Pytania i konkrety: dolnośląska architektura przemysłowa po 1945 roku / Notes and concrete points: Lower Silesian industrial architecture after 1945

Abstract

AGATA GABIS (University of Wroclaw) / Notes and concrete points: Lower Silesian industrial architecture after 1945

The subject of post-war industrial architecture in Poland is still a little recognised topic, remaining on the margins of the interest of researchers dealing with the history of architecture in the second half of the 20th century. In the intensively urbanised Lower Silesia, there were more than 40 study and design offices operating, which in the 1960s, together with university research institutions, provided the scientific and technical support for the region’s dynamically developing industry. The offices, employing architects, constructors, engineers and technologists, designed for several thousand Lower Silesian plants: these included factories and steelworks of national importance, but also much smaller, local enterprises with a narrow specialisation – most of the plants were located in pre-war facilities that, over time, required modernisation and expansion. What such a process of modernisation of infrastructure was like, what new architectural and constructional forms appeared along with it, can be seen on the example of the Hutmen Non-Ferrous Metals Metallurgical and Processing Plant in Wrocław, which was rebuilt and expanded after the World War II. An analysis of the architectural substance, the circumstances of the establishment and its contemporary condition can be a starting point for considering methods of valuing and protecting post-war industrial architecture.