki still hides, and why it's important for residents of this part of the city to have green areas.

Wiktor Bochenek: How was the idea for the "Grzegórzki-Olsza Linear Park" born? What did it start with?

Piotr Bujas: The genesis of the idea is related to the earlier work we conducted with Janusz Jeżak as part of the execution of a location study for the Final Music Center, the indicated location was in the area of the so-called industrial Grzegórzki, i.e. the area downstream of Grzegórzecka Street. Despite the fact that I have lived in Krakow since I was born and know the city very well, I discovered for myself the unusual fact of the preservation in Grzegórzki of a large amount of so-called dormant infrastructure, associated with the former location in this area of the largest industrial plants, such as the Zieleniewski plant, associated with the Fortress of Krakow, the so-called. Ersatzdepot - the first barracks, depots, mechanized equipment workshops or the Railway Signal Factory - later "Famo" - to name only the most important ones.

An example of a linear park is Berlin's Südgelande Naturpark

materials courtesy of Südgelande Naturpark

Although the industrial function and associated material identity of the district is a thing of the past, a large number of traces and relics of the infrastructure - primarily the railroad, serving the area and the factories - remain. In the contemporary debate about the city, Sarah Chaplin in her book "Curating Architecture and the Ciy " speaks of "dormant infrastructure," as does MarcAuge in his famous "Non-Places Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity Cultural Studies" theorizes the cultural and urban potential of similarnon-places.These topics play an important role in thinking about urban development - in approaches to knowledge management, urban renewal processes, improving quality of life as well as revitalization in a broad sense

Linear parks are a well-known solution used primarily in large cities, where it is difficult to create a traditional park

There are numerous urban projects around the world based on such non-places, which, through certain methods called "placemaking" in operational urbanism, are turned from "non-places" into places of great importance for controlled development or cultural significance. Our proposed park is divided into a river section and, let's conventionally say, a post-railroad section. In the former, the naturalistic, wild boulevards of the Prądnik-Białucha River are almost a ready-made canvas for a linear park. Unfortunately, they are simply in tragic condition. The pedestrian thoroughfare Road on the Bialucha River is in such bad condition that it is difficult for a pedestrian to walk there, let alone run, traffic for people with disabilities or a person with a baby carriage. This makes another contribution to the inclusion of the river's boulevards in the linear park sequence. Especially since to the north, in the Wilenska Street housing development, a renovation of the boulevards has recently been carried out, equipping the space with basic elements of small architecture.

overview of Grzegórzki in 1944 and 2016

Wiktor: What areas would the planned park cover? What parts of the city would it succeed in connecting?

Piotr: Building new parks is very expensive. In the current logic of urban densification, places for parks are hard to find. The pocket parks that are being built in Krakow on the initiative of ZZM will not solve the problem, even if they are well-designed, compact recreational spaces. In the case of industrial Grzegórzki, this is an area where extremely intensive densification has been going on for a decade or so. For example, the entire area of the "Krakus" vodka factory on Fabryczna Street or "Famo" on Cystersów Street has been built up.

A section of the Prądnik walking path with a recreation center on the site of the "Krakowianka" swimming pool - A section of the river part of the park at the level of the Officers' Housing Estate. The Polfa swimming pool has since been occupied by the Eisenberg Sports Center.

The idea was that the park would connect two districts - Olsze and Grzegorzki, now cut off by many barriers, to name only the area of the "Pliva" pharmaceutical plant, Mogilska Street and Pokoju Avenue. More precisely, the park, would run along the Białucha River through the area of Os. Oficerski and the so-called Clerks ' Colony, connecting them with the areas of the planned Grzegórzecka Park along the traces of the former railroad infrastructure.

A section of the Prądnik walking path with a recreation center on the site of the "Krakowianka" swimming pool.

Wiktor: In that case, the creation of this park would not involve large financial outlays?

Piotr: Yes. This park can be created with relatively small outlays. Especially in relation to the expected impact on the quality of space in the eastern part of the city center. It can be said that this is already happening. The simplified revitalization of the boulevards on Vilna Street, mentioned in the project, has been realized. Now some projects are being developed as part of the Civic Budget. In the natural section of the course of the Białucha River (roughly from Olszyna Street to the railroad bridge at Wilenska Street), for example, we will find one of the few beaver habitats in Cracow. A pocket park is planned at the end of Rakowicka Street, under the working name "Olszanski Park".

The surroundings of the former Dąbie Station / Polmos plant area - now incorporated into a new residential development with preserved industrial relics.

Similarly, the area of the former Polfa swimming pools, then the "Krakowianka" sports center, with the construction of a new indoor swimming pool and sports center, the open swimming pools unfortunately ceased to exist, after the investment on the side of Wilka Wyrwińskiego Street, a large plot of land remained, where the swimming pool basins used to be. In previous editions of the Civic Budget, the project "Hyde Park Officers' Park", a kind of city sports square with cultural functions, was proposed there. Unfortunately, the project was not adopted.

section of Grzegórzki industrial freight line No. 111 Nadwiśle and its relics / Ersatzdepot post-military areas / Zamoyski Barracks

Our analysis revealed that, in fact, a significant portion of the plots of land included in the concept of this park are owned by the treasury, the municipality or, in some cases, no one, which is due to the fact that when the Germans began construction of the small peripheral railroad line in 1943, they simply seized the land of the owners. It comes to an interesting situation where there are still private plots of land under the track embankment. As of 2018, only a few scraps of land have been unified and sold within the industrial Grzegórzki, near Skrzatów Street and the former Zamojski barracks.

This opens up enormous opportunities for integrating vacant, mostly unsuitable for development post-industrial and post-oil fallow land, as well as relatively few private plots of land that, despite their central location in both districts, are of little value (because, for example, there is no convenient access to them). On the other hand, after amalgamation, they would form the first such large and "city-stitching" (to use Janusz Jeżak's phrase) recreational area on a city-wide scale.