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'Workers' estates - grey pearls of Silesian industrial architecture' ANNA SULIMOWSKA-OCIEPKA
Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, |
Description popularizing the research project
There are places in Upper Silesia where time stopped although it flows at its usual pace around. On the other side of the street there are several-storey buildings. At a busy junction thousands of cars pass each other hurriedly. A gaudy supermarket tries to attract people's at-tention insistently. One more thing changed there as the last coal mine shaft disappeared. Here on this side of the street the view of the hoist tower with a revolving wheel for decades marked passage of days and nights for tenants of the workers' estate. The buildings of dark red bricks with gabled roofs and narrow windows with frames painted red, were built by own-ers of the mine for the miners and their families. Here they could find everything they needed as there was a shop, a school, a doctor, a pub... and a priest as well.
The estates built about 100 years ago reflected contemporary European trends. The owners of mines and steelworks used innovative designs of German architects who had been inspired with English urban development ideas. The estates were to be practical, simple and cheap.
For decades the beautifully designed estates were vibrant with life. They originated such Sile-sian cities as Ruda Śląska, Zabrze, Świętochłowice and Królewska Huta. Today they are quiet in the background. They have lost their charm and even the flower beds planted by miners' wives and daughters-in-law look grey. Only the red window frames add life to the buildings and attract attention. Former Europeanism of the places still sounds in the German-like names of the estates and their modernity is expressed in satellite dishes clutching a century-old walls.
Once they were all the rage and reflected 19th and 20th century architectural pragmatism but now it is over. Now you can hear there behind the red-framed windows, a shy question: 'what will happen with us?'
Abstract
Presented here PhD thesis, entitled "The old workers' estates of Upper Silesia - the study of the place and the importance of the industrial culture in the urban space", was completed at the Fac-ulty of Architecture at the Silesian University of Technology. The author is PhD Eng. Arch. Anna Sulimowska - Ociepka. The thesis supervisor was Prof. Nina Juzwa. The object of the study are old workers' estates in Upper Silesia. These states are very special places in the cultural landscape of the Upper Silesian Agglomeration. They are a testimony of its regional identity and its close connections with the European industrial culture. Nowadays, there are about 250 workers' estates in Upper Silesia. For many years neglected and undervalued, at present they are becoming a point of interest for historians, conservators, and architects. Once independent "little homelands" nowadays the pose questions about sense and possibility of their renewal. The main aim of the study are as follows: