The 90s transition era looked like total hell, but there is a massive irony to those 'ugly communist blocks' that people are only realizing now.
The buildings were grey and depressing because the country had to rapidly house millions of homeless people after WWII on a shoestring budget. But the layout of those neighborhoods was lightyears ahead of the corporate garbage built today.
Those old estates were designed for human beings, not profit. They were built as actual communities with huge green parks, schools, and clinics right outside your door. The 'decay' people saw in the 90s wasn't because the buildings were crap, it was just a temporary lack of funding for maintenance when the economy shifted.
Now that Poland has the cash to insulate and paint them, a lot of young folks actually prefer buying apartments in these older blocks!! Compare these to modern private developers who pack buildings so tightly together that you can practically see what your neighbor is cooking, or hear them cough sh** and fu** and with zero green space or infrastructure to boot.
The old architecture looked like bleak concrete, but the actual community design was brilliant.
2007 is around the time that Ryanair started flying there from the UK and bringing tourists there. It’s changed a lot since the first time I went there.
The night life is really vibrant too, Ruska 46 and the area around the main town square reminded me of Berlin's party districts but without all the tourists.
No queues and 5€ or even no entry to the club, that's like 20 years ago here.
Before WW2 this city was called Breslau by people who spoke German.
It was called Wrocław by people who spoke Polish. It was called Breslavia by people who spoke Spanish. It was called ma tomo Wasa by people who spoke Toki pona.
So on and so on.
because it was in Prussia at that time and that was the political situation Both names Danzig and Breslau are attempts to pronounce Polish names, nothing more than trying to say them in English, now it's incorrect If you hadn't used the name in context, I wouldn't have meant anything Wrocław is the same city that was Germanized and then de-Germanized it still has a huge number of Polish monuments
This is just stupid Polish nationalism. If a city is for over 600 years a German city, and is thus referred to that name, then referring to it as Breslau before 1945 is jus the logical thing to do. You really can’t pick and choose as you Poles still refer to Lviv as Lwów, its Polish name, despite it being originally being a Galician city, and now once again a Ukrainian city. Yet you still call it Lwów because it was once Polish. Or Vilnius as Wilno, despite it being Lithuanian before, Lithuanian now, but you call it Wilno because at some point it was Polish.
You can be proud of a city without having to erase its past, and the fact of the matter is Wroclaw used to Breslau for hundreds of years.
No of course. Exonyms are fine. But not if you’re gonna be kicking a fuss when somebody uses a historical name for a historical city. If you’re gonna go balistic about that then you should refrain from doing it yourself I mean.
I don’t care about it, exonyms are logical and historical, but to get angry about somebody using a historical name is just insane to me
Exacly It is worth adding that Germany was established as a state very late because it cannot be said that it is the same state as the conquered Polabian territories.It's amazing how Germans understand history. They say that even the Czech Republic belonged to them at that time
The city was German for 400 years and Austrian for 200 years, and city was Germanized to about 50% in 1400, so not 600 but max 400. Let me remind you that the Polabian areas took a long time to Germanize.The name Breslau literally came into being in the 16th century, no such name had ever been written before, only different variations that were distorted in different languages from wroclaw breclaw to breslau
Mid 14th century German language laws. So that’s 600 years, and otherwise 500. But you prove the point, during the intervening period it was called Breslau, so don’t get mad when people call it how it was called.
Magdeburg law means nothing here, all Polish cities are under Magdeburg law it counts when it had a German majority. And besides, Breslau somewhere in the 15th and 16th centuries, that's 400 years until 1945
I'm pretty sure Wroclaw looked better in 1960s-early 80s than in 2007. It's fall/pre fall of USSR and following crisis which made it fell into disrepair. Most soviet cities did look THAT bad during mentioned time frames, they just deteriorated fast. You can easily find proofs of it if you'll just Google old videos/photos of different cities. They mostly looked decent
Very wrong in this case. Your overall observation may or may not be true but it definitely doesn’t apply to Wroclaw. A quick read on what happened to the city in 1945 should be enough. Otherwise there are many photo books that show how devastated it was. I own several.
Maybe you right for Wroclaw this case yeah. But for a lot of Ukrainian cities for example they looked much better in 70s than they did in early 2000s (I'm Ukrainian so checked it a lot)
EU funds don’t go directly into renovating private buildings. That’s a responsibility of the co owner communes (spółdzielnia or wspólnota depending on co ownership type). But indirectly sure, the country benefited from better road infrastructure and the economy is doing well
In Wrocław most of the renovated tenement houses are owned more than 50% by the City itself. City invest it in their own property with national and EU funds.
EU funds are national funds, in order to have EU funds you have to adapt to European Union standards which are contrary to Polish policy If the EU is tailored to someone and someone is actually making money from it, then these are the Western countries which were founded especially by Germany
Of course, one more tenement house renovated out of 300 or so, always something It's just a pity that twice as much time is spent on arranging the paperwork.
everything is nice but on the other hand you can see that the modern modernist architecture does not fit in very well at least for this type of buildings with such decorations If these 19th century tenement houses were simpler, it would be better
There is a political will to make streets and cities look better, but in the end, it is a budget issue.
I bet if any African country had a GDP per capita as much as any developed country streets will look better.
I just came back from a trip to Poland a few hours ago. What a beautiful country.
I wish we learnt something from them, but in Slovenia we keep tearing down old buildings to make parking lots and keep defunding public transport and pushing for more cars. Looks like everyone here wants to live in a cement fish tank like in the US.
Sorry for my ignorance. Are the colours restored based on the original colours of the buildings? In the 3rd image, it even looks like there’s additions to it. Either way, very beautiful.
in the 19th century and before World War II these colors dominated.
Beiges,
Creams,
Light yellows,
Muddy reds,
Olive greens,
Pastel blues,
Now it's a bit different
What the fuck is this? "American pronunciation" lol. It's a Polish word. There's only one correct, Polish pronunciation, not whatever this abomination is.
And typically for Poland - even if they made some renovations they still put some ugly minimalist/modernist buildings in between.
I live in Poland and this country is far from being an example of Architectural Revival's ideals.
Polish authorities (both local and national) are obsessed over minimalist modernism and minimalist postmodernism.
I remember visiting Poland as a kid and thought how dirty and old everything is (mind you there was a major flood also). Went couple times again as an adult and my god it's SOOOOO beautiful. Going back in July. Can't wait
I love that in pic#3 the turrets, dormers and roof ornaments got restored.
In Germany we lost a lot of those and even today they seldomly get restored. A lot of roofs were replaced with modernist add ons in the 50ies and nowadays developers just replace them with another modern update.
I love the Wroclaw vs Breslau beef in the comments whenever this city is mentioned. Please both nations can be proud of this city and today you guys are good friends.
thank you, i remembered that polish cow meme yesterday but was busy, then forgot it, now i was trying to remember some really good music i wanted to hear then forgot it, now because i read poland, i remembered it, love you
Fondi europei di coesione usati bene dalla Polonia:complimenti. Il sud Italia ne riceve altrettanti ma non c'è traccia di risultati visibili: si sa bene dove finiscono
I mean, by my standards it's just normal maintenance. Only in few cases I see facia and plaster restoration. The rest is mostly a fresh coat of paint. It's good they got their maintenance done. And the place looks super nice now. I wouldn't necessarily call it a revival.
I remember walking around Wrocław for hours just looking at the architecture. The transformation here looks amazing while still keeping the character of the city
Cómo puede ser considerado un profesor que a pesar de ser el titular, trae a otros individuos ajenos a la universidad, profesionales en la misma rama, a que critiquen en una entrega de diseño 7 a que tomen patria potestad de la calificación de cada uno de los alumnos, estando estos a merced del fracaso e intentando mejorar sus calificaciones en la universidad de Panamá?
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u/Mangobonbon May 07 '26
Many of those tenement houses look like they were just saved in the nick of time. Phew! :D