In early 2021, Krakow authorities presented a plan as ambitious as it is overdue to build a new district in Rybitwy. Skyscrapers up to 150 meters high would be built on the post-industrial site. The recent "New Town," or the area around the main train station, is a spectacular failure both in planning and architecture. A mixed-use neighborhood in Olsza has also failed to be built since 1999. What went wrong?
third decade of omissions
photo: Wikimedia Commons
Olsza is an area of Krakow located in the northeastern part of the city, at the junction of Mistrzejowice and Prądnik Czerwony. The history of the multifunctional district in this place dates back to 1999. At that time, the Board of the City of Krakow, in the "Strategy for the Development of Krakow" adopted in 1999 and in force until 2015, designated a number of so-called "Strategic Areas" in terms of urban development - areas which, due to their attractive location and communication, were to become places of investment concentration. The urban center in Olsza was to have an all-city, not just a district scale of influence.
great wasted potential
photo: Wikimedia Commons
The choice of this particular site was influenced by excellent transportation accessibility (existing road system, a multitude of bus lines and planned streetcar lines). Until the mid-1990s, the site had mainly industrial functions, as did Płaszów. The area was partly occupied by industrial plants, warehouses transformed over time into the Urbi Trade and Service Center, bringing together companies operating in the building materials market. Agriculture was still present between the industrial plants.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Intense transformation in Olsza began at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Institutions of urban importance were established here - the Archive of the City of Krakow, the Municipal Police Headquarters, and for years there have also been plans to build a Registry Office. Since 2007, one can observe a multitude of office investments, initiated by the Rondo Business Park office building (designed by Ingarden&Evy), which in turn entailed the construction of residential areas on the northern edge of the district. The first decade of the 2000s closes with the opening of the four-star Olsza Hotel (now Swing).
commerce, entertainment, services
photo: Miastoprojekt
However, offices and apartments were not the dominant function in Olsza for a long time. The largest and most recognizable building in the area is the hypermarket on Bora-Komorowskiego Avenue. The first shopping center in Krakow was designed by Ingarden&Evý Architekci. Completed in 1998, the hypermarket is a horizontal block almost 300 meters long, whose aesthetics are based on white and yellow stripes and large glass entrance portals. One of the corners was further enhanced with a rounded and monumental colonnade.
photo: press materials
Two years later, the second important facility for the entire neighborhood opened. The Water Park was more of a technological than an architectural display. It used wooden girders, unusual for the time, the largest in Europe at the time. Designed by Marek Pakula, the edifice was hailed "Construction of the Year" soon after its opening. Today its aesthetics evoke a smile rather than admiration - the almost symmetrical body is a clash of references to a medieval castle with materials characteristic of the time - blue glass, a large dome, round windows, superficially drawing on the ship style.
Photo: Jaroslaw Matla / Pomoszlak.pl
Next to the Water Park stood the Multikino, which complemented the district's entertainment offer. Completed in 2001, the multiplex was designed by some of Krakow's best-known architects today - Artur Jasinski, Marek Dunikowski and Piotr Uherek (in cooperation with Bartłomiej Kisielewski, Paweł Hankus, Tomasz Brzozowski and Paweł Bogusiewicz). With twelve rooms, the cinema boasted the largest cinema screen in the country at the time of its opening. The aesthetics are also distinctive, especially against the background of neighboring buildings. The facades use large perpendicular planes maintained in colors and composition reminiscent of Piet Mondrian's neoplastic works.
blind continuation
photo: Wikimedia Commons
The newest building in the area is the Serenada Shopping Center, built between 2015 and 2017. The architectural concept for the center changed several times, with the final design by Stanislaw Deńko's Wizja studio, which developed the project together with Agnieszka and Robert Ciuła and in cooperation with Q-Arch office. As the architects explain, the center's facade was intended to play with the usually "dead" walls of shopping malls and to refer to the history of Krakow's forts. The designers wanted to achieve this goal by using thousands of concrete prefabricated elements, partly openwork, with color and texture reminiscent of brick. Unfortunately, it is hard to find the realization of the authors' assumptions of humanizing the character of this huge building in nature. It gives the impression of a closed bunker with small entrances, surrounded by extensive road infrastructure. Preliminary announcements by the investor, Mayland, indicate that within a few years Serenada will absorb (also architecturally) the nearby hypermarket, creating a single, visually coherent shopping center.
lack of plan and interest
photo: Kraków City Hall
The Local Land Use Plan, for a seemingly strategic area of the city, managed to pass only in 2018. With most of the area already built up and the milk spilled, the city decided to at least partially protect its interest. However, it's hard to look for solutions in the plan that would change the face of the now parking and car-dominated, pedestrian-unfriendly concrete and tin desert. Rather, the solutions enacted by the City Council preserve the current state with only minor modifications. For more than 20 years, the site has failed to realize any of the ideas that could have given it the character of a multifunctional district.
Visualization of the New City Cnetrum and the planning "hole" in its place
photo: Przestrzeń-Ludzie-Miasto / Cracow City Hall
The situation is similar in the new city center - the area around the Central Station. The demand to include this area in the local plan is the first project of the local urban movement - the association Przestrzeń-Ludzie-Miasto. As early as 2009, activists signaled the need to secure the interests of the city from the uncontrolled activities of developers. However, this did not happen, and there is still no plan for the area. It is only being drawn up for part of the area - at a time when most of the land is already developed.
